Supplementing center channel output

[garyrc]

NO tone controls are being used; I am a firm believer in sending as flat and full a response as possible to all speakers - I do have flexibility in tweaking the frequency response sent to each speaker group, and have adjusted the signal to the center a little by ear, to reduce a little of the "boxiness" by sending a little more of the high frequencies to the subs.

I'm glad you tweaked the center. IMO, the problem with setting one's pre/pro or receiver to send "as flat and full a response as possible to all speakers" (i.e., to use NO tone controls) is that too many BDs, DVDs, SACDs and, especially, CDs are not themselves flat, and are not caefully recorded. As you say, there is a "plethora of mediocre source material" out there. Also, very few loudspeakers are flat, and some people, including PWK, rank flat frequency response lower in importance in speaker design than other characteristics. In a real world listening room, response (almost always) deviates from flat (as Stereophile recently illustrated by running the same speakers in AD's v.s. JA's listening rooms, producing radically different curves). I think there should be two levels of moderate EQ. One to get the room and speakers nearer to flat using something like Audyssey (AFTER applying judicious absorbtion and diffusion to the room). The second is to subjectively individualize EQ, perhaps through tone controls, to each individual disk. I always start out playing a disk flat, and, only on the second or third hearing, apply tone control EQ if needed. My estimate of how many disks need it varies with my mood, but 50% might be a good figure. Finally, there is the famous "Down with Flat!" article in Stereophile of about 10 years ago. They found the majority of recordings too bright (probably the opposite of your center channel problem). I think things have improved considerably since that old Stereophile article, especially with SACDs and Blu-ray. I seldom find them too bright, but there still are many CDs that are.

On your dedicated sub idea, I agree that removing as much bass going to the center speaker as possible and sending it to a sub may help get rid of the boxienes, and reduce frequency modulation ("Doppler") distortion in the center, conceivably increasing both clarity and headroom. Can't you just go into your bass management section and set the crosover to the sub at a higher frequency for the center than for the front mains? In my pre/pro this is under "Crossover - Advanced." My options for each speaker are separately adjustable, from 40Hz all the way up to 250 Hz.

I think the idea of raising everything up in the post by

CECAA850 is brilliant -- at least worth a try,