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Recommendations for center to go with Cornwalls


Goathorn

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For the future, or even for now, would it be possible to put the screen and the front speakers on the other end of the room, or against some other wall, not the one with a fireplace, and use a third Cornwall for a center speaker?  Best of all would be an acoustically transparent screen that rolls down electrically, and a projector. 


"Timbre matters."  Ultimately, three Cornwalls (or three identical speakers) is the way to go.  Some films rely on a good, full range, center speaker, because the music is spread across the wall.  Others don't utilize the center as much for music, but they don't sound as good, IMO.

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Moving the system is impossible...the far wall is 10’ tall glass windows/doors, and the wall to the left is the same, the wall to the right is half glass, the other half is the kitchen and more glass. So only one wall for screen, about 25’ wide, fireplace in the middle, flanked by 5’ wide vertical niches (floor to ceiling). Electronics are in a rack in a closet (Control 4 etc.) except for my trusty Thorens turntable and Oppo Blueray deck which are on a stand with my favorite LPs. We need to keep the fireplace, so my only way to use a Cornwall as a center would be to build a big niche above the fireplace and use a projector and acoustically transparent screen. Intriguing idea...wonder how difficult it would be to find a single Cornwall that matches mIne..from ‘78 I think. 

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4 minutes ago, baron167 said:

Just spitballing here- how about 2 "vertical" Cornwalls placed horizontally on either side of the fireplace (wired in parallel or series, depending on the amp)?

 

 

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Intriguing, but why not just one on one side?  Your brain automatically will assign the sound to be centered from the screen.  I am using an Academy (and turned on end) on one side and rarely is it noticeable unless you really try or the input is very specific.

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Intriguing, but why not just one on one side?  Your brain automatically will assign the sound to be centered from the screen.  I am using an Academy (and turned on end) on one side and rarely is it noticeable unless you really try or the input is very specific.

No reason other than symmetry to my OCD. I like your Academy idea and use. I'm lucky enough to have the vertical Cornwalls to experiment with.


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  • 2 weeks later...
4 hours ago, Goathorn said:

Now running an RP-640D center. Another step in the right direction. 

 

To each their own.  I'm not sure how a center that weighs 8 pounds can keep up with Cornwalls.  I sold my mis-matched center speaker years ago and never looked back.  I'm more than happy not having a center speaker in my home theater.

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1 hour ago, wuzzzer said:

 

To each their own.  I'm not sure how a center that weighs 8 pounds can keep up with Cornwalls.  I sold my mis-matched center speaker years ago and never looked back.  I'm more than happy not having a center speaker in my home theater.

I agree, I got rid of the small mismatched center and added another the same as the mains, very close anyway a 2 version center with a 3 version mains, all Forte's. The center can work harder than the mains doing all the dialog and other sounds, and a perfect match across the front is easy to hear.

 

And yes I would also not have a center than one that can't keep up and sounds different.

 

Think about this, when listening to 2 Ch stereo the speakers are toed in to give the image as it is centered in the middle, that fits multi channel exactly. Without the center being different or undersized, it'a a good fit. If the room was really wide there would be a need to fill the center to avoid a hole in the center.

 

Never really understood when looking at pictures of Ht rooms and it was three across the front, they were all close together even when there was room to space them out a little, seems like a little bit of a waste to even have a center, almost.

 

This was just what I felt, everybody likes different things.

 

.

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On 6/11/2020 at 9:15 PM, Goathorn said:

Moving the system is impossible...the far wall is 10’ tall glass windows/doors, and the wall to the left is the same, the wall to the right is half glass, the other half is the kitchen and more glass. So only one wall for screen, about 25’ wide, fireplace in the middle, flanked by 5’ wide vertical niches (floor to ceiling). Electronics are in a rack in a closet (Control 4 etc.) except for my trusty Thorens turntable and Oppo Blueray deck which are on a stand with my favorite LPs. We need to keep the fireplace, so my only way to use a Cornwall as a center would be to build a big niche above the fireplace and use a projector and acoustically transparent screen. Intriguing idea...wonder how difficult it would be to find a single Cornwall that matches mIne..from ‘78 I think. 

 

That's a tough room to map out a proper LCR.  If TV is to go to the wall where the fireplace is, I think there is too much light for projector to work well, so acoustic transparent screen is out.  Also, ideally, you'd want LCR to be on the same plane / height which means mounting Cornwall on ceiling, mid wall, even if you could, may not yield good results.  I do think the phantom suggestion may be best or see if you have the heart to try a completely new LCR (since you have RP640D, get matching LR for it) and then move the Cornwall to another room for music listening.  Or configure as another zone for music in same room . Just some additional thoughts.

Edited by Univek
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Believe it or not I was in a similar situation. I have Cornwall 1’s with rp502 surrounds. I use to use a rc-7 but did not have the room for it in my current setup with limited height. My current center is a rc-34 it requires about 7-10 dB boost to keep up with the cornwalls and my marantz had to cross over the center speaker at 110.

 

the voices will never be the same as running a huge center but I leaned some tricks that helped.

 

my marantz 5014 has the cornwalls set at -10 dB and my rc-34 set to -5.5 which I boosted up to zero dB. My 502s surrounds are also set by marantz at -10db. The thing that did not match well where the lows between th center and cornwalls, the fix was for me to set the Cornwalls to full size, the center to small and the subwoofer as LFE + mains so that All three channels had doubled efforts by the subs. I did the sub cross over at 80 (marantz will still send up to 110 for center) this seemed to balance well. I play tv and movies at about 52-54% power, with most stuff at -10 dB I’m using 30% amp power from what the on screen display says.

 

ill let you know right now, my pioneer 502 amp wAs unable to pull this off well, and I had to run the rear and cornwalls at zero dB and the center at +10 dB, and I had it turned up to -30 to -20 for movies which was almost all it could dish out. Makes me wonder how they got the power raiting claim on the Pioneer.

 

Kudos to marantz for individual cross over points for each channel and for each input!

 

not sure if that will work for you but that’s why they have return policies on speakers if it does not.

 

Hope that helps! be good! 
 

-marc

 

 

 

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A KLF 20 is what I use as a center with my Cornwalls and Heresys.  I also have a KLF20 as a center with Forte's and Heresy's.  Both systems sound great. The KLF 20 sounds amazing with music, dialogue, u name it.  The 30 is too large while the 20 is shaped perfectly for a shelf. 

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