Using my heresy for 6.1

[mowntnbkr]

Since my Lascala's will be here tuesday, I am moving one of my heresy's to the center, but I hate to leave out the other one. Can I do a 6.1, if so how. Thanks.

[attunement]

This week one of my projects was to try the same thing you are asking about.

I have a 5.1 Home Theater system with Cornwall mains and a Heresy center, and was finding the center channel performance far from acceptable. The sound was too small and localized and being on the floor to one side was not anchored to the TV.

With a matching Heresy sitting idle and being wasted I decided I should put it on the other side of the TV thus having a Heresy on each side. What a tremendous improvement in clarity and realism. The result is extremely pleasing compared to what was there before. The front of my system is now Cornwall, Heresy, TV, Heresy, Cornwall which gives a beautifully balanced sound stage. Movie dialog and center channel music and singing now have a clear and realistic presence.

I am absolutely delighted that such a simple tweak can result in such a tangible improvement. The hook up only involves putting both positive leads into the positive binding post of the amplifiers center channel output and the opposite for the negative leads.

I am mainly a music listener using 5-Channel Stereo for CDs and 5.1 for DVDs. There must be many people who have spare matching speakers as a result of using only one for their center channel. The improvement gained by using a matched pair is well worth the effort.

[mowntnbkr]

Now that I think about it, what would the consequence be if just connected my other heresy to the center post on the back of my HK 430? My amp is running one center via the pre-out, so why can't the other center be powere by the HK, I can use my spl meter to set the two to match. Is this sound reasoning or am I missing something. Thanks

Sam

[DrWho]

Do you have a 6.1 reciever? If so, connect the second heresy to the rear center output.

Connecting two speakers to the same amplifier outputs is never a "good

thing" because it introduces all sorts of other problems (which we can

get into if you're interested). Btw, it's not like you're not going to

damage the reciever or anything (unless you allow the impedance to drop

too low, but that won't be a problem here)...

Anyways, I'm not going to say that attunement didn't notice an

improvement in the sound, but he did make a sacrifice to obtain a more

"centered" center channel. But if you already have a centered center

channel then adding a second will just muddy up the sound.

Connecting another speaker to duplicate the center channel and then

placing it in the rear of the room is just going to compound these

problems even more. Do you really want the dialog from movies coming

from in font and behind you at the same time? I think I would find that

very distracting...not to mention L C R pans will go L (front and

behind) R...again sounding wierd.

The basic rule of thumb is to add as many speakers as you have discrete

channels. Most all source material is recorded in 5.1 (there are a

select few 6.1 dvd's and no 7.1 dvd's), which means 6.1 and 7.1

surrounds are matrixed (derived from the 5.1 source). Unless you're

interested in designing a circuit to derive the sixth rear center from

your amplifiers outputs (which actually wouldn't be that hard), then I

would simply set the heresy aside somewhere or perhaps offer it up to

the other forum members looking to purchase just a single center

channel. Another option would be to upgrade your reciever to one

capable of deriving 6.1 and 7.1, though if you went that route I would

suggest going 7.1, which would leave you with another extra heresy []

Another option you might consider, especially if you have room for it

would be to fatten up your current heresy sound by building a new

custom center channel from parts from both heresies. Basically a

cabinet double the volume with both woofers, one squaker and a tweeter

(then just save everything else as spare parts). The woofer in the

heresy is already 3dB lower than what it should be so adding the second

one and implementing a slight crossover tweak (to keep the crossover

point from shifting with the new load) will actually result in a much

flatter fuller response while also boosting the sensitivity of the

speaker.

[mowntnbkr]

Wow DrWho

Thanks for all the info, I didn't think about having the center in the rear, more just powering two centers from different sources. But I guess I can see your point about mudding the waters. My main dilemna is that the heresy's are brand new and I would hate to use just one. I was thinking of having two centers up front, one powered by my amplifier and the other powered by the receiver itself. If I must I will put one heresy away until I can find a single, then I will hook up two heresy's to my old pioneer sx-880 and let me son rock out .

[krispykoilz]

What I did is use the left surround back channel and then select the SurroundBackX1 setting. I'm using the Pioneer 56TXi and that is the correct setting for me, not sure about your Harmon Kardon, doesn't the manual have instructions for setting up a 6.1 setting? I'm really liking the 6.1 setup, it's nice that you can do it with 3 pairs of speakers and not have 1 sitting idle.

HTH

[TommyC]

Another option you might consider, especially if you have room for it would be to fatten up your current heresy sound by building a new custom center channel from parts from both heresies. Basically a cabinet double the volume with both woofers, one squaker and a tweeter (then just save everything else as spare parts). The woofer in the heresy is already 3dB lower than what it should be so adding the second one and implementing a slight crossover tweak (to keep the crossover point from shifting with the new load) will actually result in a much flatter fuller response while also boosting the sensitivity of the speaker.

Dangit Doc! Everytime you post lately it gets my mind racing with new ideas that I still can't afford untill the stepkids are out of college!

I have started collecting parts for the subs, though! []