Center Channel Dilema

[Maggot]

A few years ago, when I got into Blu-ray, I gave my 70 year old parents my old Marantz receiver I had used in the days of DVD. I bought them a LCD screen and a Blu-ray player, so they can watch their DVD's unconverted and any future Blu-rays they might purchase. They are not interested in surround and are not picky about audio. They currently use my old late 80's classic Polk Audio RTA 11's for stereo. Much better than the TV speakers for sure, but they have noticed, as have I that it can be hard at times to hear dialog. Settings are fine and I am coming out optical as the Marantz receiver is pre-HDMI. I would like to get them a relatively cheap center channel to hopefully solve this issue. I've read comments left and right: Some say "absolutely, get a center channel to add to stereo", then others say "if you can't timbre match the center to your L/R stereo....it's better to have no center than something mismatched". Any thoughts? I was thinking of at least buying some current lower line Polk center channel to get somewhat close, but having not heard Polk's new stuff in 10+ years. Again, any thoughts?

[prerich]

Originally Posted by Maggot

A few years ago, when I got into Blu-ray, I gave my 70 year old parents my old Marantz receiver I had used in the days of DVD. I bought them a LCD screen and a Blu-ray player, so they can watch their DVD's unconverted and any future Blu-rays they might purchase. They are not interested in surround and are not picky about audio. They currently use my old late 80's classic Polk Audio RTA 11's for stereo. Much better than the TV speakers for sure, but they have noticed, as have I that it can be hard at times to hear dialog. Settings are fine and I am coming out optical as the Marantz receiver is pre-HDMI. I would like to get them a relatively cheap center channel to hopefully solve this issue. I've read comments left and right: Some say "absolutely, get a center channel to add to stereo", then others say "if you can't timbre match the center to your L/R stereo....it's better to have no center than something mismatched". Any thoughts? I was thinking of at least buying some current lower line Polk center channel to get somewhat close, but having not heard Polk's new stuff in 10+ years. Again, any thoughts?

Newer Polk's will not match. You can try flea-bay and get one there.

[prerich]

When I had SDA-SRS 2.3tls Polk recommended this model http://www.ebay.com/itm/Polk-Audio-C...item232ffab2e7

If I didn't want to use a SDA-CRS single as a center channel.

[zebracatzebra]

Sure anything new won't match the old speakers, but my opinion is for their situation it's not important. An unmatched center is better than no center at all. Your parents are 70 and don't care about audio... they likely won't even be able to tell the difference if the timbre matches or not. My wife and kids are the only ones who use our TV upstairs with surround sound and I have a Polk center with Cerwin Vega fronts and some no name surrounds I can't even remember hooked up to it, they think it's the greatest.

[Maggot]

Originally Posted by zebracatzebra

Sure anything new won't match the old speakers, but my opinion is for their situation it's not important. An unmatched center is better than no center at all. Your parents are 70 and don't care about audio... they likely won't even be able to tell the difference if the timbre matches or not. My wife and kids are the only ones who use our TV upstairs with surround sound and I have a Polk center with Cerwin Vega fronts and some no name surrounds I can't even remember hooked up to it, they think it's the greatest.

You are abosolutely correct. As a test, I brought over my Paradigm Reference center and sure, it didn't timbre match, but it was still far better than not having a center. So, after hearing that, I went to Best Buy and picked up Polk TSx150 center, got it fired up, and boom.......perfect. The newer, lower line Polk matches the 20 year old RTA 11's quite well. Is it perfect, no.....but it's it MUCH closer, damn close, than my test Paradigm. I also added in my sister's Yamaha sub, which the parents had in storage, and now they have a nice 3.1 setup which has bottom end and easy to hear dialog. Even though my parents are not picky, dont want surround and would have been fine with the built in TV audio, they are rather pleased at the improvement.

[zebracatzebra]

Excellent, I'm glad to hear it all worked out!