No Center for HT?

[Travis]

Originally Posted by John72953

I did have a 5.0 setup before reverting back to 2.0, and for movies I much preferred having a Centre Channel. The more I'm learning about HT (not 2.0) and the importance of dialogue from movies, I am almost of the opinion that your Centre channel should be of better quality than your fronts. As such, and when I go back to multi-channel, I'd more than likely choose the Rainmaker Centre Channel as opposed to the matching Totem Mite-T centre channel for the Totem Sttaf's.

For music it's 2.0 all the way. I know there are some who like to listen in 2.1, but I'm not one of them. If you have speakers of a significant quality and match them to your musical tastes, you should have no need to add a sub. My Sttaf's are a two-way design with only a 5.5" woofer, but I can tell you that they expel a very satisfactory level of bass.

John

I've listened to music in 2.0, using the source direct mode on my AVR, and my bookshelves with 5" drivers do an excellent job. Love the theory behind source direct; hate the idea of the AVR trying to tweak and adjust the recordings. The dB level seems to go up a notch as well running S-Direct.

I've always felt the 2.1 setup was more balanced though and 2.0 was working too hard (don't know if that makes sense). I'm not an audiophile and spend 80% of my watching movies rather than listening to CDs. Also, my sub isn't booming, I believe my house isn't a dance club and I should only notice the sub when it is turned off. "Ah, something is missing." For movies however, I flip a switch on the back to turn off the high pass filter and it can boom away, but it still doesn't shatter windows. I hate that distorted rumble (RRRRWWWWWOOONNNNN) some people get and they think, "YEAH! My sub is booming."

Another typhoon coming this weekend, so I'll experiment some more. Nothing else to do. I think the sub will still be used at the end of the day. Other than SACDs I never put 2 ch music to all 5 speakers, it is too phony.