Planar Speaker Asylum

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Planar Speaker Asylum

Center channel to go with Maggies (not a Maggie center)

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Hey all,

I've got the bug to play around with my system again. I've been running a phantom center with 1.7's and have been pretty happy with things. I have a large, acoustically transparent screen with QRD diffusors covering the front wall. Well, I'm getting bored, and want to try incorporating a center channel behind the screen. My thought is to find something tall, narrow, and low profile to incorporate behind the screen. Has anyone tried any non-magnepan, line array style speakers as a center channel? Or if not, any suggestions to look into?

Thanks

Follow Ups:

Mirage omni polar - dumpingground 11:29:01 12/31/24 (0)
In the past I had good luck blending Mirage omni polar speakers center and rears with my Magnepan 1.6 Left/Right. The omni polar sound pattern blended nicely with the Maggies.

The Mirage omni speaker line is no more but you might find it used.

Now I just use a Magnepan MMG-C speaker for my center.
RE: Center channel to go with Maggies (not a Maggie center) - josh358 09:06:35 12/29/24 (2)
Funny, I was discussing this just yesterday because I have a very similar setup -- AT screen and skyline diffusers (but just at the first reflection points).
The problem is that while there are a few sealed line array speakers, they're going to sound different from the left and right, and the center reproduces 60% of the sound. Even if the amplitude and phase response were the same, the quality of the sound and the radiation pattern would be different and dipoles dump less ambient sound into the room, making it hard to match both on-axis and power response at the same time.
If you took two Maggies, put them in a "V" with the narrow part against the wall, and disabled the tweeter on one of them, the sound might be a bit more consistent, but I imagine there are problems here, e.g., with cavity resonances.
Another possibility, similar to something that Magnepan suggested years ago, would be to take two Maggies and put them at an angle against the wall like their on-wall speakers, but with wider spacing. Magnepan suggested a similar setup years ago. In this case, you still have a phantom center, but since the speakers are closer together running in mono there will be less of an issue with interaural crosstalk and pinna response and you'll have a more solid image. And check out the tri-center system -- URL is below. I've heard it and it's impressive.
Another good but not necessarily practical solution is to bring the screen forward and put a single Maggie behind it but out from the wall. Not practical in many cases.
Finally, the BAACH system could correct for the interaural crosstalk and allow you to use only two speakers. Only about $1000 for the entry-level version if you have a Mac, $2000 with a Mac. I'm not sure how well this would work with diffusion behind the speakers -- you'd have to ask them. Absorption might be a possibility.
- https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/magnepans-tri-cent (Open in New Window)
Edits: 12/29/24
- BACCH4Mac - jimbill 09:32:01 01/01/25 (0)
  I don't believe it can be used for TV's.
  
  I have the Audiophile program, and it only works with music streaming and CD playback.
- RE: Center channel to go with Maggies (not a Maggie center) - dclamb2 06:10:49 12/30/24 (0)
  Thanks for the thoughtful response. Much appreciated.

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