I’ve calmed down from the excitement of receiving something new, although reflecting on it, maybe it was a bit extreme. I kind of know it was going to be, because I’m usually like that, credit to my family, who made me realize. If not for them, I would impulsively get things without maybe a third thought (second thought usually is still very biased for me, but don’t worry, for this, I’ve thought it through even more). Regardless, I’ve felt like I have shaken off the excitement, and have realized a few things about this center channel, and having a center channel in general for playing music and the like from a receiver.
First off, I may have been a bit biased about a complete improvement to the experience. In terms of imaging and depth, it wasn’t a completely definite improvement, but it kind of ruins the imaging because the center completely pulls sound to the middle and leaves less to the middle grounds, which can be pulled off way better with stereo. That said, the center channel does present an improvement to the overall vocal quality, as I have said, and feels like it pulls the vocals forward, and the instrumentation behind a kind of veil compared to stereo. That is the downside to it as well. The intended stereo audio that is processed through the receiver is altered and you don’t get the complete package. Things are moved here and there, and the focus can be, in my opinion, slightly too much drawn to the center channel.
It does, however, do a good job of still separating the right and left instruments that are intended for that way, and the center is as I’ve mentioned. One thing to note is that depth does feel like it has disappeared somewhat compared to the stereo mode/surround off mode of the receiver. it doesn’t feel so much like a stage overall, but it does feel like the stage doesn’t have reverb. Well, the decoding for the music to use the center channel is made for 5.1 or 7.1 applications, so it relies more on the surrounds (in this case, there are none, as you know), so it just kind of disappears. Like, wow, no speakers, play the 3.1 as usual, with a 5.1 mode. The stereos does make and attempt to produce reverb, but it gets cut off by the other noise it produces, like a horrible DAC. Well, the DAC is not bad for this surround, but it’s made for surround, so really, it just tries for stereo applications. But, in comparison to the Topping that I have, it does make it sound better, somewhat.
Last remarks: I usually try to put pictures for every post I do, but this time, I don’t have any more, so I’ll leave it as is, because you can just refer to the excitement driven blog post for the pictures, as I had put everything I had there in the excitement as well (ahh, youth[?] hahaha)
HIFI Sound Enthusiast 