Deftech Timbre matching - Error on the side of...

I can't speak to specific commercial speakers as I tend to build my own, but your question is one we've all considers when assembling a system.

The CC should be the equal or better of it's L/R companions, and yours is. Odd that you say you they overshadow the fronts, with migrating voices and shifts of sound (location, I assume?), yet you ask about timbre... this sounds far more like a surround system set-up (level/distance) issue.

What's your AVR? Does it have an automatic room correction system? Have you run it? If you don't have automated measurement of speaker levels and flight times, there should be a facility for entering it yourself. Use a tape measure for the distances from your seat to each speaker, and your ears for the relative level. The level match in my old AVR used pink noise, very clearly showing timbral differences; yours may, too.

Always rememeber that if you test and your ears are happy, it doesn't matter who made the speakers. I'd do some more work with what I've got before spending any more... unless its the AVR that's the next weak link!

HAve fun,
Frank

Moving the CC after setting Audyssey did 2 things:
- changed the phase relationship with the other speakers (think transit/arrival time)
- changed the SPL at the listening position.

Audyssey sets speaker level and phase relationships based on measured sensitivitiy and arrival times. It uses a full range FR scan, with a "chirp" at the end for timing. Your AVR should have a menu option that allows you to view speaker level and distance settings and adjust manually, but there's a third thing at work.

Speaker frequency response varies with proximity to boundaries. You don't realilze it, but the TV is a wall over most of the CC's range. My CC is also below the TV, and I use a different XO design than I would if it were free-standing, away from boundaries, in order to flatten its uncorrected frequency response.

Try running Audyssey in the exact listening environment you use and see if that helps.

That said, it could be that this CC isn't a good match with the rest of your system, or your room. My first DIY speaker was a CC, a vertical speaker laid sideways, and after learing speaker design, I discovered the tweeter polarity was wrong, and it needed a little padding. Even with those corrections, it doesn't do dialog as well as my current CC, which was designed as a CC even as it cost 2x it's predecessor (same mid-woofs).

HAve fun,
Frank

If you can trade your BP-8040's plus $500 bucks for a pair of BP-7001's then I would do that in a heart beat as that would be the deal of the freaking century! Seriously, run, don't walk, to finish this deal! That has seriously got to be the very best deal on finding "hidden gems" that I have ever seen or heard of! The BP-7001's are world class speakers and would be a very serious step up from the 8040's! You are freaking retarded if you let this deal pass you by!

The timbre between the BP-7001 and the CS-8080 will be very close as Def Tech voices all of their models to be compatible, but that should be your last concern, go get those BP-7001's before someone else realizes that is an absolute steal and snatches them up from you!