Mixing Speakers ( Timber matching ) Question

I'm also interested in this "Tembre Matching".

How does one go about making sure speakers do match in "Tembre". For instance I like My Center Speaker but want to upgrade my mains. Is this not a good idea or should you get three new speakers for the front?

Different speakers and brands (and even between speaker lines of the same company) sound differently. When you match your speakers it means to have speakers that all produce the same type of sound. When you mix brands and non-matched lines you may end up with fronts that sound boomy and surrounds that sound bright or you may luck out and not notice any difference.

It's generally best to keep with matched speakers. For example, Paradigm has the studio line of speakers - all of them are matched. You could put a pair of studio 100's as your mains and 20's as your sides/surrounds and it would be matched.

Subwoofers are not required to be matched - go with whatever you want.

If you're searching here for threads on this, or to Google (both worth doing) - try searching on timbre matching, that's the word for sound. Sometimes people also call it voice matching.