Center Speaker for B&W 683 S1?

doerble said:

I suppose the B&W HTM6 from the current line would still kinda match acoustically, but unfortunately they look very different now and I would be very open to buy something that looks bit more like the old ones.

I'm also thinking about switching out the whole line, but it seems a bit ridiculous just because the center doesn't look similar anymore.

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The center speaker does 70-90% of the total HT output, namely 95% of human voices. It is what you are actually HEARING when watching TV/movies---NOT the L/R speakers as commonly assumed.

Therefore it would be asinine to pick a center speaker based only on how it looks---believe me, there are tons of craptastic center speakers out there (craptastic AND overpriced) that you'd be better off WITHOUT. Most retail speaker companies know full well that the average consumer is easily bamboozled into buying the "matching" center with any L/R speakers, so they will often half-assedly just slap something together. (This is the same reason why most retail speaker companies' subwoofers similarly suck.)

And the whole "timbre-matching" business is hugely exaggerated anyhow...any center that has decent voice clarity and is reasonably neutral and sensitive, will easily blend in with ANY speakers, esp. given today's modern receivers' auto-calibration tools.

Zorba922 said:

And the whole "timbre-matching" business is hugely exaggerated anyhow

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Ok thanks for your insights, I mostly heard that it's best to match with the "correct" one from the same line. But what you say makes absolute sense.

Zorba922 said:

Your best bet is to get a quality black center speaker and then apply a vinyl wrap to it

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I will consider this and I suppose it isn't even all that bad if the center is just black. But I will still avoid all to flashy ones that look completely out of place.



Any recommendations? What are the popular center speakers on this forum? Is the B&W HTM6 itself not a good one?



I guess my budged is somewhere around 1000$, room size is around 40-50m^2, but the listening position is like 7m^2 and I will sit about 1.5m in front of it. So I suppose I should be able to get something pretty decent out of that money.

doerble said:

I will consider this and I suppose it isn't even all that bad if the center is just black. But I will still avoid all to flashy ones that look completely out of place. Any recommendations? What are the popular center speakers on this forum? Is the B&W HTM6 itself not a good one?

I guess my budged is somewhere around 1000$, room size is around 40-50m^2, but the listening position is like 7m^2 and I will sit about 1.5m in front of it. So I suppose I should be able to get something pretty decent out of that money.

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A 1.5M listening position is easy peasy...you can very well with half that budget. However, if you absolutely have $1K burning a hole in your pocket, there's this:
http://www.ascendacoustics.com/pages/products/speakers/horizon/horizon.html

They don't have a photo of the "Natural" finish, but I would expect it to be identical to that of the "matching" bookshelf speaker:
http://www.ascendacoustics.com/images/products/speakers/SRM1/sr1nt_rt_1_ng_hr.jpg

PS. If the Horizon is too big for you, you also have the option of ordering the Sierra 1, 2, or 2EX as a single center speaker---Ascend will rotate the speaker 90 degrees if requested, if you need to lay it on its side. A good single woofer bookshelf speaker on its side like that can often sound better than many mainstream dual-woofer horizontal center speakers.