|
Bryan,
If you are looking to build a center channel, the first thing to consider is matching the rest of your speakers. It is important to get the same "timbre" between all your speakers, especially the 3 fronts. Basically this means that all the speakers will have the same or a similar sound, so that sounds that pan around will be smooth and not sound disjointed. Another thing to consider is that many times doing something as drastic as moving the drivers to the middle and flipping a design on it's side can have big impacts on the sound quality and dispersion abilities, meaning that it may only sound good if you sit right in the middle, rather then out towards the sides as well.
If you already have mains like you are implying, then I suggest trying to find kits that would sound similar or go with speakers from the same manufacturer. Alternatively you could sell the mains and plan on building a system that has surround sound in mind.
For example, if you wanted to go with North Creek (which by all accounts are fantastic speakers) then you are probably best off building some rhythm or borealis mains, picking up a vision center, and then doing something smaller like the okara(sp?) for the rears. I am hoping to build some Rhythms over the summer and that is my eventual plans for an upgrade path. That being said, I haven't seen many kits that have bipole designs for the rears, but there may be some out there.
Overall I think my main point is to think of the speakers as a total system rather than individual components, you will get higher quality sound as a result.
Cheers!
George
|