speakers and timbre matching (1 Viewer)

[RichardMA]

Most concepts of home theater speakers insist that speakers
in a good system should be 'timbre matched.' Meaning
the tonality of the speakers should be identical. Even
THX includes circuitry in some receivers, etc, that attempt
to do this. What I'm wondering is this; Since the hearing of a person is different when the sound comes from
front, back and sides, wouldn't it make sense that if we
wanted speakers to sound the same as each other, they'd
have to be very different from each other in order to
compensate for human hearing particulars? In other words,
our centre, left-right fronts, side surrounds and rear
surrounds would be radically different in order to maintain
the same tonality to us?

 

[Jed M]

Thats getting pretty heavy there Richard. I see what you are saying and I would probably agree in the truest sense but I would imagine that whoever mixes the sound keeps this in mind. Interesting thought. Maybe somebody has a scientific answer they can throw at us to confuse me a little.

 

[Phil Mays]

The only thing I might add would be that if one did use different speakers, they may want to pay particular attention to the speaker effeciency so as not to have one pair simply over power another pair.

In my set-up using an Onkyo TX-DX 797, if I adjust the mains down dramatically (Klipsch klf-20's) then they do not get as full of a responce. I do not know if this is "part of the game", receiver quality (Denon 5800 on layaway), or the Klipsch speakers.

Phil

 

[Wyatt_Y]

My .02...

I believe timbre-matched to mean all speakers should sound the same - not be heard the same. My voice coming out of a speaker should sound the same coming out of every speaker regardless of location. Then based on the listeners location and orientation the differences in sound are what completes the localization of a sound from the desired direction.

I think if our brain heard a voice coming from in back but doctored to sound like it would from the front - this would create a confusing or false-sounding recognition....

wyatt

 

[Philip Hamm]

Richard,

I think this was a concern with the original THX spec that called for dipole speakers in the rear.