"Fake Surround" better with no center speaker?

himey said:

Never liked stereo processed to 5.1 even with matching full range speakers. Changed settings to defeat the center channel and have not looked back. Fake Quad (4.0) using SRS Circle Surround is sounding very nice. Is it too much to ask the processor to do adding a center to the front soundstage and not changing it dramatically? Do other decoders/processors do a better job? Curious what others think. I would suggest to give it a try if you have not tried this...

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ar surround said:

I've tried it both ways. When I had my front speakers closer together, I turned off the center speaker when using Lexicon Logic 7 to enhance stereo recordings into surround sound. I preferred the sound with the center speaker turned off. I also didn't use ProLogic IIx Music that often because I didn't get as good results as with Logic 7.

Recently, I "acquired more real estate" and have been able to spread the front speakers further apart, about 60 degrees. I have found a general overall improvement with the sound of the entire system using this configuration and I also have found that it now sounds better with the center speaker turned on. Finally, I have also gotten better performance from ProLogic IIx Music with this speaker arrangement and I now use it as often as Logic 7.

So the answer is "it depends." I recommend fooling around with speaker placement (as long as the wife doesn't throw you out of the house) and then other settings until one achieves audio nirvana.

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