[ForrestTG]

Hello all,

I'm curious if anyone here is using the Philharmonic BMR Monitors for HT? And if you are, if you went with a 3rd Monitor for Center.

I'm looking to upgrade to something under $2000 with lots of technical ability.

[AllanS]

 Yep.  I love my original monitors for HT but elected to use a very different speaker (Revel Concerta C10) in the center for reasons of WAF / space constraints.  This works okay but I’m 5/95 HT v 2 ch so this is an acceptable trade-off.
 At the time, about 5 years ago, Dennis suggested one of the NHT Audio offerings as sonically compatible alternatives (C Series or Super I don’t recall). But my BMR version is different than the current offering so I’m not sure this would still apply.
 Any reason for not considering the current Philharmonic HT Center?
 If you get stuck I’d recommend contacting Dennis @Philharmonic Audio for advice or posting questions in the AVS Forum Philharmonic forum or even the Salk forum here.
Good luck!

[ForrestTG]

Yep.  I love my original monitors for HT but elected to use a very different speaker (Revel Concerta C10) in the center for reasons of WAF / space constraints.  This works okay but I’m 5/95 HT v 2 ch so this is an acceptable trade-off.
 At the time, about 5 years ago, Dennis suggested one of the NHT Audio offerings as sonically compatible alternatives (C Series or Super I don’t recall). But my BMR version is different than the current offering so I’m not sure this would still apply.
 Any reason for not considering the current Philharmonic HT Center?
 If you get stuck I’d recommend contacting Dennis @Philharmonic Audio for advice or posting questions in the AVS Forum Philharmonic forum or even the Salk forum here.
Good luck!

mostly cost. a 3rd monitor is less than half the cost of the HT center. It looks great, but hard to justify.

[WGH]

... a 3rd monitor is less than half the cost of the HT center. It looks great, but hard to justify.

A common misconception is the center speaker is an "add-on" because it is only for dialog. Most of the time the L&R speakers will only have ambient low level sounds and music unless you have a steady diet of blockbuster action movies. All the sound is coming from the center speaker. Because of this, the center is usually a lot louder than any other speaker in a home theater. Dialog is tricky, one reason dialog is hard to understand besides lousy mixing in most movies is low quality center speakers.

Once in a while I forget to turn on the L&R speaker amp, I have four different multi-channel amps for my 7.1.4 theater, it's easy to screw up sometimes. When I turn everything off at the end of movie night I realize the L&R speakers were never on and I didn't miss them.

I have three Dennis Murphy designed front speakers, the Salk HT2-TL and the HT2C which uses the exact same drivers. The difference is the center speaker is smaller with no port. A port muddies up dialog. A center speaker should just have clean, clear direct sound, any extra sound like from a port will add a little out of phase sound from reflections plus male voices get a little chesty, good for music but not for speech. Many movie fans complained that they couldn't hear or understand the whispers in Dune 1. I had three Dune viewing parties and none of my guests complained or ask "what did they say?"

Home theater processors filter out low frequencies around 80Hz to all speakers, the 55Hz frequency response of the Philharmonic HT Center Channel is perfect.

Long after you forget about the added expense you and your family will still be enjoying the flawless sound. And nobody will be asking "What did they say?"

[ForrestTG]

A common misconception is the center speaker is an "add-on" because it is only for dialog. Most of the time the L&R speakers will only have ambient low level sounds and music unless you have a steady diet of blockbuster action movies. All the sound is coming from the center speaker. Because of this, the center is usually a lot louder than any other speaker in a home theater. Dialog is tricky, one reason dialog is hard to understand besides lousy mixing in most movies is low quality center speakers.

Once in a while I forget to turn on the L&R speaker amp, I have four different multi-channel amps for my 7.1.4 theater, it's easy to screw up sometimes. When I turn everything off at the end of movie night I realize the L&R speakers were never on and I didn't miss them.

I have three Dennis Murphy designed front speakers, the Salk HT2-TL and the HT2C which uses the exact same drivers. The difference is the center speaker is smaller with no port. A port muddies up dialog. A center speaker should just have clean, clear direct sound, any extra sound like from a port will add a little out of phase sound from reflections plus male voices get a little chesty, good for music but not for speech. Many movie fans complained that they couldn't hear or understand the whispers in Dune 1. I had three Dune viewing parties and none of my guests complained or ask "what did they say?"

Home theater processors filter out low frequencies around 80Hz to all speakers, the 55Hz frequency response of the Philharmonic HT Center Channel is perfect.

Long after you forget about the added expense you and your family will still be enjoying the flawless sound. And nobody will be asking "What did they say?"

I definitely don't want to skimp on my center channel, but would a Philharmonic BMR Monitor really be skimping? I listen at pretty moderate volumes and would be able to place it just as far away from the wall as the L & R. Unless the AMT tweeter in the center is significantly better than the RAAL for vertical dispersion I can't think of a reason it would be better than the monitor outside of his HT line being more sensitive & having better load handling. Plus the monitor would be a perfect match for Atmos music mixes. Maybe I'm thinking of this wrong?

[WGH]

You will have to talk to Dennis about the difference and why he designed a center channel. The HT Center certainly looks beefier than the BMR Monitor.
Keeping all the speakers identical for surround music would be a plus. I don't listen to Atmos music and my front speakers are identical so don't know how a slightly different center effects music.
We might be picking at nits at this high quality level.

[charmerci]

Dennis has less expensive speakers for sale, meaning they're very likely voiced the same. Also, he purchases speakers in batches and you can buy just one. He also has an avsforum thread where you/he can announce that you only want one of a pair and maybe someone else wants to buy just one - or someone there will sell one to you.


Ah, I just looked and you're already there.

[artur9]

My understanding is that Dennis made a center because people were asking for one.
The standard recommendation from the other forum is to use a BMR monitor for a center if you can.

The center fits better in the spaces most people have for such, the BMR Monitor is big. (I love mine but their size, oof!).