[Malcolm02]

Does anyone have experience using the LCR-4 center channel speaker, especially with the VR-33 as mains?

I currently have the VR-33 in a home theater setup, though I do a lot of music listening. For multi channel I'm using a phantom center, and I'm thinking of adding a dedicated center channel speaker. I'd be interested in any opinions on whether it would improve the sound with multi channel music or movies, or if I shouldn't bother and just stick with the phantom center, which, to be honest, I think sounds fine.

[JackD201]

A dedicated center channel sure helps intelligibility when you want to watch a movie and don't want to disturb or wake up anybody. 

[ceedee]

Hi Malcolm,

We use the LCR 4 in our HC setup together with the VR 4 SR as fronts. (also with the new VR 44)
The LCR 4 is the mainspeaker since a lot of information comes from the centre.
The LCR 4 is designed to make the sound coming from the screen, a phantom centre will never act like this.

The LCR 4 will fitt a VR 33 as well.

Good luck, Cor

[Malcolm02]

Thanks for the responses. Given that the LCR-4 is designed to work with the VR-33 and VR-4/5, I assume that all those speakers are pretty much timbre matched to each other.

Also, I have been reading some criticism of the horizontal MTM design of center speakers, for example:

http://www.audioholics.com/education/loudspeaker-basics/center-channel-designs

http://www.audioholics.com/education/loudspeaker-basics/vertical-vs-horizontal-speaker-designs

Does any one know why VSA decided to go with this design? Has anyone experienced the problems described in the articles?

[JackD201]

I'm no HT expert by any stretch so this is just a bunch of my casual observations.

I owned LCR-15s for a long time, the smallest of all VSA centers as well as others that were similarly configured. I can attest to the poor(er) horizontal off axis response however in practical usage I or anybody else in my home ever watched from an angle which would be severe enough to be in the poor range. I mean nobody sat so far left or right as to be in in line with the L and R main speakers. At that angle the picture would be trapezoidal. No fun. That makes it somewhat of a non-issue when compared with what the article mentions about having a compact speaker that can keep up with the mains. As far as the vertical, I was forced to keep the center on a low shelf but I managed to do okay by simply angling the center up pointing at our ear level with some old xbox and ps2 game cases. So I think it really is a practicality thing as well as a cost one.

Ideally we'd want at least all three to be exactly the same. Unfortunately, as I said, that isn't so practical. Some time back a gentleman in the USA bought 5 VR-4 SRs. He did something way cool. He took one of the SRs, laid the bass module on its side and put the MT module on top of that. Great! Now he didn't have to have the bottom of his screen more than 50"s off the ground.

This led to the development of VSA's VisUN center, which I use with VR-4 SRs. It has identical drivers to the SRs but bass extension is in the 50s as opposed to the 20's in the L&R again because of size constraints. It looks like this, (a picture of the first generation VisiUN):




Compact SR or not this speaker is still HUGE.  We do however watch with a 100" screen at the lower limit of prescribed viewing distance and this baby throws an image commensurate to what is on the screen. For those that have the space for it I strongly recommend this one.

[es347]

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_3/martin-logan-cinema-center-speaker-7-2002.html

Happy camper for over ten years now.  It matches well with my L and R Aerius i's 

[Malcolm02]

This led to the development of VSA's VisUN center, which I use with VR-4 SRs. It has identical drivers to the SRs but bass extension is in the 50s as opposed to the 20's in the L&R again because of size constraints. It looks like this, (a picture of the first generation VisiUN):




Compact SR or not this speaker is still HUGE.  We do however watch with a 100" screen at the lower limit of prescribed viewing distance and this baby throws an image commensurate to what is on the screen. For those that have the space for it I strongly recommend this one.

Thanks for the detailed response. That speaker looks like a monster, and is what is called for with the VR-5. I envy someone who can accommodate that in their system.

No question, the optimal setup is 3 identical tower speakers across the front, but that makes it almost impossible to use with a large TV. The only practical choice for me is the LCR-4. That is why I was asking if it has any design considerations (special VSA magic?) that improves the dispersion and interference problems associated with horizontal MTM configurations. Looks like I may just have to take the plunge to find out.

[JackD201]

Albert does pay fanatical attention to lobing with all of his designs with more than one driver. I seriously doubt you'll find any problems with the LCR-4 under normal viewing conditions and standard placement. Even the entry level LCR-15 had no problems for me with loudspeakers as diverse as Maggie 1.6 QRs, LSA 2 Towers, VR-2s and VR-4jrs.

Enjoy!

[Malcolm02]

I e-mailed VSA and received a very nice response from the man himself about the center channel speakers that are available. There is some information here that I haven't seen elsewhere, which I'm sure will be of interest to people in this group, so I'm reproducing it with permission (only Albert requested that I delete all pricing information as that will depend on your geographical location).


Begin quote:

Thanks for your purchase of our VR-33 speaker system.  Although most videophiles don’t mind the off-axis frequency response abberations that come from using a horizontally mounted center channel, since they sit directly on axis, I fully agree with the articles you mention.  In fact, if you read my Bio, I was a LucasFilm THX theater designer from 1991-1993, so I know about these things intimately.  Real movie theater speakers use vertical arrays of drivers to prevent the off-axis problems, since most of the people sitting in the theater can’t sit directly in front of the center channel behind the screen.

Although if you sit in the middle of the couch, you will not hear any of the response variations, but people sitting a few feet from the center axis will hear a slight midrange suckout between 1k and 3k.  If your theater seating features chairs that are more than 2 or 3 feet off axis, you might want to look at our coaxial center channel model called the UniField Center.  Although the theater products such as centers, surrounds and subs are not shown on our website yet, we will show three different models of center channels, the LCR-4, the UniField Center, and the Visiun.

A) The LCR-4 is a large, horizontal unit with twin 7” Scan-design bass-mids and a 1” Scan-design silk dome Wide Surround tweeter.  It has good dispersion within 3 feet off the central axis if the chairs are 10 feet away or more.

B) The UniField Center utilizes a BBC-designed 7” coaxial driver with a TPX cone made by Spendor of the UK.  The fabric dome tweeter is mounted inside the bass-mid cone and is driven by a separate magnetic assembly and does not move when the woofer cone is moving.  This driver is physically set up for Time Alignment and is phase coherent due to the specialized crossover set at 2kHz.  This design has uniform radiation pattern up to 45-degrees off axis and would be the best type to use if you have chairs far off the central axis.  If you go to our website and see the UniField Model One speaker, you can try to imagine it laying on its side, so that it can fit on a shelf.  There is no port in this model, since we are not trying to get bass below 40Hz from the unit, we are looking to enhance the Vocal Intelligibility so that the dialog is easy to hear, even in densly recorded passages where sound effects overwhelm the dialog in conventional center speakers.  The cabinet is 2.75” thick and is composed of three different materials, so there is “zero” cabinet resonances that can cause coloration which muffles the voices.  In our opinion, there is no way to beat this design, except to make it larger to handle high power levels in huge theater rooms.  It is available in Steinway gloss black paint, natural cherrywood, or American Sycamore (a blond finish similar to pine or birch).

C) If you want to own the ultimate center, which is rated as “the world’s best” by two different theater magazines, check out the Visiun.  It was designed for projection monitors and is a 3-way, 4 driver system with Vocal EQ controls.  Read one of the reviews here:
http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/home-theater-speakers/287-a-secrets-speaker-review.html

[Malcolm02]

I have decided to go with the Unifield Center, after consultation with Albert, who assured me that it would well match the VR-33. When I receive it I can report my experience if anyone is interested.