Mixing speaker brands in HT - dumb idea?

Lady Gator · « **on:** 10 Feb 2005, 05:50 pm »

I currently have a pair of Saphhire III LE's in my 2 channel room and am very fond of them.
In my HT room, I have a Paradigm set up, two 7seMk3 for the front, CC150 Center and AMS 200 (or 300, I don't recall) in the ceiling for rears. My question [hoping it's not too dumb] is, would it be a sonic mess of apples & oranges to replace any of the Paradigm speaker components w/ an ACI component? For example, Panoramas in front, keeping the Paradigms center & rear until finances allowed a phasing out of the Paradigms.
And, as a followup question, is there any reason to phase out these Paradigms for ACI's? Anybody done any A/B comparisons? I like the Paradigms okay but I don't think I'm in love with them.

Marbles · « **Reply #1 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 06:17 pm »

It won't take much to see if the ACI's will match up, just hook them up as fronts and see. You could be one of the ones that aren't sensitive to mixing front speakers.

ted_b · « **Reply #2 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 06:32 pm »

I would go about it this way:
1) what is more important; 2 channel or HT? where is your best 2 channel listening done? Why, because you don't want to possibly move your ACI's to the HT and find they don't sound good there.
2) The number one (okay, maybe one of top three) rule of HT building is tmbre-matching in the front soundstage. Make sure the center is matched with the fronts. That's paramount to good panning, dialog shifting, etc. However, if you absolutely LOVE your ACI's so much that they have to be in the HT and that the HT is now going to be your 2 channel room as well, then don't fight it. Life is too short. Buy a matching ACI center when time and $$ permits. OTOH, if HT is you passion, then make damn sure your front three speakers are matched.
3) What kind of surround listening do you do? Multichannel hi-rez music and movie effects are two different animals. Point source or direct radiators are almost necessary for good DVD-A or SACD mch listening, while dipoles or bipoles are usfficient and sometimes preferred for their dispersion of foley effects, rainstorms, bullets flying.

Me, personally, I have a dedicated (see gallery) HT/stereo room, and place way more importance, currently, on 2 channel imaging and soundstaging. My center, although a VMPS cousin, is far too small for my RM/X's and will be replaced soon. My sides and rears are bipoles (Alon Cnetris surrounds) that were fine for movies, but kinda suck for multichannel music listening. I get around that currently by merging the side and rear same-channel signal (and attenuating it, of course) when listening to mch music. I am going to go the direct radiator route soon, (with same family as fronts, of course)) but am spending time and $$ on tweaking the 2 channel side right now.

So, in summary, my opinion, however worthless, would be to first evaluate breaking up a good stereo thing, then decide if timbre-matched HT is worth it. For HT lovers, it absolutely is.

Ted

Lady Gator · « **Reply #3 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 07:00 pm »

Well, what I had envisioned and didn't state very clearly was to not touch the Sapphires in the 2-channel room. That's where I do my 2-channel listening 99.8% of the time. Leave them there.
The HT room is where I would pick up an additional pair (trio would be important from what Ted was saying) of ACI's, maybe the Panoramas and a Protege? Stick w/ the Paradigm rears & sub for now. It would just be used for DVD's, TV, music only on occasion, mostly for background. Though, I do have a number of music DVD's (The Who, George Harrison benefit, Sarah Brightman, to name a few). I suppose that should be considered.
Appreciate the feedback thus far. It makes good sense to get the 3 off the bat, if I understand correctly.
Lisa

bubba966 · « **Reply #4 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 08:29 pm »

At the very least I'd try to keep the speakers across the front (L/C/R) EXACTLY the same.

Although I've got the same 3 speakers for my L/C/R's, I've had different cabling between them at times. And that was enough of a difference to drive me nuts as the pans across the front no longer sounded right. I can't imagine how it'd sound if I actually had a different center.

ted_b · « **Reply #5 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 08:32 pm »

Lisa,
That sounds like a plan. I don't know ACI speakers at all, but from the website it looks like an Essence ($350 more, sorry) would be a much better center for the Panoramas. Same drivers and everything. Check with ACI folks, though. (or call it even and get the Essence V's for the fronts). A seamless front three is what your aiming for. Then the Emeralds or their on-walls for later on down the surround road.

Ted

ctviggen · « **Reply #6 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 08:39 pm »

I've used the same drivers, but never the same speaker across the front and can't tell a difference in pans. I also have used different interconnects and speaker cable (have different speaker cable now, in fact; mains are silver and CC is copper; I was using silver ICs for mains and copper for CC, but now I'm using all copper), and different amplifiers, etc., and still couldn't tell a difference.

Marbles · « **Reply #7 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 09:01 pm »

If money is a problem (and when isn't it???) ACI will often have "B" stock speakers for a discount. You should ask about those if you contact them.

Rich Carlson · « **Reply #8 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 09:06 pm »

I have a pair of Sapphire III LE's in my home theater, with (non-LE) Sapphire III's for center and surround. Every move I've made toward more precise matching of speakers in the home theater setup has been a significant improvement -- for example, ACI Emeralds for center and surround were a substantial step up from the non-ACI speakers they replaced, and the Sapphires another significant step. I agree that matching across the front is most important, by a substantial margin. Unfortunately my setup makes it impossible to have the center at the same height as the the front L/R, but I don't really notice the disparity on movies.

bubba966 · « **Reply #9 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 09:45 pm »

Quote from: ctviggen

I've used the same drivers, but never the same speaker across the front and can't tell a difference in pans. I also have used different interconnects and speaker cable (have different speaker cable now, in fact; mains are silver and CC is copper; I was using silver ICs for mains and copper for CC, but now I'm using all copper), and different amplifiers, etc., and still couldn't tell a difference.

Lucky you then. When I had everything the same across the front with the exception of the speaker cable on the CC that was enough of a difference that I easily noticed it and was bothered by the difference.

But I do watch a whole lot of movies. Enough so that I got to the point of being able to tell which digital format (DD/DTS/SDDS) was being used during playback in commercial theaters. Most people aren't quite so sensitive to movie audio though.

So keeping everything exactly identical across the front might not be 100% needed for everyone. But I still think it's an excellent idea if it's at all possible to do in someone's setup.

Harry P · « **Reply #10 on:** 10 Feb 2005, 10:02 pm »

How about Pretege across the front? This is what I did and I love it! Very well matched soundstage at a very reasonable cost. I even compared them to my Sapphire 25th ann model, wrote a little review here:

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=15200

Lady Gator · « **Reply #11 on:** 14 Feb 2005, 09:18 pm »

Thank you again for the helpful feedback. I appreciate it!