Pardon my limited knowledge. Does a 3 way center provides deeper male voice in a movie? What is the significant advantage of doing a 3 way in HT purposes?
A normal 2-way center channel can certainly handle any male voice, so there wouldn't be any difference there. For dialogue, the only difference a 3-way could make is perhaps keeping midrange distortion low at high volumes since the W18's are not called upon to do bass duties.
But dialogue is not the only thing a center channel is called upon to do. They also reproduce sound effects that are centered on the screen. So there is a school of thought that says the center channel is the most important speaker in an HT set-up and should be as capable or more capable than the left and right mains.
In this case, Robert was using HT3's for the left and right mains and wanted to make sure the center channel was their equal. Since he could not use a third HT3, we designed this speaker for him.
Personally, I have never felt the need for this type of center channel. But when we began working on our soon-to-be-released HT4's (name to be released soon as well), Sam, one of our associates, decided to replace his home theater speakers. Sam is into home theater in a big way and thought that HT4's across the front would result in the best HT set-up on the planet. So he is in the process of building two regular HT4's for the left and right mains and a special version for the center channel. I'll post pictures when he finishes...should be incredible!
- Jim
