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Not necessarily true, at least here anyway. My main speakers are around 7 feet apart, and you definitely notice if the center is switched out. It's not all about filling in the middle ... it's more instrument placement and focusing the primary vocals center stage for me. Especially important for near field like my room. Current setup (WITH the center active) SEEMS reliably accurate for instrument placement, at least with stuff I've seen live. I say SEEMS because a lot of those performances happened quite some time ago, and that ... er ... brain thingy that lets you ... uh ... Oh, I remember ... memory! ... ain't what it used to be. PS - as with most of this stuff, moderation is key. My rule of thumb, if I don't notice an effect until I turn it off, time to at leasat turn it down. The H9AV's L+R output that I use on the center is direct out, but fortunately I can adjust tone and volume on the Eico HF12 mono amp driving that channel. I'm also finding out all center channels are not created equal. I really like the output from the H9AV, but I wonder what sort of fun Mr Carver had with that - all sorts of surprises lurk within sometimes.

Sure it is ... it's two channel ... with benefits! <G> I've been a quad head for decades now, and recently added a center channel using the dedicated L+R output from my Carver H9AV driving an Eico mono tuber I rebuilt and had stashed away. Really fills in the vocals. Where things get interesting - I also use the time delay rear channels from my C4000 pre to fill in the room and really make the music pop. Secret is balance as you might expect. The C4000 drives four book shelf speakers using a Dynaco Quadaptor. One pair is mounted at ear level directly to the sides of the main chair, and the other pair at ceiling height behind the chair. - Turn on the rear speakers only, and adjust the balance top to bottom using the Quadaptor. This gives me "height" as well as allowing me to adjust the time delay reflections to my liking. - Step two - bring up the volume on the center channel located at ear height in front. This effectively pulls the rear channels forward and pops the vocals. - Final step - bring up the front big box speakers to taste. I'm actually using two holographic generators in the system - the one built into the C4000 is set to wide, and the H9AV drives the front boxes only - that's just got the standard holography engaged. All in all, an audio purist's nightmare, but I like it!

One of my favorites. Lots of interesting retreads and mashups of some great classic rockers by some artists you probably never heard of ...

I wish they all could be Escanaba girls ... Michigan is a state of mind ... and we're all crazy!

Huh ... what's the time limit on edits? I was gonna add a pic of my stack on a prior post, but ... ah well. Hey, I got a pic to add to a prior post! I mentioned putting a piece of acrylic between a mono amp and my Maverick tube DAC ... As you can see, it's quite a massive piece of acrylic, left over from another project. I used some old knobs for legs underneath to get some airspace. The Eico is perforated all around with an open back, so no worries there. The top of the acrylic gets somewhat warm during use, but very little heat is transferred to the DAC, so I call it a win. And ya, it's kinda tight on the sides of the Eico as well, but we works with what we gots. Also no major heating of the wood on the main amp or the table. Oh. Sorry bout the shaky pic ... one too many cups of coffee today .... <G>

All valid points, but if there's no noise or heat issues, there's really no issue, other than possible feet marks on the cases. Some felt stick ons should take care of that as long as you're careful. Stack em up. Where a lot of folk go wrong is placing the equipment too close to a wall. That interferes with heat dissipation. Maximize whatever air space ya got. I just stacked a tube DAC on top of a mono tube amp that I use to drive my center channel. The DAC was getting hot, so I also stacked an acrylic plate under that, with a couple inches of air space beneath, and just the DAC legs as spacers above. Works like a champ, with no additional heat load on the DAC. The acrylic gets hot, but I'm thinking that actually improves air flow over the mono amp, as that should (theoretically) increase chimney effect and drag additional air out from below.

The ground keeps getting farther away ... This comes to mind after spending a couple days crawling around under my car ... <G> Also why lately, I'm more into dragging a trailer around with the truck instead of with the motorcycle. Big difference between sleeping in a real full size bed and a tent - even if it DOES have an Aerobed, it's still a long way down to the floor. BEFORE > > AFTER .> > Betcha yall never thought a basic Ranger could haul a 26 foot camper. Helps that my CombiCamp only weighs in at 500 pounds ... it's MUCH bigger on the inside!

LIVE FOREVER OR DIE TRYING

Speaking of revisionist history ... I was more interested in the recruiting sidebar where the site is trying to get me to subscribe to WW3. Oh. speaking of quotes ... it's all about context ... "a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson" That is a verified Roosevelt quote, but it was aimed strictly at the Federal Reserve Act which Wilson signed into law to try and minimize the sort of panic that set off the Great Depression. He felt it went too far in protecting the financial institutions and revised it with the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 to give the government more control on policy.

Load up a blank tape and let it roll ... Which do you prefer ... plastic reels or metal? <G> I've also ripped all my old tapes to digital now. Used a Teac 3340 (still got it) and a dbx SNR-1 to kill as much noise as possible and came out with what I think are some major improvements to sound quality. Fun fact ... the SNR-1 also does a killer job on vinyl. I run my table into an external stage, then into the SNR-1 and out to the ADC and amp. As with any post processing, less is better, but I get a dramatic decrease in the noise floor on a lot of the old vinyl.

Bumps are nice, but you know what they say about anything more than an earful ... Pretty much all digital here. Kinda snuck up on me too. I built an HTPC server a while back and ripped all my CDs to that, then the albums followed slowly but surely. Had some birthing pains getting everything to play nice ... the last step was going with jRiver Media Center as a front end ... but now that it's done, vinyl is a rarity. Just the convenience of point 'n click if nothing else, and truth be told, the digital side sounds better to me.

duplicate post - I guess I can't delete it? Ah well ... one more towards the elusive 200 ... <G>

I'm still here ... Buying a TV is quite the adventure nowadays. My last Sony blew up about a month after the warranty expired. I got the extended warranty with the new Samsung, and have high hopes. ~~~~~ THIS is a chair shaking adventure ... A couple Aura Pro bAss Shakers in the lazyboy driven with a Dayton plate amp really get the bottom end jumpin' ...