The Underappreciated Center Channel Speaks Up!
Written: Nov 11 '05 (Updated Nov 12 '05)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
|
|
| Flatness: |
|
|
| Imaging: |
 |
|
| Overall Sound: |
|
|
|
Pros: The CSi40 is a good full range center channel speaker that sounds clear and natural.
Cons: It doesn't come in different finishes.
The Bottom Line: The Polk CSi40 is an excellent center channel speaker from Polk Audio that reproduces clear and natural vocals, dialogue and a whole lot more.
|
|
|
| shopaholic_man's Full Review: Polk Audio CSi40 Center Speaker |
Why do we need a center channel? What is its purpose? If you are a movie fan, a digital cable subscriber, or a surround sound lover, YOU NEED CENTER CHANNEL!
No center channel:
Imagine if you will you have just brought home a new Billie Holiday multichannel SACD Lady in Satin. You pop it into your SACD player to listen in beautiful 4.1 surround sound (cause you know, you have NO center channel) The orchestra wells up in the left and right speakers. You hear some ambient echo in the rear surrounds. Somewhere, you hear the faint faint voice of Billie Holiday's beautiful voice. It sounds like its coming from another room, you can't quite make it out.
Anyway, you get bored with the Billie Holiday SACD, because you can't really hear her sing on any of the songs. You decide to watch a movie instead. You put in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. You select the DTS soundtrack and sit back and relax. You can hear the sizzle and burn as the T-1 and Arnold arrive in the late 20th century. But what are they saying? You can't quite make it out.
The Importance of Center Channel for Vocals
or How does the CSi40 handle Vocals?:
Now lets install that Polk CSi40 center channel speaker and listen to Billie Holiday again. Again the orchestra wells up from the left and right. I'm a fool to want you.... I'm a fool to want you, to want to love that can't be true. Her voice is deep and rich. You can feel the pain in her voice. You can hear the slight tremble in her voice. She is there, in the living room. If you close your eyes listening to this SACD, you can place everything. Billie is center stage; her orchestra sweeps out behind her. Voices are an excellent way to test center channel speakers. Billie Holiday sounds sad and beautiful on the Polk CSi40. This particular SACD Lady in Satin also has Billie Holiday 100% center channel.
Name a male singer with a nice rich baritone voice. I chose Jim Morrison. The Doors L.A. Woman on DVD-Audio is another good center channel disc. They got Jim's voice to sound especially baritone by recording him a bathroom. It is also a multichannel album in which 90% of the vocals are center channel. UHHH UHHHHHH Jim grunts from the center channel. Ray Manzarek comes in from the left, Robby Kreigers guitars sound from the right. Jim is Center Channel all the way on the albums first cut Changeling. I live uptown I live downtown, I live all around! You can hear Morrisons deep baritone clearly enunciate each word in the style that made The Doors unmistakably The Doors. His voice sounds rich and full, and his every scream can be clearly heard on the CSi40. There you have it, two multichannel discs that place male and female vocals right in the center channel. The Polk Audio CSi40 made both Billie Holiday and Jim Morrison sound clear natural. This center channel speaker captures all the nuances in their voices.
The importance of Center Channel in Movies
or How does the CSi40 handle dialogue?
Now lets pop that Terminator 2 DVD back in with the center channel ON! Soundtracks, especially those in movies directed by the likes of James Cameron, Paul Verhooven or explosion happy hack Michael Bay have lots of special effects going on in the surround channels. Boom, a rocket launcher fires from the front right, and explodes in the rear left behind your head. Your subwoofer shakes the house at the moment of impact. Where is the dialogue coming from? Your center channel! If you have a skimpy center channel, guess what? Its not going to compete with the music soundtrack, the special effects sounds or the various other sounds coming from your Right and Left Channel, your Right and Left Surrounds or your subwoofer! A good center channel needs to be able to reproduce the dialogue in conjunction with (or competing with) the sounds coming from all those other speakers so you can hear what everyone is saying! The Polk Center Channel CSi40 crisply and clearly reproduces dialogue even in the midst of a flurry of gunfire from your surrounds.
Why do I need a full frequency Center Channel
or How does the CSi40 handle everything else?
Guess what? Your center channel may also be required to reproduce drums, explosions, bass guitars and other sounds beyond the spectrum of human speech (typically all midrange frequencies with very little low bass, or high frequency sounds above 12 KHz.) This is where many weaker center channels can fail. They may do fairly well on voice, but when an SACD like Metallica's Black Album has Lars Urich pounding his drum kit in your center channel, you are going to need good bass response. The Polk Audio CSi40 goes down to 40 hz. Since my crossover is set to 80 Hz, my center blends in smoothly with my Velodyne SPL 1000 series II subwoofer. In short, the CSi40 does a great job with reproducing the myriad of other sonic information in the center.
Why should my Center match the rest of my speakers?
or how does the CSi40 match other Polk Audio speakers?
Do I recommend the Polk CSi40 for everyone? NO, I recommend it for those who already own, or plan to own Polk Audio Left and Right Speakers and preferably left and right surround speakers by Polk Audio or speakers that have a similar sound to Polk Audio. Why? For smooth soundstage transitions, speakers should match in tonal quality. Speakers all sound somewhat different. You may hear terms like bright, warm, cold or a variety of other terms to describe how a speaker reproduces music. You want all your speakers to have the same tonal quality for the best sound. That way sounds from movie soundtracks or surround sound music can cleanly and seamlessly move across the sonic soundstage without a change in the sound. Imagine for a moment, that Jim from the aforementioned Doors album runs around your speakers, (which he does on one song) Do you want him to sound deep and booming as he runs from the right, to tinny and a bit shrill as he passes center channel and then deep and booming as he moves to the left channel? No, you want him to sound the same in any channel. In movies dialogue very frequently moves from left , center to right (or right, center left, whatever, as the characters move around. To keep the illusion that they are there on your movie screen, you want the characters to all sound the same as they move across the sound scape that is created by your left, center and right channel speakers. I have Polk Audio Monitor 70s for my front right and left channels and Polk Audio R20s for my surround sound channels (rear left and right). The Polk Audio CSi40 is a good match for these, and is also suggested by Polk Audio for its higher end speakers. Your 5 main channels do NOT need to be tonally matched to the subwoofer, deep bass sounds are deep bass sounds, get the sub that best meets your budget and needs.
Tech Specs or what about the numbers for the CSi40?
The Polk Audio CSi40 handles up to 250 watts per channel. It has a frequency response of 40 hz to 27 kHz. Its an 8 Ohm speaker with a rated sensitivity of 91dB. It is also a magnetically shielded speaker which in layman's terms mean that the magnets in the speakers will NOT interfere with the magnets that help produce the picture in your TV or the magnetic tape in your VCR. The CSi40 uses two 6 ˝ inch polycomposite drives with a 1 inch silk/polymer composite tweeter. It is also ported for deeper bass. It uses binding posts for wire connections. The dimensions are 23 inches wide, 12 ˝" deep, and 7 ˝" in height. Polycomposite in laymans terms means that the speaker cones themselves are made of a man made material that is designed to last. Some speaker companies like BOSE (better marketing through research) actually still use PAPER for its speaker cones, which result in speakers with much less durability (not to mention a sound quality that went out two decades ago).
One Complaint
You may need to futz a bit with your speaker managment on your surround sound receiver to get the right volume level. Because my CSi40 sits on the floor, and because my Polk Audio Monitor 70s are powered by a 200 watt per channel Rotel Amplifier, and the center is powered by the 100 watt/ch Yamaha 5280 surround sound receiver, I had to raise the volume about 2 dB to get the best sound match. This can be done with any good home theater setup DVD.
One final question or how is the CSi40 for digital television broadcasts?
Can I hear David Caruso, Gary Sinise or William Petersen in High Definition? Yes absolutely. Because this is the CSi40, you will clearly be able to hear all the crime investigators talking on your High Definition Cable broadcasting of CSI, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 249
|
|
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.