Centre Speaker

ninjag

ninjag

ninjag

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Joined
18 Sep 2012
Posts
849
Looking for a quick bit of advice please.

Current setup is:

L/R: Dali Oberon 5
Surrounds: Dali Oberon 1
Centre: Dali Zensor Vokal
Subwoofer: BKE XLS300 FF

I want to change my centre as it does most of the heavy lifting and it was only supposed to be temporary and it's never felt quite right compared to the L/R. It could also be anywhere up to 15 years old.


Due to space constraints I can only get the following:

Dali Oberon Vokal: brand new and timbre matching, but might not feel like much of an upgrade, it will fit.
Dali Ikon Vokal 2: supposed to be next level up from the Oberon, has a ribbon tweeter, might not match timbre, it will fit, rubber seals.

The Ikon Vokal 2 could also be anywhere up to 15 years old. Would this be something to be cautious about or would the increased quality make it worth the risk? Also would I really notice any timbre difference?

Been stuck over this for a while.
 
Does anyone know how a thinner on the wall LCR compares to a full size centre speaker, would I lose any depth to the audio etc?
 
Unless they are active, age wouldnt bother me in the slightest. are you buying used? even then, if its prestine, its been looked after. Speaker tech moves pretty slow. While the centre does do a lot of the work, its all easy stuff for speakers, mid range vocal stuff rather than bass hits etc.

Id get a used Dali Ikon Vokal 2 A/B test it against the Zensor. (blind if you can) If its a nice step up, keep it. If your not blown away, sell it on, keep the Zensor until a Dali Oberon Vokal comes up that matches the fronts, then swap to that.

I have some Zensor Pikos as my desk speakers at work. I like them.

At home i have some Quad 21l2 fronts, 9l2 rears and the L2 centre. Its a bit meh for music (AV receiver probabaly doesnt help) but it works well for TV and movies, which its used for 99.5% of the time. I wanted a new AV unit that matched the existing furniture, had some storage, and would fit a full size centre and an AV amp... the choice is surprisingly limited, as most of them are designed for a sky box at the most. Anyway, i found something eventually, but i dont really like it. Quad also made the "lite" range, which has "lite" speakers which are a little smaller than the 9l2s, and a smaller lite centre..... i'm getting to the point, i promise. i found a lite centre on facebook marketplace for a great price as it would give more options if i wanted to change the unit in the future. I tested them both, i couldnt hear a difference. They are similar speakers, they had quite different prices, £599 for the L2 Centre according to google, and the lite-centre came as a package with 4x Lite speakers and a sub for £1100 ish i think. The L2 centre is quite a bit bigger too.

Having said that, mate has an old B&W centre that i never thought was all that, and i had an old gale centre whitch was probably £50 from richer sounds a hundred years ago, and sounds wonderful. he was using it before he swapped it for the B&W i think. long time ago now. so i'm not saying they all sound the same, but sometimes it works out different to how you would expect
 
ninjag said:
Does anyone know how a thinner on the wall LCR compares to a full size centre speaker, would I lose any depth to the audio etc?
Click to expand...
you'd probably need to test it i guess. some slim wall mounted centres, that arent active sound bars, would be really handy but i didnt find many when i was looking. they could gain more box volume by making the cabinets wider, rather than deeper, since it would probably be mounted below an huge TV anyway, and still look more elegant that a centre sat on a shelf because its too big to fit in a TV unit.
 
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