Moth3r said:
zombie84 said:
Mono is sent to the centre channel because, being only one channel, it would be weird if it sent it to the left, or to the right. But in a theatrical setting, you aren't hearing it from one speaker at the front of the house. It is playing through many speakers so as to encompass the full room with front-facing sound. This is why, in a home theatre setting, it is appropriate to send it to all your forward-facing speakers, but namely the left and right which are accoustically positioned to fill your listening space.
I don't believe this is the case. A 1.0 mono soundtrack should play solely through the centre channel (on a film - mono music may be different). The centre channel is normally output by the centre speaker - unless your system doesn't have one, in which case a "phantom centre" is created by outputting the sound through both front left and right speakers.
I suppose it depends on room size to a degree. But again, in any sort of concert or theatre environment, there is no single centre speaker that provides audio for the entire room. Centre-default plays to the reality of one-channel audio, in that it is the most appropriate position if one speaker represents one channel, but it betrays the ideal listening experience. Your left and right speakers will be better manufactured as well, even if your centre channel is of high quality--the left and right are always the best speakers in the set-up, and the ones designed for the widest and furthest sound dispersal.
This is incorrect as well. The centre speaker is the most important speaker in a 5.1 set-up - it accounts for 50% of the soundtrack, as well as nearly all dialogue. It would not make sense to have the centre lesser specified than the front L & R speakers.
What can I say except I don't agree. The centre works hard in a 5.1 set-up, but mono playback is not a 5.1 setup, therefore this becomes irrelevant what role in plays there. The left and right speakers are accoustically positioned to give the best sound spread, and they are the technically best built in a system. In a theatrical--or home theatrical--setting, you should never be using a centre speaker with mono unless it is in conjunction with the left and right. Again, this is why mono concerts and movie theatres aren't outputing through just a centre channel. They use the left and right (in multiple copies usually) to send a single channel of sound throughout the room. When someone sees Citizen Kane in a theatre, or listened to the Beatles in concert, they weren't hearing it from one speaker underneath the screen or behind the band, and neither should you.