Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Mixing dsp speakers

I have a G91a feeding a pair of DSP 5200's and am thinking about adding a centre and rears for movie playback only. Is it possible to mix the 5200 with say DSP 33 centre and rears or must the 3100 be the minimum spec? Budget is really the deciding factor here.....(Got to get this past the 'Management').

Many thanks.

for movie playback your centre wants to be on par with your main speakers less so for the rears so DSP 33's would be fine

Well I have to say that for movie playback I don't think the centre matching is quite as critical as you think, not when mixing and matching M DSP speakers.

I have 5000's on the front and have a 5000c. I also bought a 33c, I bought it as a stop gap while waiting for a 5000c to crop up and it happend to crop up before I had eveen paid for the 33c.
When it arrived the driver was damaged so I had to get a new one fitted from Meridian, to make sure it was fine I had it playing for a week and if I am totally honest, there is very little in it for films when crossed over at 80hz.
There is a difference when leaving the sub out and setting all to large, but still not massive.

The real difference is when playing at reference level, when there is a lot going on the 5000c keep it sounding more open and less muddled, but this is only maybe 3% of a film.


Now with music in Trifield I do think the centre is worth matching up.

33 rears vs 3100 rears?? I couldn't see the point, I would rather put another pair of fronts on the back myself.

Thanks Guys thats interesting. I only endulge in (what could be called) critical listening when playing stereo music, and for this the 5200's are wonderful. Movie playback is much more about surround effects, directional effects and slam, (for me anyway) so 'critical' doesn't really come into it. As long as the overall sound is balanced and separated I'll be happy.

Hi Dave,
for more than two years I have had this same set-up (5200 with DSP 33 centre and rears) and worked fine, maybe as center would be better another 5200 or so but, overall worked fine... in a not very big room as mine.

Thats encouraging news, thanks Jose. I guess I'll be on the look out for some DSP 33's then.....

If you go for DSP33 make sure you configure them as small.

Personaly for movies, I beleve that one should have an equal if not "larger" center that the front left/right pair. esp if your not running a sub.

I ran with a pair of 5200s and 5500HC for a while, I had to use MRC to "tame" the 5500HC a little mind.

The centre channel has to copy with a huge load when watching movies.

Regards,
Carl

I cannot emphasise enough how much the addition of a centre DSP, even one smaller than my L+R speakers, has increased my enjoyment of music and cinema.

I spent a few years with a G91 driving a pair of DSP 5200s and recently bought a pair of DSP 3100s to use as rears for movies and multi-channel music, thinking that a centre speaker would add little to a L+R pair that image as well as the 5200s. I was so wrong. When the 3100s arrived, I realised that the standard M5 and S5 cables that came with them would not allow me to run them as rears. I bought an additional M5 and set up one of the 3100s as a centre as a stopgap, planning to switch to front L+R 5200s and rear L+R 3100s as soon as the extra M5 arrived. I was so pleasantly surprised by the centre speaker, even one smaller than my L+R, that I left the 5200 L+R and 3100 C setup in place after I had the cabling to follow my original plan of 5100 L+R and 3100 rear L+R.

I subsequently bought a 5200C and now run DSP 5200s L+C+R and 3100s rear L+R. The switch from 3100 to 5200 as a centre resulted in a noticeable change, but I don't think that I'm exaggerating when I say that (for me) the addition of a centre DSP to a 2 channel system was a much more !WOW! moment than either the change from small centre to matched L+C+R or the change from 3 to 5 speakers. Although I have not had the opportunity to listen to DSP 33s, I will hazard a guess and say that adding one as a centre to your 5200s will impress you on both movies and music.

Of course in an ideal world you would use matched speakers all round, but if that isn't an option for the moment then I'm pretty confident you will be happy with centre and rears that are smaller than front L+R.

Hope this helps

Dom

Get the biggest / closest-match center you can swing. Don't underestimate larger rears. One of the best upgrades I have done is upgrading rears from dsp33 to 5k's. Same price to boot.

Lots of good advice, thanks. If I can stretch the budget a bit I'll maybe go for a 5200c and go Trifield for a bit. This would release a bit more potential from the centre as this seems to be more important than the rears. I could 'live' with this setup for a while until a few more coins fall down the back of the sofa.........