JBL Center Speaker Question

Hey guys, I just bought a pair of JBL Stadium Venue front speakers and was wondering what a good center speaker would be to match these speakers. There is the Balboa, and the LC1's and LC2's.

[eugovector]

Typically, you want to stick with the same series for all your multi-channel speakers, in this case the venue series (Voice model, off the top of my head). The reason behind this is that the speakers all need to reproduce sound similarly to present a convincing surround environment.

When a car pans from the left speaker to the center to the right, it should sound like one seamless movement, not 3 separate movements.

You wouldn't pair one left speaker with a completely different right speaker, would you? No, so you shouldn't do that with centers or surrounds either.

However, most main speakers will look pretty goofy sitting on top of a TV (though, that's what I did with mine). So, what you do is stick with the same series, so that different speakers will at the very least, contain the same type of drivers, be similarly voiced, and be engineered to be timbre matched.

That being said, the "Voice" model has some problems. In short, most owners I heard from aren't very happy with it. By most accounts, it sounds boxy, likely due to the 2 way design, a tweeter flanked by a pair of woofers. The woofers sound fields interfere with one another and make the speaker sound boxy when you are sitting anywhere other than dead center. A better design is a tweeter/mid vertically stacked, with two woofers with a lower crossover point flanking that vertical array.

My suggestion, get the S-center or S-centerii off ebay. Should set you back about $100-150 shipped, and many folks in the JBL thread on AVS are very happy with this when paired with the venues. Of your suggestions, I'd stick with the LC2, which should be the highest quality out of the 3.

[salvasol]

BokKafa wrote:

Hey guys, I just bought a pair of JBL Stadium Venue front speakers and was wondering what a good center speaker would be to match these speakers. There is the Balboa, and the LC1's and LC2's.

You mean ... a set up like this


I have the JBL Stadiums paired with JBL Voice and I like them

Here is the link to the forum Marshall mentioned http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1#post13103673 ...

Yes, those look like my speakers but I have silver grills. I looked at another JBL center speaker at best buy and found that it looks like it is made out of cheap plastic. I will not buy those. Hopefully I can find a good deal on the JBL LC2's.

[eugovector]

The plastic actually has advantages over traditional wood construction. Consider the S-center, but if not, LC2 all the way (and plan on upgrading your fronts to the Studio L series down the road).

[salvasol]

BokKafa wrote:

Yes, those look like my speakers but I have silver grills. I looked at another JBL center speaker at best buy and found that it looks like it is made out of cheap plastic. I will not buy those. Hopefully I can find a good deal on the JBL LC2's.

Do you like your silver grills??? ... I had them before, but I used some Dye to paint them and that was the results here is a thread I openend on how to use the dye http://www.hometheatershack.com/foru...er-grills.html

If you buy the speaker (Voice, LC2's, etc.) don't do it at Best Buy, you can get it cheap online ... I got mine at amazon.com ($100 dif for Stadium and $50 for Voice) (try the shack electronic store here at the forum, is an amazon store front)

[PT800]

BokKafa wrote:

Yes, those look like my speakers but I have silver grills. I looked at another JBL center speaker at best buy and found that it looks like it is made out of cheap plastic. I will not buy those. Hopefully I can find a good deal on the JBL LC2's.

The voice is the weak link in the Venue series. Some people think its ok, others have either gone to a LC1, LC2 or the older Studio center speaker. Any of those will timbre match the Venues.