JBL Center Speaker - Loft-20 - $77 @ Fry's BM

Was looking at this but went with Pioneer SP-C22 instead

"In the market for a new center. Was shopping around for a Polk center but saw this on sale. Couldn't find much info on performance but good price from a reputable brand."


JMHO. Do not skimp on your center. I did and now I have two useless speakers(excellent in their own Athena and Boston Acoustics, but with smaller woofers that I needed). If your towers have 5.5 or 6.5 inch, that should also be your woofer size for center. Otherwise like me before, you will not hear dialog over background. Just wait until Polk centers go on sale on Newegg and get corresponding size center. That is if corresponding size will fit in your room.

Quote from vovkg : "In the market for a new center. Was shopping around for a Polk center but saw this on sale. Couldn't find much info on performance but good price from a reputable brand." JMHO. Do not skimp on your center. I did and now I have two useless speakers(excellent in their own Athena and Boston Acoustics, but with smaller woofers that I needed). If your towers have 5.5 or 6.5 inch, that should also be your woofer size for center. Otherwise like me before, you will not hear dialog over background. Just wait until Polk centers go on sale on Newegg and get corresponding size center. That is if corresponding size will fit in your room.

Can you not tweak the settings of your receiver to increase the center volume or reduce the LR speakers?

Quote from vovkg : "In the market for a new center. Was shopping around for a Polk center but saw this on sale. Couldn't find much info on performance but good price from a reputable brand." JMHO. Do not skimp on your center. I did and now I have two useless speakers(excellent in their own Athena and Boston Acoustics, but with smaller woofers that I needed). If your towers have 5.5 or 6.5 inch, that should also be your woofer size for center. Otherwise like me before, you will not hear dialog over background. Just wait until Polk centers go on sale on Newegg and get corresponding size center. That is if corresponding size will fit in your room.

Good advice. You are right that you do not want to drown out the vocals with background. I have Monitor 70 in my family room with CS1 center. Their configuration is close and I am happy with the sound. The JBL has a lot smaller diameters. Many need to rethink it. Maybe I'll pick it up and try it out to see if you really can not tweak it around a bit. I'll still keep an eye open for another Polk.

Quote from Bejar : Good advice. You are right that you do not want to drown out the vocals with background. I have Monitor 70 in my family room with CS1 center. Their configuration is close and I am happy with the sound. The JBL has a lot smaller diameters. Many need to rethink it. Maybe I'll pick it up and try it out to see if you really can not tweak it around a bit. I'll still keep an eye open for another Polk.

I got these for my mains: Klipsch Synergy F-30. They similar to Monitor 70, just go a little lower on bass. I used tweaking and that was night and day comparable to a time I got CS2. I love
the change it made, wish I was not waiting so long. Was afraid it not going to fit, but it did. Before I got those Klipsch, I had bookshelf Athena's and they were excellent with their center. They are not so bad in other room right now with BA center cs225, but none of them comes close to CS2.