Home Theater for Music Lovers

Do you listen to music more than you watch movies? Most of our customers say "yes." Do you plan to incorporate your home theater into your music system?

If you responded "yes" to both questions, then the purchase of the left/right speakers for music is your most important buying decision. For home theater, the center channel is most crucial.

One could get the impression from recent articles that all 5 speakers should be equal for digital home theater. If cost is no object, that is correct. Watch a movie with only the rear channel speakers playing, most of the time very little is going on .

While the rear channels in digital have the same capability as the left, right, and center, movie producers will continue to use the surrounds essentially for effects, keeping the majority of the audio up front with the video.

Digital surround has enhanced the quality of home theater, but for those of us who do not have unlimited budgets, it is better to apportion your speaker budget according to your musical preferences.

"Home Theater Speakers" is a term for speakers which have been designed for extremely wide dynamic range and dispersion characteristics thought to enhance the home theater experience. Reproducing the dynamic range of gun shots and car crashes, etc. has pushed speaker development in directions which do not enhance music reproduction. What has been lost along the way is resolution.

The typical high efficiency "home theater" speaker does a poor job with music played at moderate levels. Detail and inner resolution is usually lost by a speaker that is also capable of damaging your hearing. Ask the salesperson to demonstrate the system at realistic levels that you would find comfortable for a two hour movie.

Don't let a loud "action" movie demo influence your buying decision. These demos are impressive and are used to sell "home theater" speakers. "Action" scenes are exciting, but there is more to home theater sound than dynamic range.

Five channels of Magneplanars are best appreciated at the end of a movie when you realize how deeply you have become involved in the content of a movie because of the high resolution of the Magneplanars.

CC3

CC3 - Center Channel / General Purpose Speaker - The Magneplanar CC3 employs a horizontal, curved quasi-ribbon tweeter and midrange, which makes it suitable for a number of horizontal applications. All other Maneplanar models use vertically oriented line-source ribbons, which give the best dispersion when used vertically.

Multi-channel music and home theater present a challence - where do you put 5 or more speakers -- a challenge in the "real world"? Sometimes free standing speakers or even wall mounted speakers are not an option. A very nice solution to this problem is the use of 5 CC3's. Because of it's excellent horitontal dispersion, it can be placed on or in a bookcase, or cabinet, or ceiling mounted.

The CC3 operates down to 80Hz. It is all Magneplanar and does not use cones or woofers. You get the same Magneplanar sound from the critical center channel as the other channels in your system. In soundstage.com, John Potis writes, ..."The Magneplanar system is HDTV's sonic equivalent. What it does is highlight previously unnoticed ambient details that draw you into the experience to a whole new level"... "the level of detail I gleaned from the center-channel speaker was startling and revelatory."