Distortion from Center (CSi30)

[bobman1235]

A couple times over the past few weeks I have noticed some slight distortion from my center channel. I've only noticed it when watching a movie, when someone is speaking loudly. It was most noticeable when I recently watching the HD-DVD of "The Aviator". During the Senate hearing, Leo was yelling and there was a distinct distortion sound - like the sound you would hear from a cheap TV speaker turned up too loud.

All my equipment is as listed below. I can't imagine I'm underpowering this speaker with the Emotiva, though I've had the speaker for a while and it's entirely possible I caused some minor damage to it (or even bought it damaged when I got it ~5 years ago) due to underpowering in the past.

So I have two questions for my Polk brethren :
1. Is there anything other than a damaged speaker that you can imagine causing this effect?
2. Is there an easy way to test for this type of thing aside from just critically listening to sound from that speaker? I use my stuff all the time for TV / movies, though not often very loud, and have only noticed this once or twice.

And actually, I guess a third question - say I pick up a newer center, like a CSi5 - am I really going to notice that it's not "matched" to the fronts?

Thanks all.

[tonyb]

Do you have the speaker level bumped up on the center?

[bobman1235]

Good question, I don't remember. It's probably up one or two compared to the mains, it's certainly not cranked.

[ivansfo]

In the past, I've heard distortion of this kind caused by a bad channel on the amp. One quick test you can do is to temporarily swap the speaker wires going into Center and one of your front speakers. See if the distortion stays on the center channel or if the problem follows to the other speaker.

If the problem followed to the new speaker, the you need to start looking up the chain like the amp. At the amp, you can then try a different channel for the center and see if it happens.

[Roland P]

I've had the same problem and it drove me completly mad. At the end, I now know what the problems where:

1. Bad amplification. I had a sony db840 which has a too agressive sound.
2. Bad acoustics. 2 hard walls where the sound was bouncing in between.
3. Bad mastering of dvd's. I had a region 2 version of LOTR 1 which was pretty f#.. up.