center channel...sort of

[sponger]

I have a couple of R50 towers hooked up to my Yamaha 5.1 Receiver, but I don't at this time have the budget for a new center channel.

I had a couple of R15's laying around so I unhooked the tweeter in one of them, wired the two speakers in parallel, laid them flat beside each other in a center channel pose, and hooked them up to the center channel of the receiver.

I realize that wiring them in parallel dropped the resistance to 4 ohms, but I switched the center channel to 6 ohms on the back of the receiver. This also set the main speakers to 4 ohms, but the R50's are 8 ohm as you already know.

Sounds OK I guess. The sound quality from the R15's is nowhere near that of the R50's, but is this what I can reasonably expect from, say, a CSi25 center channel? I do believe that the CSi25 is the center that "timbre matches" with the R series.

Thanks in advance for your input.

[ben62670]

Welcome to Club Polk. I am not familiar with that series, but I do agree that timber matching is crucial to seamless sound stage up front. You might consider selling your R15's , and getting the proper center channel. Also if the center is set to small your receiver should not have an issue driving them.
Ben

[Frank840]

welcome to CP . the R15's should match R50 just Find the R15's are not design to be used as a center. the CSI25 is a perfect match and you can score one of them for around 80 new

Frank

[VSchneider]

Too much trouble, if you ask me, for not enough benefit. Either use one R15 as a center, which should actually sound better after you calibrate than the kludged pair, or through both of them in the back as surrounds. The CSi25 will not sound that dramatically better, either, sorry.

[zingo]

I agree. One R15 would be fine as a center since it matched the R50s, or pick-up the CSR center as the is the center channel for the R series.