I have a Paradigm Reference CC470 Center Channel that seemed to be working fine for the last week since my entire Home Theater was installed.
Then today, when I went to flip on the TV / Receiver to watch the football games in Surround Sound, the center channel sounded almost like bad "AM" radio. You know - muddy, dull, no highs or lows. I thought maybe the settings wwere off in the receiver, but no such luck. I will tell you that I really cranked the system today to try and break in mostly the front Paradigm Studio 100 speakers since they are new. I only wanted to play 2 channel sound but when a song came on the CD, the receiver automatically chnaged itself to surround sound which included playing the center channel (as well as sub-woofer; and rear speakers) for all CD audio. What I'm guessing is that maybe the high power blew out the center channel. I don't know - everything else sounds fine. Could it just have beena defective speaker (it's only about 6 days old). In the futire, when I get this ectified, should I use the center channel for CD audio? Will I hurt it? Any help you can provide will be geatly appreciated. Thanks.
sudden burst of power? try to hook center speaker up to either L / R channel to see if it sounds OK there. If not, its blown. No defect, just a mistake that your dealer shouldnt know about.
P.S. it is OK to use center in different music modes, as most live DVDs use center for audio signal, as well as rears and surrounds, but its not OK to have volume maxed out if speaker or amp is at clipping levels, for any amount of time, which is what sounds like what happened.
"I will tell you that I really cranked the system today to try and break in mostly the front Paradigm Studio 100 speakers since they are new."
I think, in this case, "break" is the operative word in that sentence. It sounds like you fried at least one driver. Put your ear close to the center speaker and listen for sound from each driver. You've probably blown one woofer and the tweeter.
Those are awfully nice speakers to treat so harshly. Where did you here that in order to "break-in" new speakers you should "crank" your system. As I understand it, simply listening to speakers at moderate levels will do the job just fine.