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 You can spend a long time considering your choice of main speakers, surrounds, and subwoofers for Home Theater. The overwhelming majority of the sound from the various happenings in movies, however, comes via the relatively unobtrusive but vitally important speaker that covers the center channel. The center is, of course, where the dialogue is, but the center-channel speaker also carries a good share of other on-screen sounds, special effects, and music. It is an important speaker to get right — especially if you use either Dolby Digital or the "Wide" mode in Dolby Pro-Logic, in which the demands on the center channel increase along with the wider frequency range covered. The Stratus C5i and Stratus C6i are our best center-channel systems. Both of them are designed not only to get the clarity of speech in movie dialogue to its highest level, but to cut through the complex layers of Home Theater material so that what the actors are saying is always intelligible, even when the sounds of mayhem — from the screams of volcano victims to the thundering menace and molten hiss of hot lava — get incredibly dense and demanding. Add emotion-tweaking music to the menace mix and you are asking a lot of a speaker. If you are going to get the kind of impact and clarity you bought Home Theater for, the center-channel had better be good. Both the C5i ($549 US in standard black finish) and C6i ($799 US) use four speakers — a pair of midbass/midrange drivers and a pair of 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeters — to combine maximum sonic texture, intelligibility, and impact at your viewing/listening spot. In both cases, the two pairs of drivers are more than up to the complex job of maintaining clarity and definition of the most densely layered sound. The difference between the two models is primarily in power handling and maximum sound output, and therein lies a story worth understanding: The power demands of Home Theater material can be enormous, and the "curves" involved are not the same as those of music. It is entirely normal, especially in the various special-effects thrillers specifically meant to wring out your emotions to the maximum, to have long stretches of continuously loud "background" sound, with the voices of the protagonists having to come in tellingly over that backdrop. If you are using Dolby Digital or the "Wide" mode of Pro-Logic, the load gets still heavier as lower frequencies get into the picture. And things become still more demanding with increasing room size, audience size, and personal definitions of how loud "reality" is. The C5i's power handling (150 watts) and power range (10-200 watts) are such that we don't hesitate to recommend it as an all-out "Stratus" product, as Lawrence Johnson did in his review in the Stereophile Guide to Home Theater of the "Stellar" system based around Stratus Silvers, Stratus Minis, and the C5. It will stand up to the most complex material at loud listening levels in good-sized rooms. What that means gets conveyed pretty convincingly in Johnson's review: "In the opening scene of Patriot Games, for example, when you first hear Harrison Ford's voice on his own answering machine at home, then — in the same conversation — switch to "live" half a world away, but with Ford off-screen to the left, then actually pan to him speaking, the C5 tracks the changing acoustics with eerie realism and in perfect flow with the towers [the Stratus Silvers] to left and right." It is hard to ask more of a center-channel speaker than that kind of clarity and impact. To enjoy it, however, on the most dense, widest-range, many-textured kind of movie soundtrack — heard at lifelike levels in a big listening/viewing room with a half-dozen or more people watching with you — you may need the added margin that the C6i provides with its bigger, larger-magnet drivers. On most material at most volumes, the C6i will not noticeably outdo the C5i, but as the tornado roars or the lava flows or the jets fly through a big living room and your ears want to keep track of what is going on, the C6i will shine. If you like the finish of your speakers to shine as much as their sound, you may want to opt for the high-gloss black versions of the C5i ($649 US) or C6i ($899 US). Whether the finish is matte or shiny, there is plenty of sonic sparkle in both speakers. Stratus C5i, Stratus C6i Specifications in HTML with US Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price or PDF. Owner's Guide PDF available in:  English (151K), French (169K), Spanish (172K).
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