Is this a reasonable upgrade path?

Hello,

My home theater setup for the past ten years has been as follows: Center - Stage, L/R - Summits, Surrounds - Vantages, Rear - Scripts, Sub - Descent x 2. My room is 34' deep with a bell shape (curved walls) where the front is 22' wide (screen) and the back flares to 28' wide (2 rows of seats).

I am wondering about upgrading my center to the Illusion ESL C34A. It looks like it would be a big step up for multi channel movie watching. But I have questions...

1) Would the timbre of the Illusion blend seamlessly with that of the Summits (several generations back)?
2) For a bell shaped room where the center is located at the narrower end (behind an AT screen), is it better to have a concave front panel (like my Stage) or a convex panel (like the Illusion), acoustically speaking? (Back in the day I couldn't afford the Theater).
3) Has anyone else upgraded to the Illusion, can they comment on it's sound quality and were they happy they did it?

I'm surprised no one has replied yet, an interesting question. I have the Stage center and find I have to boost its bass and lower midrange to tone-match my Theos speakers. I've wondered about the C34A too, but it's pricey.

Interestingly, the Infinity Renaissance 90 speaker I've used for a center channel matches the Theos sound very well, superior to the Stage. Since you have an acoustically transparent screen, I'd take advantage of that and find a used single ML ESL speaker. I've seen custom-built center channels using ML ESL, but I'm not sure that's necessary.

Renderdog said:

Since you have an acoustically transparent screen, I'd take advantage of that and find a used single ML ESL speaker. I've seen custom-built center channels using ML ESL, but I'm not sure that's necessary.

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That's a very interesting suggestion! Certainly using another Summit as the center would be seamless and less expensive (at this point). Do people do this? I guess they must. I have this naive idea that the center needs to be wide to disperse the sound across the screen (in this case a 235:1 anamorphic). The center designs certainly look nothing like the narrow panel of a Summit. [mind blown]

Bonus question: to go with this setup, would you recommend Electromotion Rs for inceiling atmos or can you go with something more aimable like the Monitor CT 380-IDC (which I can get for a better price)?

You're right that a single Summit as a center might not work great as a center, maybe someone who's tried something similar can share their experience. You could use digital processing to blend a bit of the center to your Left and Right speakers, something like Yamaha's digital Lift. I use that feature to raise my center's sound to my screen, but it does fog the dialogue a bit.