It is inherently acentric, though a center could be imposed on the collection by brute force methods. Because this collection transposes and inverts into itself at every even-numbered transposition level, only two distinct pitch levels exist. There is only one transpositional level, and the collection is completely symmetrical and undifferentiated. Articulation of a Center Music that makes use of a collection or collections may or may not articulate a tonal center. Further, if a tonal center is articulated it might be a single pitch or a set of pitches.
Music employing the diatonic octad often articulates two centers in conflict with one another.
Octatonic music may or may not articulate a center or conflicting centers, while whole-tone and completely chromatic pieces rarely do. Sometimes the component subsets are all members of the same set class, sometimes they are distinct set types. There is a naming convention for centered diatonic collections that relates them to the orderings that obtain when each of the white notes of the piano is used in turn to begin a diatonic scale consisting only of white notes.