videobruce said:
Do the newer receivers have a "phantom" mode to replace the center channel as my current receiver does? IOW's can they send the center channel to the front L&R in mono and still retain the separate front L&R channel infromation?
I believe that all HT receivers that decode Dolby Digital or DTS encoded audio can create a phantom center channel to substitute for a real one. I have only listened once to such a set up and I thought it was no substitue for the real thing. Someone in this thread already said this, but for movies, the center channel is far more important than the surround channels.
A lot is said about how important it is to have a center speaker "voiced" similar to the front speakers, but it is more important to actually have one. In my own experience, people get a bit carried away with the "similar voicing" issue for the front 3 channels. They don't have to be identical. I found a satisfactory center speaker that has mid and high frequency dispersion at least as wide as my L & R speakers. That way an object that moved across the front stage maintained a locatable sound that did not collapse in the middle as it was produced by the center speaker. This is fine, but it is secondary to how well the center speaker handles dialog clearly.
