Quote Originally Posted by kexodusc
Wooch, I'm not sure it's as simple as that. I've experienced first hand more than a few home theaters that had mismatching center channels, the amount of variance in tone anywhere from small to huge. I can quite easily recall going through this with a one of my own systems where it was preferable to have center channel speaker that sounded "different" than the mains, instead of no center at all. This became immensely important when a second person entered the room and I no longer could enjoy sitting in the "sweet spot". For anybody who doesn't get to sit in the sweet spot, or has more than one person in the room during movies, you'll really miss out not having a center channel, and all the phantom imaging in the world does nothing the further off-axis you sit.
In this case, the few annoyances in changes of tone while panning can become tolerable.
This is especially significant for many of todays razor sharp imaging speakers.

It's admittedly a trade-off, mismatch tone for a wider, and more realistic soundstage...but a lot of speakers can sound similar, if not exactly matching, and it can often be a worthwhile trade-off under the right circumstances.

Once the buyer determines whether or not he or she can sit in the sweet-spot more often than not, and for how many people they wish to please with this system, then they can decide which route to take.
For a bachelor, the phantom image approach is a great idea. For those of us with women in our lives who love to watch rediculous Hugh Grant movies in DTS, a bit more consideration is required



But on these points I'm absolutely in agreement with you...I'd sooner ditch the surround channels than the center channel, which contributes far more than just dialogue to overall presentation. Some of the "virtual surround" DSP's do an excellent job these days.
If anything I would go cheap on the surround channels (unless multi-channel audio is heavily in the picture) in order to ensure the front 3 speakers are as good and as closely matching as possible.

Just my .02 cents.
In regard to unrelated speaker brands sounding similar.
Is there a site or method, or if you or someone has personal knowledge of which center speakers might closely match up with different fronts.
ie. I have NHT front speakers with an inadequate JBL mr center speaker but would be interested in other centers that aren't NHT
Which speaker brands would be compatible ?
Thanks