In my quest for a new center channel speaker, a few people over at Audio Asylum suggested trying the Phantom Center.

Over the weekend I had a chance to try it. I also rolled in the Audience 82s for fronts along with the 42s as rears.

Even though I told my Integra no Center Speaker, the Audessy calibration still sent the signal so I had to disconnect the cabling from the speaker.

I tested with some sections of a few movies.
In Bruges, which has some hard dialog to follow between the accents and fast mumbling.

The Soloist, again with J Fox's fast mumbling and lots of background noise.

Terminator 2 was used for sound effects more than dialog.

The results were very good and I had no issues with the sound of any of it.

I then hooked the Center back up and re calibrated. I played the same sections of the above 3 movies only to find that I actually like the Phantom setup a little better. I could hear the dialog very clearly and the mains were being utilized with much fuller sound instead of just front effects or filler.

So now I am left questioning whether I really need to replace my center or do I even really need a Center? Is my current center, Infinity Beta that bad that it is making the setup sound worse than no center at all?

Anyone here tried this setup? What were your results and conclusions?