Flatscreen between speakers

@elliottnewcombjr

Don’t Skip a Center Speaker, even if it has to be small, or behind something, try one

There are very good reasons for not using a centre speaker, especially one which is in effect a horizontal d’Apolito array!  As soon as you move away from dead centre, the outer drivers create an interference effect, or comb filter.  If your main front left and front right speakers have good imaging capability, let them do what they are already good at. 

Your pre-processor should just add the centre signal to the signal for the two front speakers - my Marantz ones all do this.  My main system is configured with two main front speakers, and two rear speakers, plus four ceiling speakers and a subwoofer.

“And never the Twain shall meet…

my experience has lead me to believe that 2 channel and HT have no business being seriously pursued in one room. Doing so allows for too much compromise to do either side justice (unless done temporarily for experimental purposes).

@ticat   +1

@ticat

@dayglow

+1

It's hard to believe a screen it causes such issues but suppose if so you should have as many do,  a cover that deals w/ the effects ! 
problem solved ! amazing creativity ! 
got to have a C channel as part of the HT !  and the 11.2 HT uses the L and R speakers !  it actually sounds great playing music thru the HT system ALL the 11.2  speakers but if you are an old curmudgeon purist and want only 2 channels good for you ! - but you are missing out ! 
I have Vandersteen, Yamaha, Sony and the best ,by far  are unquestionably !  the vintage Allison acoustics! 
the wide sweet spots and convex cone tweeters and mids  are all enveloping and when everything is designed to reflect and  reach the boundaries equally when all the sound energy has already become difuse  it is magic as Roy allison desired! i doubt any other speaker does it as well and w/ 11.2 of them ? OMG awesome !   
ALL 40+ speakers! only until we get done refining them then we will keep the Allison 11.2 HT and move the others to other rooms and / or sell them! ( the yamaha and Sony HT are lower -mid end speakers except the Yamaha NS1000M -great for 2 channel!  The Vandersteen sound great but are a PIA to get lined up and have a narrow sweet spot and are huge taking up a LOT of room.But they made like 40- 50K of them for 40 years so used high-end is now avail for $200-800 a pair!   the model 3,2 and 1's ! 
sadly ALL  their VCCc channel series 1 up to # 5 are crap the co-axial design just does NOT work!  $3k speakers selling for $200 ! 
they have all  been sent to GR research for testing and crossover fixes! proud we can markedly improve the low end NS6490 millions of people all over third world countries have and for the price of cheap ali express crossover $5 pair ! EG can make them SO much better! ( we bought and tested a heap of cheap 3 way  x overs! $.99 to 12.00 pair !  SO many low end speakers do not even HAVE ANY  crossover !  just a couple caps to protect the mid/tweeter so ANY crossover ( almost ) is a huge step up + the cheap, scrooge like  speaker makers are running the poor things, 3 ways as full range speakers!   i call it the proletariat speaker project! LOL 

the C channel is supposed to be your BEST speaker for HT so it makes sense to use one of your L & R speakers reconfigured horizontally, and w/ the drivers re-aranged tweeter on top of mid  as a HT C channel and the woofers (2) as close together as possible either side 
does NOT make sense ! whoever said make the C channel small! NO ! and IME a 2 way is lame and insufficient as they are wont to do & all have a apparent hole where the Mid Hz  should be ! 
i also use a dedicated sub just for the C channel as there is a surprising
amount of low HZ material there ! esp TV commercials! LOL