How important is the Centre Speaker ?

Kkm, you may be doing something wrong. You have to program your processor to 'NO Center', so it knows to send the center information to FR & FL speakers. Otherwise the center information will still be going to the center channel speaker, whether you have one there or not.

For music, where there is no screen to get in the way, the center front speaker is far and away the most important. This has been true from the earliest days of stereo sound, and did not have to wait for multichannel discs. For movies or TV I think that the best solution is two center speakers close to each side of the screen. This is better than diverting the center signal to the more widely spaced left and right front speakers.

I've tried both and prefer with the center channel. It seems more focus and involving. The other thing that bugs me about phantom channel is that on some DVD extras, it doesn't work without a center, all I hear is the info coming from the LR, I think they assume I have a center, or am I doing something wrong?

The better your main speakers, the less need you have for a center channel, even for off axis listeners. Speakers that image well can hold a strong center image even if off axis. A dedicated center is usually placed below or above the screen (with the exception of perf screens). The voices never sound like they're coming from the screen. A phantom center actually makes the voices sound more like they're coming from the screen.

Depends on your room and seating, if you have poor seating arangement with few good seats...a center is very important. Nothing worse than watching a movie and having the voice come at you from left or right of the screen.

In larger room with great seating flexability you may prefer no center speaker at all because voices will be center as they should be.

Dave

Not important at all to me. I've tried many different center channel speakers, and found no center channel to be the best option. I prefer the 'phantom' center channel. I believe if your front speakers image properly, the center speaker only messes things up. That's my $.02.

Very important. I think people should use the same speaker that they are using for their mains for the center channel.

Something like 60% of voices come through the center, so to me very important. You could make your receiver shift this audio to the fronts, but I personally don't like that.