WID-I think you might have hit the nail on the head with reguard to the center channel...

The reasons I placed the speakers so high was several reasons:

1) I based my placement off where real theater speakers are placed. (above ear level)

2) To keep them out of harm's way (I am not so worried about these inexpensive speakers being broken as much as I am damage to the wall if someone knocked one off).

3) Symetrical placement; With my TV being "in-wall", placeing the center channel on the fireplace mantle will block the remote sensor of the TV. The TV is abnormally high to begin with, and weights 230lbs, so moving the TV up, and placing the center speaker underneath poses its own set of problems-not to mention the mantle would block some of the sound. Since the center channel is so high, I didn't want to place my other speakers much lower than it to keep the symetry. The other speakers are slightly lower though.

So, in short; my placement options were extremely limited. I did "close off" that open space above the TV by building a sort of wall using a 6x1, and directly mounted my center channel to it. The remaining surface area on the front of the 6x1 is lined with sound-deading foam. This also allowed me to pull the center channel foward out of that "hole" and is actually forward of the TV screen.

Initally I had been doing ALOT of searching for better lifestyle speakers, but found that quite a few speaker companies incorporate a "boundary compensation" switch for just this very reason! Funny thing is, even the "reference" line speaker that looks almost identical to the center channel I have now includes that feature, yet they left it off on my "budget" line speaker; even though it has the same placement options as the reference one.

I am now currently looking as the possibility of modifying my existing center channel to incorporate this feature and see how the results are.

I figure, its cheaper than buying yet another speaker, and if I just bought another speaker in the first place, due to poor placement might end up with the same problem, so it can't hurt to try!

-Alan