Or get a different TV stand!

the reason i don't need a center speaker is the fact that the great majority of the time i'm all alone watching movies or TV and i sit right at the center.
the right side chair is rarely used, a max of 3 hours a week, all in one sitting.

as i'm always sitting dead center, the dialog is always dead center too.
the dialog is also very easily understandable.

if i really needed a center speaker, then i would surely install one, most probably suspend it from the ceiling, as JC suggested.

I usually sit in the center of my setup also. My remote allows me to rotate between the different audio formats. I find surround setting with my 3.1 setup to be much improved over stereo sound only.

if you look at my room, you'll see that i can easily do both:
use the remote towards the rack at the left and do some changes by hand, as the rack is at arm's length.

for me, this arrangement is ideal.

My point is, a real center speaker sounds better than a phantom center speaker.

could very well be, i don't know.

Yes,mainly for movies!

I'm not so sure about this. (Not that i have evidence to the contrary, either).

A phantom center would be perfectly matched to the mains, of course, since it's created by the mains. And if you're sitting dead center, I don't see issues with dispersion of sound.

To me, the benefits of using a separate center involve anchoring the dialog to the center image when people are sitting outside of the sweet spot, and having the ability to "bump up" the center by a few decibels to increase intelligibility of poorly-mixed soundtracks (though some receivers might allow the phantom channel level to be bumped as well.... I don't know)

Amazing how people that don't have centers say it doesn't sound any better with one. lol.

All the extensive testing I did of various center speakers and using a phantom center fits exactly with what you say Mark. There can be benefits as you mention, however there can also be issues especially with tone changing between the speakers even identical ones.

@ J. B. I wouldn’t even think of using a center speaker in your setup. It certainly wouldn’t be worth the money and IMO based on a similar setup I had it would likely sound worse than a phantom center because it would localize the center channel too much. The only thing that will sound more seamless than what you have now are headphones, but then you’ll lose the midbass punch, so stick with what you’ve got.