Unfortunatly, I may have to resort to a Phantom Center. The problem is worse that I thought...
I did an experiment this morning. I sent a test signal (pink noise?) to my speakers one at a time, and walked around the room and evaluated each speakers "tonal qualities" at various points in the room.
What I found was, all the main/surround speakers did change in tonal qualities, but nothing major. I really had to get way off axis to notice any real dramatic change. Fortunately, the off-axis point at which the sound quality changed detrimentally was out of the normal seating positions.
The opposite was true of the center channel. I notice that it had a very narrow axis of good response. Get out of it, and all high end energy just dissapeared as if the tweeter had quit working. Unfortunately for me, although all my speakers are toed/aimed at ear level at the sweet spot, there isn't actually a seat in that position (remember, this is a living room setup). Seating positions are slightly left and right of center, with some being outside this small "sweet area" of the center's radiation pattern.
Remember, i am still new at this, but am learning alot. maybe I have just realized what most folks have known all along-horizontal MTM center channel speakers have some major drawbacks?
I am still researching, but either I am doing something radically wrong, or I find it very ironic that a center channel speakers sole function is to anchor dialog to the screen, which is only really necessariy if you are off-axis of the screen, yet MTM designs (or maybe just my speaker) seems to only work best if you perfectly in front of it and NOT off axis...
-Alan
