Every receiver I have seen will run fine without a center channel -- you just configure the receiver for "no center speaker" and it automatically splits the center channel info between the left and right main speakers.
I'm less sure about what happens if you don't have a subwoofer. Does anyone know if the LFE tracks (the .1 channel) get routed to mains or what ?
The other interesting question to keep you awake at night is what happens if your surround speakers are not full range -- any receiver can send the low notes from surround to the subwoofer if you set the speakers to "small", but only about 1/2 the models will let you send the low notes from center or surround to the mains (assuming the mains are full range).
My recollection was that Yamahas were really flexible, HKs had almost none of those routing capabilities (trust me, I own an HK
) and Denons were somewhere in between.
