Crimson:
Welcome to the forum....gorgeous finish on those speakers!
Many of us with center channel speakers find dialog is much more intelligible if we set out receivers to "bump up" the center channel output by a couple of dB. I realize you don't have that option, but I point it out because I believe on many TV shows and movies, dialog is mixed in a little low.
I first became aware of it with "ER" where the actors dialog wasn't always crystal-clear especially in a trauma scene. I think the management did that to help increase the feeling of realism.... that sometimes people DO talk over one another and don't speak clearly. I've seen it more and more over the last ten years or so.
Or, I'm getting old.
Point being, I'm not surprised that there are times when the dialog gets buried a bit when using Left and Right speakers only in "phantom center" mode.
Here's a question that's on-topic for the thread: Are there any receivers that allow you to adjust output level on a channel that doesn't exist?
