Stereo Imaging

Mceljo, Don't play that for your son til his teens. Congratulations!!

I agree with Cdwallace3...."If your center channel isn't improving the quality of your soundstage, you're system isn't set up correctly."

I'll just add that I have been fooled many times into thinking I was watching a movie in Dolby Movie IIx mode (center fully engaged), and enjoying it, only to notice that audio was set to 'Stereo'. But, every time this happens, it sounds better when I switch to the Movie mode, and engage the center. There is no way two horizontally arrayed speakers can compete in terms of precise localization of the image, no matter how good they are, if the center is of equivalent quality and properly set up.

+1 Cdwallace3. Actually your missing a geat deal but if your OK with it then that's all that matters.
The center is somewhat like the audio fulcrum for multi channel dialogue location. Inserting a display on plane between my two channel speakers interferes with two channel staging way too much. Putting the display well behind the two channel speakers sounds horrible to me.

"...if the center is of equivalent quality..." - Pmcneil

I can't disagree with you on this, but is the home theater advantage big enough to warrant spending a little less on the mains assuming the same overall budget? It's all about choices for people working on limited budgets.

I probably would have the matching center in my system, but I simply couldn't find any furniture that it would fit in.

Hearing a significant difference with the addition of a center channel is a little different than not missing the center when you don't have one.

My position is if you have good mains set up right and they are imaging well the center hurts the system in most cases since the center is usually a lesser speaker.

Now this is only true if you are sitting in the sweet spot. Anywhere else in the room the center is critical. The center is for everyone else.