Matching the center channel to the fronts

If you were to go with a phantom center, would you deactivate the center channel from the receiver/processor?

Shadorne makes an excellent suggestion. There are threads that discuss the topic of "no center channel" in more depth. Check them out. If you are primarily interested in 2-channel then moving up the line for your R/L speakers makes sense. You can always add a center channel down the road if you really feel you are missing something. Four really good matched speakers will probably outperform a mixture of five.

If you have your front speakers set up properly, you really wouldn't need a centre channel at all. The stereo imaging would place the people and their voices where they should be.

If you do eliminate the centre speaker though, you will have to tell your processor to go to phantom mode. If you just disconnected the centre speaker without going to phantom mode, the processor is still going to send all the L+R signal to the center output. With no centre speaker attached, the voices will then disappear for the most part. The instructions for the particular processor should tell you how to do this.

I would say with the 70/30-2channel/HT ratio in which you plan to use the speakers, go with the best 2 channel you can get and find Center that matches as closley as you can get. Keep in mind to consider the fronts that offer a center than you can upgrade to in the future. Should your listening ratio change or Video cabinet get upgraded, you can complete the system.

You said you are planning to use your system for 70% music, but does that mean 2 channel music or multichannel music? If you intend to use your system for mostly 2 channel music, then as others have said, I think it would be a big mistake to downgrade your front mains to match the center channel. Get the best front mains you can afford and don't worry about voice-matching them to the center channel speaker -- it is a non-issue if you are only using the center channel speaker for movies.

On the other hand, if you are listening to multichannel music (SACD or DVD-A) then the center channel speaker becomes more important, but even in that case, I would not recommend compromising the front mains at all for the sake of matching to the center channel.

That said, I am not so sure about the idea of watching a movie in "phantom center" mode with no center channel speaker. Around 80% of the soundtrack (especially the dialog) is directed to the center channel speaker. Having that speaker close to the video screen ensures that dialog will emanate from the actors' mouths, not from somewhere else.