Thanks for the answer. In the old days leaving a channel with out a load was a bad thing. And as I just said, I thinking more and more about sticking with a 5.1 setup.
Going to start over my search. BTW, I agree about the different sound from the different makers. Even within brands. I live over an hour from anywhere, so listening to anything that Best Buy doesn't have is hard! Even Best Buy is almost an hour away!
JD