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RE: So, do I really need an HT receiver?

Posted by David Aiken on September 3, 2010 at 13:32:42:
As Brian A said, a centre channel anchors MOST of the dialogue to the screen (there is always the occasional off screen dialogue that comes from one of the other channels). It also tends to make the words clearer because there is always some comb filtering when you're listening to a "phantom centre" and that isn't present when the words are coming from a single speaker.

I tend to think there's also a gain from reducing the amount of other channel info downmixed into the L and R channels as well.

The problems with having a centre are two. First, it needs to be a reasonable tonal match for your L and R speakers otherwise the tonal character of a voice will change as it moves to or from one of the left or right speakers as will happen occasionally. If that's a big tonal change, and it can easily be a big change if the centre is a poor tonal match for the other speakers, it can drive you crazy. It did when I tried using a couple of different centre speakers with a 25 year old pair of KEFs—they simply didn't match tonally. The other problem is that you don't want to have more than 12-18" difference in height between the tweeter of the centre speaker and those of the other speakers otherwise the height difference can start to cause problems.

A good centre speaker which matches your L and R speakers is a really good upgrade and a 3.0 or 3.1 system is definitely better for movies with surround soundtracks than a 2.0 or 2.1 system if you can find a centre speaker which is a good tonal match for your existing speakers.