I believe that my secret to my success lies in my Thiel's... they just have superb imaging.However, the clear fault here is that you really just can't sonically match ANY center channel to floorstanding speakers(or at least I have not heard this,as of yet). It also bugs me that one speaker costs MUCH more than 1/2 the price of it's pseudo-matched mains!!! It just don't add up.I can certainly see the need in some situations to have a center but luckily my room's dimentions and equipment just don't require one.I don't really agree with Sean about the differences between HT and 2 ch. setup... mine would be pretty much the same.
Try 4.0 or 4.1 instead of 5.1... it's worth a shot
I just had something I wanted to run by everyone.I was tweaking some on my system and I noticed I got a much better soundstage from setting my center channel processor to "off". I'm not even using a subwoofer...not by choice though.I am now convinced with several trials that not only do I not need a center channel, it actually screws things up due to EQ problems.I have tried this on several set-ups and it was true every time.As silly as it seems I urge everyone to try it.I am using Thiel cs1.5's with h/k avr510 htr.pioneer dv-47a dvd-a/sacd/dvd player and toshiba 65hdx82 rptv.