big screen - two channel system enough for dialog?


If I have a large screen (100"+), will I need a dedicated center channel to hear dialog well??

My priority is music, and movies are mostly drama and comedies where dialog is critical. Surround effects are NOT a priority. Many folks here believe you can get much better value from 2 channel systems, but I am getting older and dialog intelligibility is key.

I am concerned about blu-rays needing to downmix from 5 to 2 channels and with such a big screen and separation of my mains, will two channels just make the dialog more diffuse??
tswei99
I've gone through 3 or 4 center speakers, and was never satisfied with any of them, due to their inability to render the human voice as well as my L/R tower speakers. I did not find any improvement in dialog intelligibility when using a center speaker. The biggest drawback with all of the speakers I tried was that they could not reproduce the baritone quality of male voices, no matter what crossover settings I tried. I finally have just decided to use the phantom setting with my L/R mains.
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I've gone through 3 or 4 center speakers, and was never satisfied with any of them, due to their inability to render the human voice as well as my L/R tower speakers. I did not find any improvement in dialog intelligibility when using a center speaker. The biggest drawback with all of the speakers I tried was that they could not reproduce the baritone quality of male voices, no matter what crossover settings I tried.

Agreed. That's why I use a full-range tower laying horizontally as my center channel. Anything smaller was inadequate and a waste of time.
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Marakanetz, the link below should give you an idea of the
room and the layout. When the room is my everyday living
room, the couches are along the walls. When I get ready to
watch movies, I move the couches so that they face the
screen. I sit 30 feet from the screen. You can see the
center channel on the floor at the bottom of the screen, I
place it on a platform that raises it two feet off the floor
at movie time. The room is 22 ft wide, 70 ft long and 22
feet high

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?vhome&1178590685
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