It's likely that I'll be spending a portion of my tax return on a 975. Currently the hub of my system is my TV because my old Denon receiver has no HDMI capability.

Right now my room is set up with stereo speakers and a LFM-1 only. I'd like to continue with this configuration for a time, mostly due to laziness.

I've gone through the 975 user manual and noticed that its speaker configurations do not include 2.1. It appears that I could select a "5.1" configuration, then specify "none" for the center and rear speakers. This should create no problems for stereo sources, but I'm wondering how multi channel movies will be handled. Will rear and center channels be dropped, or will they be mixed into the main left/right channels?

Has anyone done anything similar?

Even when I take the time to properly wire the room, I probably won't want a full 5.1 or higher. Though I have one that is well matched, I've always felt center channel speakers are redundant in nearly all situations. I've always felt there is minimal return on investment beyond a good 4.1 full range quadraphonic + sub configuration, and if you are adding small or low quality speakers to the system, the additional channels are a detraction.