The wider sound stage (for the center channel) is what I was hoping to achieve. I've noticed that when watching a movie or even TV that if I switch to stereo the acceptable listening zone for the dialog increases noticeably. Another issue I was hoping to solve was that my current center speaker is located about 2' below the center of the screen. This at times can be distracting because the voices appear to be coming from below the screen instead of the character's mouth.

To elaborate a bit on my plan, I would use a pair of bookshelf monitors (not traditional center channel speakers) and place them on either side (right on the edge) of my TV and about centered vertically to the screen. If I take the time to initially set them up using stereo signals I can get the sweet spot centered pretty easily by adjusting the toe in to minimize any frequency cancellation effects. Once that is done I could wire it to my center channel and rerun the room correction to get the sound level and delay reestablished.

I am hoping my approach will come closer to the ideal situation. My understanding of what is considered the perfect solution is to have all 3 of your front speakers be identical. And then place the center speaker directly behind and in the center of the screen. Of course this would require you to have an acoustically transparent screen. Since I can not get to anything even close to that setup I'm looking for the next best thing.

I've read a bit about people trying 2 center channel speakers (traditional horizontal designs)and placing one above and below the screen. This approach has not been well received nor would I have expected it to work well. There are numerous issues with using a horizontal M-T-M speaker design. Although they can be designed with reasonable horizontal spread they have a very narrow vertical pattern. If you now try to align two of these I would think you'd wind up with a very narrow vertical sweet spot. I have found only a couple of references to using 2 center channels placed on the horizontal plane, but those were done using conventional center channel speakers and they were placed very close to each other. Again the results where not acceptable.

Thanks to both of you for your feedback. I'm hoping to hear more from some others. I was really hoping someone might have tried what I'm about to try.

Thank You,
Mark