You don’t really need a center speaker (if the décor police won’t permit it)
Wrong—unless you're planning on watching alone
The center channel is the most important in the layout: It anchors dialog to the screen (where it belongs), and provides the center-reference for music, effects, and spatial ambience soundtrack elements. A “phantom center,” projected by the front left/right speaker pair (provided you set center to “none” in your receiver’s setup menu) works — only — for a single, perfectly centered listener, as long as they never move their head. The best center speaker is one that’s identical to the left/right pair, or competently designed to match it both tonally and spatially.
