ShowMan

Hi,

I've just moved into a new house with a big family room in which I'd like to set up a decent home theater with the equipment I already own (i.e. I just moved into a new house and don't have the cash to buy a good home theater system right now and I'm making do with what I've got).

For a television, I've got a Panasonic CT-32HX42 which is a decent HDTV ready 32" flat screen

http://reviews.cnet.com/Panasonic_CT...-20578356.html
Neither system is great, but the Panasonic has a good picture and the Aiwa has decent sound with DSP surround sound, BBE and so on.

I've read the simple introdcutions to setting up a home theater (e.g. this one: http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/...rspeakerlayout. php) but have a few questions about applying those ideas to the equipment I have.

Specifically, the Aiwa I have has no "center channel speaker" and no subwoofer. It does have to smaller surround sound speakers and two larger front speakers.

In my last house I had all four speakers on shelves about five feet high with the front speakers located above the corners of the television and the surround sound speakers a few feet further out from them, all along the same wall across from my couch. I had all kinds of problems hearing the dialog whenever I tried to use surround sound from the DVD player or from the television.

My question is mostly about the lack of the "center channel speaker." If I set things up in the standard configuration, front speakers above the television and surround sound speakers slightly behind the couch, then will this give a decent audio experience? Will I be able to have all the nice surround sound effects and hear the dialog?

In the past I've been disabling the speakers on the television, but I could enable those. If I did that, would they act as the "center channel speaker?"

Additionally, is there a best configuration of sound settings on the DVD player, stereo system and television? Each seems to have a few different settings; e.g. surround on/off, BBE on/off etc.

Any advice is welcome. Thanks.