Ok, I need some advice. Here's the situation.

I currently have a pair of M22's as fronts, a VP150 for my center, and two pairs of Energy Take 5's acting as the rear channels in my home 7.1 setup (I still have the center from the T5 system, I just don't use it). The .1 is a $300 Kenwood 10" sub that's about 10 years old - it still works pretty well, but it is old. I may not know what I'm missing compared to a modern sub. I have a Pioneer Elite 43TX receiver powering it all. My wife and I are thinking about upgrading our system as a Christmas present to ourselves. Our den is roughly 18x24x10, and we're about a 60/40 mix of movies/music.

Our only real complaint is a lack of low-midrange warmth. I've slowly tweaked the receiver settings for the past couple of years, and it's pretty good now - but we want more. The subwoofer has plenty of power for LFE, but it doesn't seem add a whole lot musically to the low-end of the M22's.

The budget is about $1,000, give or take. I can't decide what I should do...

Option A) Replace the sub with an EP175/EP350 or an SVS PCi 20-39, and maybe pop for a pair of QS4's (maybe even stretch it and get QS8's). I would then hope that the much higher quality sub adds to the overall warmth of the system. This would make our entire system an Axiom one (going with the EP), eliminating all of the other "weak" links. As an added bonus, I'd now have a re-completed Energy Take 5 system + Kenwood sub that I could put in the bedroom.

or

Option B) Replace the M22's with M60/M80's, moving the M22's back to take over the main pair of rear channels (or just moving back to a 5.1 setup). I've always had the 'what-ifs' about the M60's/M80's . I realize that the M22's aren't really designed to be surrounds - so with this option I'd probably eventually replace the M22's with QS4's/8's and migrate the M22's to our bedroom, but that will have to wait a few months.

So I guess this really boils down to the old M60/M80 vs M22 w/ sub debate. What do you other wise Axiom owners recommend?

Last edited by PeterChenoweth; 11/27/06 09:49 PM.