Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Anybody using an M60 as a center?

Hi FN,

First, welcome to the forum. Although I haven’t listened to every horizontal center in existence of those I have listened to I’ve yet to find one I liked. While not everyone notices or is bothered by the tonal differences inherent in differently designed speakers I am (thankfully I don’t see the DLP rainbow thing). Now when you amplify those tonal differences by differing placement between the L/R and C it drives me nuts.

In all fairness to the VP150 I didn’t notice the tonal difference with the M80s at first. But once I compared a multi-channel SACD and stereo CD and realized that the front soundstage sounded better without the center, then I started noticing the difference in almost everything. The biggest problem area for me is male voices. For me horizontal center speakers make male voices sound flat and lifeless (it’s also the same with some music) in comparison to vertical tower and bookshelf speakers.

I tried the recommendations in this article:

http://www.axiomaudio.com/tips_center_channel_sound.html

I found that moving all 3 front speakers away from reflective surfaces, sitting farther away and using a 80Hz crossover helped considerably but I was still bothered by the tonal difference.

Just so those reading this don’t think this is unique to the VP150 here’s an article that tested other speakers.

Intro:
http://www.audioholics.com/education/loudspeaker-basics/vertical-vs-horizontal-speaker-designs

Conclusion:
http://www.audioholics.com/education/lou...evaluation.html

Some people tout their center speaker as sounding as good as their tower mains the AV123 Rocket RSC200 comes to mind. To which I say, then why don’t you recommend to new buyers just to get 3 RSC200s and save lots of $$$$.$$ over the towers. I have yet to see anyone advocating using 3 horizontal center speakers crossed over at 80Hz across the front which if they sounded just as good as towers and cost lots less would make sense.

I’m curious why you are ordering a M60 rather than a M80 as a center. I believe the cabinet heights are the same. I trust jakewash’s assessment that the M60 worked great but if you don’t already have a M60 to use why not order an M80 just for piece of mind? For that matter you could always order a VP150 too and do the comparison yourself. I believe the return shipping for a VP150 is only about 20 USD.

Just to recap here are the relative advantages I’ve notice between the VP150, M22 and M80 centers when matched with M80 mains.

VP150
- ease of placement.
- less expensive than M80

M22
- less expensive than M80 and VP150
- male voices sound more natural.
- better tonal balance (pans across the front smoother).

M80
- male voices sound more natural.
- better tonal balance (pans across the front smoother).
- better dynamic impact across the front by using 60Hz or 40Hz crossover.

Cheers,
Dean