An update to my components.
I went out yesterday and bought a Panasonic CV52 DVD and a Hitachi 725U DVD. Sometime this week, one of them will go back.
I also took the M22s i was evaluating and set them up as surround speakers to the M60s in the front.
Then i watched Black Hawk Down.
THe movie was very fatiguing. I felt like i had been sitting in an hour long firefight. But the action aside, i can't say i was too impressed with the surround sound. The movie sound was fine, i am referring to the arrangement with my equipment.
It is taking awhile to get all the tweaking done right but my most simple observation so far is that the M22s were too much for direct surrounds. I can tune their outputs down a bit and move their locations somewhat but even with using several of the Onkyo's surround formats, i just didn't find anything was working. The M22s still seemed to take too much of the sound stage away from the M60s. Gunshots always sounded like they were coming from my left/right ear instead of whizzing from front to back or whizzing from left to right (as SOME of the effects should have done).
I'm going to do some more tweaking today but i am hoping the QS8s i ordered might take away some of this direct sound and diffuse it a little more obscurely.
I would however consider using one of the m22s as a rear centre channel laid on its side.
