Hello Virtualexister,
Hope you are well. I agree with JohnK, they would sound better if you had them spaced farther apart. As far as the M22's vs. the towers, they are only comparable to the M60Ti and M80Ti if you like the M22s sound. The M40Ti and M50Ti do not use the 5.25" driver in their design, they use the more laid back 6.5" units without a midrange driver. The M60Ti has one 5.25" midrange driver which is the same driver that the M22Ti uses as its two woofers, and the M80Ti has two of them as a dual midrange. The only advantage I see to going with an M60Ti is that the 80Hz to 200Hz range is reproduced by the larger dual 6.5" drivers, this is assuming you are keeping an 80Hz crossover, but your Vocal range from 200Hz to 3,000Hz is going to come from the single 5.25" midrange instead of coming from the two 5.25" drivers of the M22Ti. I see that loss of a 5.25" driver as a disadvantage. So, as you can see, there is an advantage and a disadvantage depending on what you want, Mid bass boost with the M60Ti, or stronger vocal range with the M22Ti's. The only way to get the same sound of the M22Ti and get the mid bass boost is to go with the dual driver everything M80Ti, which I believe would be too much for your listening area. I think an ideal speaker would be an M22Ti with one 6.5" woofer added to it in a tower configuration, but alas Axiom has not designed such a speaker yet.
A couple other things to ask yourself:
1. Is the M60Ti going to sound $400 better than an M22Ti?
2. Am I going to listen to them without a subwoofer, then the M60Ti will be better, but still benefits from a Sub.
3. If you are married, what will the Wife think of the bigger speaker.
Later,
TonyM
