Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater similar topic (m22 as center)

Sorry for the similar topic, but I searched through the other threads and did not find an answer to my question. My question is if anyone is using a single m22 horizontally for a center in their setup. I currently have the m60's and vp150. The vp150 to my ears does not seem to match well with the m60's as far as timbre goes and to me does not sound as good. Does anyone else feel this way because to me it is plain as day. I'm looking for other options because after an extensive search for great speakers I seem to have found them in the m60's. I really love them, but need to find another speaker for the center channel. Thanks for any help.

I believe Jason (Jakewash) has tried various combinations of centers. Two M22s in a horizontal tmmmmt layout worked well, but a single m22 either horizontal or vertical did not (or so I remember).

I'm a little out of my depth on this so maybe while you are waiting for someone more knowledgable to come along you could post a little more detail about how your center is physically set up (stand/cabinet type etc.)

I have done a lot of reading on this site over the last five months and do not recall anybody else having trouble with the timbre matching so I suspect it is a setup issue.

I'm glad you like your M60s. I had a chance to listern to them and the M80s at Axiom and they are both very fine speakers!!

Edit: Oh, and welcome to the forums. This is a fine group of people to hang out with.

Welcome to the boards and congrats on the system. You should only possibly notice a timber change when running pink noise. With all other material you should be fine. I would really look into playing with the placement and checking that all of the driviers are working on the VP150.

I've had mine above the TV, above the TV by 2' and below the TV in front of it. The Vp150 is versatile and can be flipped to aim the speaker flat or angled up but you still may need to use some shims or door stops. To me the best results I've had is directly below my screen in front of it.

The last thing to check is that your system is balanced properly and that you do not have any settings engaged on the receiver that may manipulate the sound.

Good luck.

There have certainly been people running single vertical M22s as centers, as well as a few double M22s or M2s, but horizontal M22s have not really passed the test. You'll get better dispersion vertically.

Of course a real man would just slap another M60 in there...

Available vertical space often doesn't permit that.

Real men do not slap.

Mojo in his center shootout found dual M22's orientated horizontally to be exceptional. I have been pretty much set on M44's as the center channel ever since his post. Why would M44's juxtaposed vertically be better than horizontally? When situated horizontally they mimic a typical center channel. Just a question as I'm obviously not as well-informed as many people on this forum.

Center shootout

Oh, I wasn't clear. I meant a single horizontal M22 didn't fly well.

Me, I'm generally against the mondo center channel trend. More speakers, more widely separated in the center, and you're just going to be muddying the stereo image. Use 2? Great, keep 'em pretty close together and away from your mains.

Would 2-3 feet separation between the center and mains be enough? That is the most separation I can achieve.

Thanks

Probably so. I'm just reacting to stuff like the monster center that Jakeman has in his pics, where he has 2 M22s flanking the TV, with a VP150 above it, and then the M60s about a foot away on either side. I know he doesn't really run like that, but still...

You’re exactly right Ken. Too close and you might as well have one. Too far apart and you might as well run a phantom center because they screw with the entire sound stage. I messed with my twin 22’s for days till I finally got the distance between them “just right”. In my room, which is 12’ wide, they sound best right about 28” apart - center to center. I’m considering buying two VP150’s now and mounting one over the screen and the other over the screen. The main reason being that due to the screen size, the 22’s are about six inches lower than the mains and sometime vocals just don’t seam to come from the screen, but from below it.

Is there anything real men do besides belch fart and drink beer (in their HT of course)?

... and then, there's Ken.

Oh, and whatever you do, don't lick the rainbow head!

I love it when JP confuses himself with me.

Or maybe I meant Tom.

Laughing at the Shout Box today. Good stuff.

Mdrew did I need your post correctly that you spread your two M22's 28 inches apart? I called Axiom and told the gentleman that I was planning on positioning them horizontally side-by-side but no recommendation was given as far as spacing them out. It's not recommended to position them horizontally directly side-by-side? Here's a picture of my room for reference. Apparently I need to post some updated ones

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Mike's are vertical, though. When Jakeman Jakewash (duh...) did it horizontally, afaik, they were right next to one another.

Ya, what Ken said. AFAIK, if you want to place them horizontally, you might as well get a VP 150.

Wow, thank you for all the replies and the welcome. As far as placement goes, I tried my usual spot, about a foot below my tv and also above the tv. Unfortunately I still got the same result. Also my old center channel, Polk csi3, seems to sound better with dialog to me which is where I find the vp150 to be off. To my knowledge the speakers are working properly. At this point I'm not sure what to do because I really love the m60's, but I don't think I can live with the center channel. I might be able to squeeze 2 m22's horizontally below my tv but how would I wire them out from the receiver? I have two unused channels since I only use 5.1, but would that mess things up as far as sending the right audio to the right speakers? Thanks.

Maybe order up a VP100 as it does sound ever so slightly different than the VP150, but also seems to have less placement issues regarding SQ as well. I have both and the VP100 is still a great center and is basically the M22 just not ported but designed to be placed on it's side.

I've used dual horizontal MTM centers for a long time -- MTMMTM -- and although I take a lot of cr@p whenever I post this, it works really well.

As many who want to teach me Loudspeakers 101 so accurately point out, long arrays of speakers tend to 'beam' -- the center lobe of the diffration pattern gets narrower, and the usual +/- 20 degree off axis seating recommendation that accompanies most horizontal MTM's shrinks.

But audio is all about compromises, and although you can notice differences in FR outside the center lobe more than with a single MTM by paying attention as you move from one seat to another, these differences are overwhelmed by the overall improvement in SQ provided by more radiating area and reduction in required excursion for a given SPL.

And once you start improving on the basic setup -- both speakers facing straight ahead and together -- and start angling then and spacing them to best cover your seating positions, you can almost always do better than a single unit (IMO).

This setup works well with 6.x" or smaller MTs, MTMs, or TMM's.
If you have the space, identical full range speakers in all positions is the way to go -- full range implying the ability to generate concert levels down to 40-50 Hz without distorting higher frequencies. If you don't have space for vertical designs, horizontal W T/M W designs do have an advantage in horizontal dispersion and distortion, but you have to pay for it.
And of course there are coaxial and full range driver systems.

If you have an acoustically designed room and have a large budget, you can do better (obviously). If you are after pin-point imaging any horizontal array is questionable. But for those of us who find the price/performance of quality two-way systems optimum and who have typical TV setups requring horizontal speakers, doubling the center can and does work.

As an added bonus, you have the thing that makes this work best -- an additional amp channel so you can power each speaker individually.

And -- I've NEVER heard an above-the-screen / below-the-screen setup work. Not only are the centers too far apart to integrate, but the different refection patterns from the floor and ceiling keep the sources "psychoacoustically distinct".

Finally to address the question you actually asked :), different voicing for the VP150 vs the M60s:

IF the difference you hear is in the lower midrange and bass, two ported M22's will get you closer to the 6.x" woofer in the M60s, but for best results you'll need banded or parametric EQ on the center channel -- and you are still going to need to cross to a sub by 80Hz.

Things you can try that don't cost any money:
Run you sub xo up to 100 Hz either on the VP150 alone or globally.
Play with any center channel EQ you have.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I doubt anyone here will give you crap revealing your non-standard center channel arrangement -- especially since you defended it so well.

Welcome, and stick around.

Yes, welcome GG, and certainly no crap. An observation might be that if you found the dual center to be of advantage while the horizontal configuration was something of a disadvantage, the next experiment(if you haven't done it)is to flip the centers onto their ends and try a dual vertical center, such as Mike Drew and some others here use.

John, I have tried vertical centers above the screen. It has not worked for me personally because I tend to place my TV's a little higher than many do. With the base of my centers over 5' in the air, moving the center of the sound source even higher away from the screen (MTM on end as opposed to MTM on it's side) tends to dissociate the sound more from the screen. Also, vertical orientaion reduces the sound radiating off the TV screen, which may improve frequency response depending on how much baffle step compensation was designd into the center speakers, but that reduction of the 'extended baffle' effect detaches the center sound from the screen even more.

Thanks for reminding me about dual vertical centers -- because of the factors above it's been a long time since I tried it. I'd certainly urge anyone to try vertical placements -- it's all about tradeoffs and the best way is to try things in your setup and see how they sound. My only point to the OP is not to be afraid of placing speakers side-by-side. The diffraction patterns that develop are certainly an imperfection to be aware of, but in everyday residential setups the benefits of multiple centers often outweigh that disadvantage.

Just curious if this is actual listening tests or just hearsay?

Edit: Nevermind, you have never heard that setup.

Well, I've never heard it either, but I'm gonna set it up and I think its the greatest one ever. All you guys that don't like it are stu... oh, never mind. Wrong forum.

If I can ever get proper connections between my pc and receiver, I'll let you all know how it sounds to me.

I've heard this setup many times in venues ranging from living rooms to home theaters to commercial listening rooms. And I've tried it many times myself, with different centers at different heights off the floor.

An above-below center setup is usually a subjective improvement over a single center setup when using 5.x" or 6.x" woofer centers in larger rooms and mid sized theater rooms, but does suffer from the problems I mentioned above (its all about tradeoffs).

If we are to believe that the center channel is the most important because it gets dialog, in an HT setup why then would we have mondo LR eg. M80 and a small center? If a small speaker works best for a center, wouldn't that mean that large LR are pointless?

Just for argument's sake, if dialog is the primary reason for the center, it doesn't need to be huge. Dialog, while covering a surprising frequency range still does not cover the same frequency range as music (which, unless I'm mistaken, features slightly in certain movies.)

Fair enough -- I'm just curious here, not being argumentative. I'm still mulling options while I wait for spousal approval on my purchase: I've read enough disappointing reports on the VP150 that I'm thinking about trying a vertical M22 center (M60 is too tall). I got to thinking, though -- a number of people here have praised the M2 (but not the M3 for some reason) as a center, so how might it work having a dual M2 center, with the two stacked vertically?

So the idea is that the LR speakers do well to be bigger for movies because they play the score?

Heck, I'm just making this up. I believe at the time I was reacting to a practice among certain members to use 3 speakers as a center (Jason's famous picture), which I may also have been misinterpreting.

Anthony, as I said a couple months ago on your center channel thread, a vertical M22 is fine for a center speaker. If you mean actually stacking an M2 directly on top of another one, that's an interesting experiment, but I don't see any advantage over simply a slightly less expensive single M22.

Well, it'd be 3 drivers vs 4 drivers, no? I got to wondering if the M40 might have been short enough and engaged in some time travel to see how high it was (33.5" BTW). Found a photo of Aldo Nova with a stack of Axioms and read about the tiny QS2.