Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Center channel or surrounds

Hi all,

Had a quick question, I currently have the M80 v2's as my fronts running phantom center and M22's as my rear speakers. Would it make more sense to trade up the m22's for a VP160 or just keep the rears with no center?

Thanks

Are you the only viewer/listener?

You can successfully listen with a "phantom center" mode if there are just a couple of people watching, but it doesn't work as well with a group. Even with a couple of people, the center "image" will shift if you sit off-center, but some won't object or even notice.

I think most people would be happier with surround speakers, though it could be argued that the M22 are not ideal for that anyway.

No, my girlfriend and I regularly watch movies.
I do play ps4 from time to time.

Also, I am about 9 Feet from the M80's and they are 6' between them. I'm sure with the addition of a center I would need to space them better.

Well my plan is to do the upgrade program on axiom's site and get something more suitable. The VP180 I think is overkill, so I'm between qs4's/8's or a VP160

That's a tough one. I've played around with a phantom center vs dedicated center and I think the dedicated center sounded better. I personally would lean towards trading up for the proper surrounds.

Here is a few pictures of the room for reference;

It is 13.5 x 14.8
I am open to any suggestions, products, placement etc

Main Seating - approx. 8ft from speakers


Hallway view


Facing couch
[/URL]

Looking how you have the room setup with the tv in the corner, I don't think you have enough room to add a center in that configuration. The left/right mains would need to be wider if you incorporate a center. If you rotate everything including the furniture clockwise a bit, you could make use of that longer wall, spread out the mains, and then have enough seperation to add a center.

In addition, I'm not sure if you were trying to simulate a surround environment by aiming your 22's the way you have them, but you would be better off moving them to the left and right of the seating area closer to the walls and aiming them towards the seats. That way the surround affects would be proper for 5.1 channel.

Also, if you rotated the room clockwise a bit, you could use the 22's for rear channel, get some Qs8s for the side surrounds, and get a center. $$$$$$$$

My girlfriend moved the 22's so I could get the serial number to see what they're worth, not necessarily where they'll stay.

Just wondering where my money would be best spent

Chris, a separate center speaker has the advantage of keeping the center image fixed for off-center listeners(the phantom image shifts as the listener moves to the side). It also has the advantage of making the center channel volume adjustable independently of the mains, which would allow for increasing the level to help with low-level dialog.

Be that as it may, the phantom center can be satisfactory in many situations, and my view would be to instead look first to improve the surround sound. With the M22s I wouldn't think that the best effect would be with pointing toward the front(as the left one is in the picture), rather with them pointing inward toward the couch, or even backward for a more diffused surround.

If a change in speakers will take place, my suggestion would be to trade the M22s in for QS8s.

I assume that you have a compelling reason to keep the present diagonal arrangement rather than placing the fronts and TV along the wall to the left.

Not to throw a whole load into this.. but have your thought of getting the better QS8's and then look for a cheep center speaker online to augment? I know that many of the newer movies have moved to using the center channel as a full effect full sound speaker, but for a $25-30 experiment.

To just experiment, I would hook up one of the existing M22s for a center channel.

I would vote for upgrading your surrounds to QS8s, and seeing if you can temporarily use one of your M22s for a center channel.

I have a potential solution that won't cost anything...
It does mean moving the tv and M80's out, and the seat back a hair, so the M80's are the same distance from the center of the couch as they are each other. This will help, you might not like that you'll lose a bit of the living rooms square footage but I promise you the difference in sound quality will be worth the effort. Try to keep them at least 8' apart on center and 8 feet to your seat. 10'-11'to the seat would be better if its achievable.
Second (I've done it before and it can work well, hear me out)...once the couch position is solidified try moving the M22's up near the front of the arm rest facing the back of the room and toed slightly away from the listener.
Re run your audio calibration or set your levels and you're done.
2 hours tinkering and I'd be willing to bet you won't regret it.
And, in the end, if you do regret it you haven't lost anything but a few hours time.
My $0.02.

So you're saying to put the speakers close to the armrest pointing backwards and angle them away from the couch?

I am open to moving my components no problem, only issue is the wall isn't straight on that side, it sinks back in halfway through like this...

________-------------_

I could possibly move it all to the other side of the room, set
up the speakers properly and report back... if only Axiom had my bulk speaker cable

Yep. Close to the front facing back and to the side +/- 10°.
Or
Move them as far away as you can in roughly the 110° position.
Can't really hurt to try.

The wall should be a non issue, having a bit or room behind the tower is a good thing. It might make up for the left tower being in front of the window (never know).
Axiom did sell a nice solid black coated wire.I recently seen a clear/black cable on their newest video.

I ordered some the other day, it is shipping Jan 20 because they're out of stock.

How about something like this.



In this scenario using proper surrounds would be the way to go?

Thanks again guys, you're awesome!

Just did the trade. A set of QS8's ordered.

Woo hoo

So you answered your own question from the post before?

That layout looks good. The QS8s will work just fine from there.

I'm impulsive.. lol.

I didn't answer my own question, but I'm stuck dealing with placement in this room. Maybe in the future I'll wall mount and grab a VP160...near future

Chris, since the QS8s will be side surrounds, if you mount them on the back wall rather than the side walls you should separate them as widely as possible. This is to keep as much of a "side" effect as possible, despite their placement on the back wall.

I was planning on putting them on the back wall as rear surrounds, probably the same distance apart as the M80's are (around 9") I'm only running a 4.1 with this setup.

You can't use them as rear surrounds. The surround speakers use the output of the surround channels, which is side surround material. The rear or back surround outputs of a 7 channel receiver can only be used if the side surrounds are in use. Rear surrounds are an addition to, not an alternative to, side surrounds.

So putting them 10' apart would do the trick?

The best placement would be on the side walls, even with, or just a foot or so behind the listening position. If placed on the back wall they should, again, be separated as widely as possible, maybe a foot from the side walls.

Should work well.
If you can try to maintain the equilateral triangle between the centre of the love seat and the M80's.
And don't forget your sub would ideally be placed where it works best for the room.
And (lol) the 87.5°-90° position on the wall,inline with your ears, to the sides of the love seat)may also work for the QS8's. Slightly ahead of the 90° location can have an added benefit IME/IMO.

Here is what I ended up with. I will have to put the QS8's on the back wall because the entrance to the room is left of the couch and a 6' wide window on the right ( no wall to mount it to )
I can put them far apart that is no issue.

What is the ideal height to mount the QS8's?

Most surround material is heard best with the speakers above ear level. 2-3' above is typically suggested.

what a transformation! Congrats.

Do the M80's sound better?
Did you settle on 8' apart and 8' to the centre of the love seat?

I would have said, get everything out of the corner, put it against the flat wall, keep the m22's, and get a center channel.

And don't put your surrounds up high. keep them at just above Ear level when sitting down. With everything moving to positional audio like Atmos, DSU, DTS:X the QS8's are hard to work with, and it's important to keep the rear surrounds away from the ceiling where heights will eventually end up.

Matter of fact,if I were to redo my system nowadays, I'd really consider all bookshelves or on-walls all around with a good center channel and two good subs vs having big speakers like the m80's up front.

Well looks like I'm keeping the m22's now. Axiom won't take the stands in the trade up even though the website accepted them, invoiced me and I've paid it. I wish I knew about that before I spent 40 minutes shrink wrapping, bubble wrapping and securing everything for shipping.

Disappointed

Thanks for all the help guys

Personally, I think you lucked out. I'd keep the m22's. When I look at your setup I can not help but giggle a little. My woman always had a thing with putting TVs in the corner - and I hate it. She gets it from her mother of course, who always had floor model tv's, yup those ugly ones, shoved into the corner of the living room. LOL. TV's do not belong in Corners.

The only thing with the QS8's is that they make a very clean and tidy setup. Where bookshelves for surrounds are anything but.

Now, order that center

Here's some new shots of my completed (without furniture or curtains) HT room.

Before


Moved to different wall


Painted


Cable ran & tv mounted


New AV rack


Completed


I need to get my furniture and curtains sorted out, can't decide which center to go with for the size of my room. My m80's are almost overkill lol. Room size is 13.8x12.5 ish.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome!

If no TV Stand anymore, on wall VP 150

Mount below the TV. Nice and clean. Check B Stock and refurb area. There is a Non on wall vp150 there now if you want to wall mount it (and you can do that with a Axiom full metal bracket)I have this done in my theater and it looks very nice. It makes the speaker look like it's floating. Of course I did not have a stud in the center so I had to mount a piece of pine to the two studs first, then attach the speaker. You can't see any of that from the front though.

As for what version to get, that's usually a matter of matching the fronts. So get V2 right? well, for me the V4's do sound a little better and the VP150 sorta needs it. Your call.

btw, the room looks %100 better!

Looks nice, but you are killing your sound quality. Try to bring your speakers at least 7" more away from the wall. It looks like you have at most a 2-3" gap.

Having them that close, I find muddies the sound and gets to muggly.

yeah, my m80's sound better further out, and further apart.

Very nice. Love the new colour of the room.

Might sound strange, but I would think about hanging the TV out from the wall a couple of feet so you could pull the speakers away from the wall and not have things look wierd. Would also let you use a conventional center channel in the future if you wanted.

Besides, moving the screen closer is like having a larger screen at no extra cost

I always thought it would be neat to build a frame like that to hold a TV or something, then add a few long slide-out drawers to hold your disks at an easy-to-see height, but have them out of sight the rest of the time.

something else to consider. The room has downwards pot lighting. That leaves much to be desired with lighting the room for a movie as it casts hot spots and shadows on the screen.

Look into running a strip of those tap LED lights with a dimmer directly behind the top of the TV. If you went colour it would be even more spectacular. That way it adds a mood light to the room while watching TV and it glows away from the viewing area rather than onto it so you don't get the screen detrimental effects.

Coloured screen bias lighting is a bad idea if screen colour accuracy is important to you. But it is a nice effect when watching in a darkened room.

As far as pots go, you can get bulbs that have narrow dispersion and will spotlight the floor directly below them and will not wash out the screen if this is an issue. Good pickup from eagle eye Matt.

I don't watch TV with the lights on anyways, so as much as I dislike the pot lights, they have to stay.

I can pull the speakers away from the wall, they'e about 5-6 inches away currently. I bought black out curtains today, so now i'm on the hunt for an area rug to match the curtains and walls to a certain degree.

I have a full sized sofa coming within the next week or two, so I'll move the furniture around and see what I'm dealing with in terms of acoustics. Currently the room has a nasty echo, I'll see about acoustic panels once I get a rug in there.

Thanks for all the kind comments
Keep them coming!

Just an update to this thread.

I lucked out and found a VP180 v3 in the refurb section ! YES!
Ordered a stand to go underneath the tv to put the VP180 on and store my blu-rays, game controllers etc.
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/product/nexe...andStore=nexera

Have a 11x9 area rug in there now as well.

I'll post up a couple of pictures once everything is in and set up, need some cheap acoustic panel solutions next...anyone? anyone?

Thanks

Hey all,

Here are some updated pictures of my setup, got everything hooked up and calibrated last night.

Thanks for looking