Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Music w/ Center Channel or Not

Just got my M22s, VP100, EP175, and QS4s. Very exciting. However, being new to the high quality audio thing, I had a question: should I use the center channel speaker when listening to music, or only for TV/movies? Is there some rule of thumb or is it a matter of preference? Thanks for any input.

its all a matter of preference..

some people prefer the sound of just running your fronts with the sub(2.1 essentially), for listening to music.. while others prefer the all channel, and DSP modes(prologoc, neo6, etc).

i would suggest for you to listen several diffeent types of music, and switch from mode to mode and see which you prefer.. different types of music will sound better/worse, depending on your preferences.

have fun, and let us know which way you end up liking the most.

bigjohn

Congrats on your new system.

I completely agree with BigJohn. It's a matter of taste. And to my ear some cds sound better in different modes than others (ie. solo artists vs. big band).

Wishing you many hours of listening pleasure.

I vote for preference, also. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't depending upon my mood.

I sometimes set the Denon to 5 channel when I'm in the adjacent kitchen or study just to boost the sound.

When I had mismatched speakers (Axiom fronts, no-name rears) I didn't like the sound of 5 channel music at all. Now that I have Axioms all round I find that I generally prefer listening in 5 channel rather than 2 channel.

I still tend to 2 channel for "really serious listening" (ie when I am doing nothing but sitting in the "sweet spot" listening to some music) because the imaging is tighter and because I haven't found a mounting position for my center channel that doesn't colour the sound a bit, but the other 95% of my time I normally just set to 5 channel.

I use Neo:6 the most but some pieces of music just sound better with Logic7 or PLII because Neo:6 tends to either place all the instruments in the surrounds or in the center channels with that particular recording.

The wife has some favorite slow dance music. I set the Denon for Pure Direct, she usually shows up. Loves the sound. We dance.

I hadn't considered 5 channel since I'm still negotiating with wifey on placement of the QS4s. So far, not having experimented on a wide variety of music genres, I like the music without the center channel better. Maybe it's because the M22s are up higher than the VP100. I'll do some more experimenting though. Thanks for all the thoughts! By the way, I'm extremely happy with my speakers so far. The M22s sound fabulous with the music I have listened to.