I have been tempted to try going with 3 M22s as L,R, and a center, but from browsing the forums it sounds as if the M2/M3/M22 speakers are not video shielded as well as the 100/150s. Is that correct?
I ran an M2 center for a while -- worked OK with only a tiny bit of fringing if I had it "tweeter down" on the TV. Ended up buying a VP100 rather than another M2; partly for the shielding, and partly to see whether the 2nd midrange made a difference.
Having said that, you could do a LOT worse than starting off with 3 M2s and a big honkin' sub. You need a big sub to fill that room... more than you need big mains and center.
There was a post out a few years ago about the reduced shielding on the M3s-don't get closer than six inches from a CRT. Not aware if that same stipulation applies to all the other bookshelves, but it sure did for the M3s, had to run mine vertically and inverted to function correctly as a center-and it does that quite well as long as the room isn't too large.
But Yup, there's an ancient post out there talking about it.
bridgman--Did the VP100 sound better than the M2? Did the second midrange make a difference?
It seemed to make a slight difference. I was pretty careful to match the levels but the VP100 still sounded better, which surprised me. Very hard to describe -- "more open" is the usual term but no idea how to translate that into something measurable.
BTW, I noticed that a center composed of 2 M2s wired in parallel sounded a bit better than a single M2 in pretty much the same way.
I found there was a huge jump from "no center" to "single M2 center", but much less jump from "single M2 center" to "dual M2" or VP100. Then again, I can also listen happily with M2 mains and a good sub so the combination of room size (13x23) and listening levels are not too demanding.