Hi,

I own an Axiom Epic 80 system. My center is a VP150.

My question is could I gain something if I add a second VP150?

English is not my born language and for movies I need a center that is loud and clear to hear and understand the conversation.

Of course I try to increase the sound output from my a/v receiver but the result never fill my room.

My room size is 15 x 30

Thanks for your help and recommendation.

Eric Chapman

Is your current vp150 at ear level, or pointed towards your ears? Do have your speakers calibrated to the same SPL dB levels? Of you run two of them, can your receiver handle the combined 3ohm load you'll get by doing this?

Eric, I feel your curiosity. I just picked up a VP150, and it certainly is a fine center channel speaker. I have room for 2. I've been thinking of a hit 'em high hit 'em low kind of thing.

Has anyone actually tried such a monstrous center array?

Certainly Ian has! That's how Ian and Amie run their HT.

Most people bump up their center speaker a few dB for just the reason you suggest. Have you tried that?

That said, more speakers is almost always better! I was running dual M22s for centers for a while and really liked the results. They have since been relegated to the bedroom system, since it was overkill for my HT room.

You have a big room so I take it you have a big television or projector. You can defenitely benefit from dual vp150s. Not only will it give you more output but this will also centre the dialogue much better. Location is key with centre channels so I would first try one below and above the screen and tinker from there and see what sounds best to you.

BTW what are you powering your system with?

The output will more or less be the same (both speakers are powered by the same amp; the VP150 can take 400W so the speaker is definitely not the limiting factor in your application).

The advantage you will get is improved "anchoring" of the dialog on the middle of the screen. This can improve hearing of dialog simply by making lips movement and sound direction more realistic for your ear/eye coordination (do not underestimate how much the brain works and uses feedback to improve hearing).

I have 2 VP150 and it helped quite a bit (always felt like the room was a bit skewed whether I put one on top or bottom).

I think Rick from Vero Beach is running a VP150 and VP100 and seems to be completely satasfied with that setup.

I have run a VP150 and VP100 and it does help center the dialogue on the screen, is it more intelligible? not to me. i just run the single VP150 3-4 db higher.

There is also the possibility that the issue is your room, not your center speaker. If you have a lot of flat bare surface area (walls, floor, ceiling) you may be getting a lot of late reflections that interfere.

Also, if you have one or several large peaks in the frequency range of dialog, your center chanel will be calibrated on those peaks, and the rest of the frequency range will be low possibly reducing intelegability on dialog.

To echo some earlier comments, before you buy another speaker, increase the level setting on your center channel by ~3-4 dB over your other channels to help improve intelligibility of dialogue on movies. I find this very helpful in most movie soundtracks and if that's not enough, Ian has also posted a few times that he does this as well in his setup.

If that doesn't work, far be it from me to stop someone from buying more speakers.

Jason

I would also suggest trying different placements (re-calibrating each time), with your single vp150 and see if that helps any. Can't hurt trying.

Good luck,

Dr. House