As some of you know I've completed my new basement HT room so I'm now looking to fill it up. If I can gather the courage to make one more large purchase I'm thinking about replacing my M3's and VP150 with something new for this room. I have my eye on a pair of M80's and a VP180 with a new pair of QS8s for the side surrounds and using my existing QS4s for the rear surrounds.

I currently have an old HK AVR630 which I believe should be able to handle the 4 ohm load of the speakers. I know it's only rated 75x7 or 90x2 but HK way over built this receiver plus I have no money for a new one right now!

The room is ~3000 cu ft. It's rather wide too at 23' which brings me to wonder if I would have any significant off angle issues with the VP180. Of course the poor folks sitting at the extreme edges aren't going to have a very balanced experience anyway but I decided to go with this design because it will be better for watching football games than a traditional two row HT room. Pros and cons like anything. My seat in the center of the room is all that really matters, right?

Here is a diagram of the room.

I always spend a lot of time over thinking big purchases like this. I wanted to see if I had thought of everything that I should have. Some really great and helpful minds around here that I figured I'd put to good use!

Ben, considering your diagram(which doesn't actually show the other seating)and speaker choices, it sounds good to me. Of course if you have a concern for wider center channel dispersion you could consider the VP160.

That room would be ideal for width speakers... The M3's would probably do just fine. A Denon 4311 would work nicely.

Maybe down the road I'll look at additional speakers. I'll definitely be getting a new AVR but prob not for at least a year. I think in the short term my concern was driving all those 4 ohm speakers and if the VP180 would be a problem. Even if the VP180 isn't ideal for the folks sitting on the edges (I haven't completely decided on seating yet) I think that would be the least of their issues. Thou I did decide to get a plasma for the room so they should have no issues seeing.

Ordered!

Ben that's great! What finish did you decide on? Also what are you presently using for a sub?

I have a similarly shaped room, in that it is wider than it is deep. I have M80's a VP150 and 4 QS8's. The imaging of the center channel, I have found, is not the issue; no matter where you sit, you know that voices are coming from the center. The issue I had was the imaging of the L and R speakers. Positioned perpendicular to the back wall, gave the person on the left an earfull of left channel and not much of the right - same for the flip side. I currently have quite a bit of toe-in (L/R pointed right at center listening position) and this has helped tremendously. From the far left seat, the L speaker is 10' away, but the R speaker is 17 feet away.
For the sweet spot, the toe-in has narrowed down the sound stage a bit, which is not too apparent when watching movies, but more apparent when listening to two channel.
The QS8's are so forgiving (and so good at what they do) that I think one could mount them across the front wall and they would still do their job!

You should be very happy with your purchase. Of course, we'll require pics when you're done.

I've spent so much money on this basement project + new TV, etc that I just opted for the default cherry. Plus my existing QS4's were already that finish.

My current sub is a DIY. I'm either going to build two new identical subs or consider looking at something professional. My thoughts about getting the M80's was that I wouldn't need a sub for music (most of the time). I'm pretty happy with my efforts at building subs for movies but for music, that's a lot harder IMO.

Everything you stated is what I suspected. Most of the movies will only be watched by my wife and I so none of this will be an issue. When friends come over they'll just have to deal with it I guess. None of them are anywhere near as passionate about the sound as I am anyway.

Of course I'll be posting new pictures. I have a running thread on the HT forum of my remodel process which is complete. I'm going to put together a new album once I get everything setup the way I want thou.

One crazy idea I heard (I mean seriously crazy) is letting your *friends* sit in the sweet spot occasionally. I have never tried this myself, but thought I would pass it on just in case...