Don’t give up on the M22s yet. In my opinion when matched with a subwoofer they rival the M80s matched with a subwoofer the M22s are that good.
However, if I had it to do over again I wouldn’t hesitate to buy the M22s+sub over the M80s+sub for the 12x20 listening area I had in a 20x20 room.
Unless you plan to listen to 2 channel music w/o a subwoofer
Up until now my recent previous posts were half in jest. Those are some strong statements above. Starting from the bottom up, I was originally planning on listening to music without a sub. I mentioned about 2 weeks ago how I had a perception that a sub added too much bass and that a good full range speaker was suppose to have a more "natural" bass. (or at least that was the thinking 25 years ago)
Still going from the bottom up, the last thing I want to say is "if I had to do it all over again". That is the reason why I torture myself on these forums all day. (well not ALL day) The more I'm on the forums the more I second guess myself. I've upped my budget so many times I can't keep track. oldlamps you're NOT alone!
And last but not least: the M22's with a sub "rivals" the M80's with a sub. My room layout is pretty lousy. The M80's are very deep. The speaker on the left will have concern at being too close to the wall. The speaker on the right will almost be out in a walkway. Didn't think much about bookshelves. I went from thinking about the Orb speaker to full blown towers. Figuring in the footprint and expense of stands just seemed to make better sense to go for the towers. Not I'm not so sure.
One of the good (or bad depending on how you look at it) things about the wait time from the Outlet Store is the time you have to iron everything out.
