I used to listen to multichannel SACDs fairly often and never found my VP100 to be sub-par in comparison to my M22s. Multichannel music will put a center speaker through its paces much more than most movies will, too.

One of the loudest complaints I remember hearing people make about the VP speakers in the past is that they were sibilant, particularly with S sounds. I never had this issue, but I know it's hard to miss a hard S when you hear it so I don't doubt that other people heard this. I chalk it up to accurate reproduction of a poorly-mic'ed recording. Perhaps center channels from other brands would smooth over the sibilance. Also, perhaps the changes Axiom has made to their tweeters over the years have more or less made this issue a moot point.

It would be hard to know for sure without being able to listen to a VP speaker that's 4 or 5 years old versus one that's fresh off the line today.