At that distance I don’t think one foot is going to matter as long as the distances are set in the processor. My L/R mains are 12’ and my center is 11.5’ from the center of my seating but they are all 11.5 away measured straight out from the row of seats.
Traditionally the front 3 speakers are suppose to form an arc all being the same distance from the listening position but I find with HT that’s problematic since the listening position is so wide. For me pulling the mains out to form an arc with the primary listening position makes each one stand out to much for the nearest seat. IMO the arc thing only works well if the placement of your mains is much wider than the seating. By all means tweak your positioning because you never know how thing will sound for your room/preferences.
At that distance I think you’re a great candidate for a M22 center. I only listen to stereo tracks in 2ch but for 5.1 audio (I know there’s not as much out that as I’d like) it’s my opinion that the M22 center is far superior to the VP150 (haven’t heard the VP100). IMO vertical centers are always superior to horizontal one for music.
BTW if you have the capability don’t cheat yourself on multi-channel music especially if you can play DTS or lossless audio tracks. I was just doing some tweaking of my mains and am constantly blown away at how much better my audio DVDs with 5.1 DTS tracks sound compared to 5.1 Dolby and 2.0 Dolby or PCM. Lets not even talk about how the lossless tracks that came on the demo disk with my Oppo BDP-83 sound.
My advice is that you order both M22 and VP150 and demo them both keeping the one you think works best. You’d only have to eat $15-$20 return shipping depending on which one you send back. Though you might not want to sent the M22 back even if it doesn’t suit you as a center. When I ordered a pair they were to compete with QS8s for the rear position in my apartment. The QS8s won due to the proximity to the seating. However, the M22s sounded so good I couldn’t send them back. Since then I’ve even used them as my mains in a smaller room and fell price for performance they are Axiom’s best speaker. They do however, need a subwoofer for the bottom end IMO.
Cheers,
Dean
