To add to the quandry, I called Axiom and spoke to a rep (Brent).
I explained my room and as soon as I mentioned M60 he jumped on it but also said I needed a center (VP100) as we do watch a lot of TV but not a sub with M60. He may well be right.
Micah - both you and Grunt seem to stress the sub with M22 so still scratching my old bald head on that one.
IMO for just watching TV and light classical the M22s or M3s alone should do a fine job. For movies or music with substantial bass you would want to use a subwoofer to get the full effect.
The M60s would overall sound better than the M22s without a subwoofer IMO even for TV and light classical as well as for the occasional movie because they will have more bass. As long as you don’t plan on watching lots of action movies and trying to recreate the “theater” level bass feeling then you shouldn’t ever need a subwoofer with the M60s. If making or buying inexpensive stands for the M22s locally is not possible then the M60s are a much more attractive option.
Unless you plan on having people sitting off center from the screen then it’s my opinion a center speaker is not necessary in the same way it’s not necessary for stereo listening . I almost never used a center speaker in my apartment since I almost always sat in the center seat. The advantages of using a center speaker are that it anchors the dialogue and vocals to the screen for those sitting off center. Additionally, it allows you to control the volume of the dialogue and vocals separately so they can be turned up without having to the everything up often making the rest of the sound too loud. However, most receivers have a night mode or other feature that compresses the dynamic range making it easier to hear the soft passages without the loud passages being to loud.
One other thing - how big a deal is it to hook all these components up? My buddy bought a HTIB from Costco for $400 and spent another $600 for a Harmony and the Geek Squad to hook it all up.
It‘s not a big deal to hook things up. Denons are a little less user friendly to set up than Onkyo in my opinion but even they aren’t a big deal if you have someone to talk you through any sticking points. I bought my speakers wire a Lowe’s. Wire might cost you a little more if you get something special to run under the carpets then I would go with something like Blue Jeans cable. Places like Lowe’s and Home Depot sell cable guides that can be run along the corners of a wall or along baseboards and look ok. For the longest time I just put thick throw rugs over the cables running to the back of my apartment and never knew they were there, but that option could be tough depending on the room layout. I’m sure others will have better suggestions on how you could run the wire for surrounds.
