The way my living room is configured it would not be possible to place the speakers 2' away from the walls - they will have to placed either next to the sofa or slightly behind but 2' is not possible
If you get stands it will give you some flexibility to experiment with positioning a little which is what I suggest for anyone who has the chance. If you have corners behind each side of the sofa you might try putting QS speakers right in the corners so that the tweeters are facing along each wall. I got really great results doing that in my apartment. It did make the bass a little boomy around 80-90Hz so I just set the crossover to 100Hz with no problem.
The room is on the smallish side - as I said it's a living room in an apt - it's appx 1600 cubic feet - 16'Lx13"Wx7'8"H
That’s almost the same as my apartment was 16x12x8 so I can say the speakers you have selected will work in a room that size however you might want to consider a different approach. For reference the speakers you are looking at 2xM3, 1xVP100, 2xQS4 come to $868 USD from the factory outlet.
If you plan on using a subwoofer all the time including music I would consider the following. 3xM2 (L/C/R) and 2xQS8 which comes to $840 UDS. The reason I suggest these is that having 3 identical speakers up front is considered ideal for a seamless soundstage and the QS8s are from what I’ve read noticeably superior to the QS4s. IMO the M2s sound identical to the M22s when crossed with a subwoofer at 80Hz in my present 21x13x8-12(vaulted) room and the M22 is a fantastic speaker. The M2 is not much taller than the VP100 and should fit under most displays. Also the M2 is a more neutral speaker while the M3 has a slight bass hump to simulate deeper bass for use w/o a sub. Not to say it won’t work great with a sub some people love it.
The M2s save you enough money to upgrade to the QS8s which will serve you better when you eventually mover to another larger room should you choose to build on your investment rather than replace your speakers later. Which is that other point in changing is creating a more viable upgrade path. The M2s and QS8s have the same driver complement as most all other popular Axiom speakers (M80, M60, VP180, M22) and will IMO better integrate with them if you upgrade later. For example, should you move to a larger room and which to upgrade to the M80s and VP180 the you could move two of the M2s to the rear to serve as surround back speakers. You could also then buy one additional M2 pair it with the third one you already had and use them as wide or height speakers in a 9.1 configuration.
Not that you couldn’t successfully use a pair of M3s as surround backs but the VP100 might not be enough in a larger room and I’m not sure how much you could sell a single used VP100 for. Plus by upgrading to the QS8s you have a more capable surround speaker for any size room but also one that will be much better in a larger room.
Also the factor outlet speakers are fine. 13 of my 15 Axiom speakers have come from the outlet and I’ve never seen a problem with any of them. Some people have reported very minor cosmetic issues but that’s all.
Sorry so long.
Cheers,
Dean
P.S. Build your own stands or purchase something locally and save some money. Even QS8 stands can be made or if put in the corner shelves could be cut out to allow for the bottom firing diver. That’s how I’m doing the ones on my back wall if I ever get in gear again
