Chess:
The NHT M5 has a 3.5 inch mid-range as well as a 1" tweeter and two 5 inch woofers. You must be confusing it with some other speaker. I have in-house an M5 (actually 5 of them) and a CSW MC500. The CSW has a 4" midrange on the same plastic baffle as a 1 inch tweeter. The baffle is rotatable. If you play it horizontally you put the tweeter above the midrange. If you put it verically, you roatate it 90 degrees, so that the tweeter is above the mid-range. i doubt CSW would have gone to his length and expense if they didn't feel it helped the sound. Again, I would love to see anechoic measurments of the VP150 at 0, 15, 30 and 45. I would bet loonies to Krispy Kremes that there is a mid-range suckout as you move off axis. Now Ian will say it's not audible. I heard it (not just with pink noise). As I moved off axis I heard a change in timbre of the voice. I attributed this to the offaxis suckout inherent in the design. I do not hear the same change in timbre with the CSW500 or the NHT M5. Have you ever lived with a center that is a 3-way design with a centrally located mid-range and tweeter? I have lived with many. I wanted to love he VP150 but it didn't work for me. It did not sound as accurate (to me) as any of a number of centers I have had in my house.
Quoting Alan is great but there are a number of writers who argue that a properly designed includes a mid-range driver to minimize suckouts. In fact, the only place where I have heard it argued that this is not important is ...here. If it makes you happy, more power to you.
