NRC measurements at 15 and 30 degrees (certainly in front of the screen) will prove or disprove this suckout. Anyone know where to find them?
Regarding the audibility of improperly timbre matched centers and lefts and rights, given the dynamic and transient nature of sound, I think you'd need some pretty poor matching speakers to be "audible". Truth be told, the vast majority of centers (even expensive ones) use an MTM arrangement. All the measurements I've seen show pretty severe suckouts at 30 and 45 degrees off axis. Then why do manufacturers continue to make them: marketability, pure and simple. As has been alluded, the wife won't allow something tall above or below the screen, hence we suffer from poor off axis response. Now I realize that the VP150 is different. It hasn't been proven to me (either by listening or measurements) that it doesn't suffer from the same poor off-axis response a traditional MTM. To me, it sounded rather lousy, chesty, the drivers didn't sound integrated, and I heard timbre changes as I moved off axis. Did I hear it with music: see above re the transient nature of sound.
