I'm about to order a new center. My current centers been good, has aluminum drivers and generally sounds good but its now the weekest link.
I would like to know which center would be better for my room.
The VP180 is the mate to the M80's but some would say the design of the VP160 has the edge over the VP180.
There are very few reviews online for either model.
We no longer move the loveseat from the sweetspot which is 3 meters from the front my current center.
A larger family room/HT is always on my mind. I just want to avoid another upgrade.
Thoughts?
There are reviews around for both, not on their own individually, but usually integrated with the entire L/R, center, surround speaker arrangement.
Anyway, you really can't go wrong with either. With them you are getting in to the design of a full-range center speaker which with today's BR lossless movie soundtracks, to me, is almost a must. The best test of this is when you have one of these large centers for awhile in use and then re-connect a smaller version, then you will almost immediately wonder why you didn't make the change earlier. I certainly did.
Others who are more versed in the design aspects of these speakers could probably speak better than myself about them however, the VP160 design of the tweeter on top of a smaller mid-range theoretically provides a slightly better "off-axis" performance whereas the VP180 horizontal speaker array is for a more linear vertical response. These differences are subtle so, when making your choice, like myself, it is just a matter of size, weight and space limitations which in my case, because of the considerably large depth of the VP180 and even though I have the M80s as "mains", the VP160 was the more practical choice for my particular set-up.
