...but I worry that it might be overkill when the fronts are M60's. Has anyone had a chance to hear how they perform in this kind of setup?
I run a VP180v4 center with M60ti mains (older than your v1's) and am very happy with the combination. Guessing you're looking at 180 rather than 160 because of height ?
Do they sound overpowering compared to the M60's?
No risk of this -- just make sure levels are set correctly and everything will be fine. IIRC the VP180 was a couple of dB more efficient than the VP100 it replaced, but what that meant was that rather than having to boost the center channel a few dB like I did with the VP100 I could set everything to the same level and get matched SPLs.
And should I be concerned about a V4 speaker not being well-matched to a system of V1's?
I found the matching was very close with pink noise testing (which really exaggerates even tiny differences), and no distinguishable difference with normal content.
I went from VP100 to VP180 and the difference was huge (duh ! :)). IMO it really helps having a full-range center channel even if you are crossing over at 80 Hz like me.
I purchased my VP180 before the VP160 was introduced. I probably would have gone with a 180 anyways (I lean towards the view that if anything the center channel should be even more capable than the mains) but AFAICS I would have been really happy with either.
For what it's worth, the VP160 is actually the center channel that I (and a bunch of other people) were bugging Axiom to produce. And they did !!
