Thanks for the response! (Also, thanks for the advice ~18 months or so ago that steered me towards the M5s - they've been great).

I'm half kidding about the acoustics. Having a big space to play music loudly and take advantage of the hardware is a blast, but the vaulted ceiling and loft overhang etc is less than optimal. That said, I'm less concerned with optimal than I am with Fun, so no real complaints. As for the aesthetics, all credit to the prior owners, who added this room not too long before we bought the house. We lucked out!

Believe me, I'd love nothing more than to get a VP160, unfortunately it doesn't work with the set up. See below picture for the TV positioning when pulled down - anything on the mantel winds up behind the screen (a speaker mounted on the mantel would also get fairly hot). The center channel needs to be affixed on the articulating mount, limiting the height to 8". I suspect I'm going to be shopping in the DT Mythos/GE SuperSat/other slim speakers category, but would love to shoehorn something like an Axiom OW on there instead, since I think it's a better compromise than going all the way to the super slim products. But it may be a pipedream.

[Linked Image from i.postimg.cc]