Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Center Channel Placement

I was looking at buying the Epic 80 - 600 system along with stands for the CC and surrounds for a media room I'm working on. Due to some ceiling height constraints (the ceiling drops to 6.5 feet in one section due to a heating duct) I may have to drop the height of the CC stand from 16 inches to 12 in order to fit a 100 inch screen on the wall. Is this going to significantly affect the CC sound and muddy up the dialogue from movies? I was thinking about putting some extra carpet under the front spike to angle the CC up. Would this work?

The VP150 can be flipped on the one side to angle up toward the listener, so the extra carpet probably isn't necessary.

Have you considered dual centre channels? (one above one below) This is what I did in my theatre (with M2s) because of that same worry, and now the dialog sounds like it is actually come from the actors on the screen...

I'm interested in trying this out. How do you have the M2s hooked? Does each one have a separate channel or are they tied together?

I have them wired in parallel at the reciever end. So I have the bottom speaker bare in in the binding posts and screwed in, and I have the top speaker plugged in with banana plugs to the same binding post. However, if you had a 7 channel separate amp, and a pre/pro, and you only have a 5.1 system, you could split the centre channel into 2 of the channels on the separate amp, and it would avoid getting a parallel load because each speaker would be on its own channel.

Parallel wiring with the M2s create a 4ohm load but also increases the db output by 3dbs.

The m2s look ALOT better than these M3s I originally had. I will take some new pics and hopefully get them up on the net in the next couple weeks.

Thanks for the suggestion of flipping the speaker upside down. Unfortunately dual CCs in your configuration won't fit in my basement. In the area where the duct is running I have 78 inches from floor to ceiling. The Center is 7.5 inches tall. The screen height for a 100 inch screen is 55 inches (with border) meaning that I'd be cutting it close with a 16 inch stand. I guess I could go for a smaller screen but I'd rather shoot for the 100 inch mark since it jives well with my seating placement plans.

Hi Uncmo96,

Hutzal's approach of dual centers is absolutely valid and one I sometimes recommend. However, to answer your question on the VP150 center, if you lower the stand, no, it won't muddy up dialog. Be sure and set the center to "Small" and use an 80-Hz crossover.

Adjacent boundary effects from the floor largely influence the lower bass frequencies below 100 Hz.

Regards,