Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners anyone ever tried m22 as center channel?

I was wondering if anyone had ever wired two m22's together laid them on their side with the butts of the speakers together used as a center channel? I wondered if this would sound good because the drivers would be arranged similiarly to how the vp150 is. Would this work or is something different that I don't know or more accurately one of the many things I don't know. I hear the rave reviews of this speaker and wonder if this configuration would make a great center to go with the m60's main?

There was an excellent discussion about this a while back. Here's a link to it.

I think if you had 3 22's up front for LeftCenterRight, it would work great, however, turning a 22 on its side would mess up the horizontal dispersion of the center speaker, 2 laying down might be worse. As Joe mentioned, I think Mojo's testing did not recommend dual 22's laying down.

I’ve tried out dual M22s in several configurations and agree with this assessment.



Also, I mostly agree with Jakewash and Mojo’s findings but would add one more thing I noticed. They highly recommend the setup you are suggesting TMMMMT horizontal driver arrangement. I found that the wall-of-sound this produces is very impressive but one thing I didn’t like was that it was smearing the placement of instruments and vocalists across the front. Initially I didn’t notice this because the wall-of-sound was so impressive.

The TMMMMT arrangement did sound great with movies and concert audio. With movies it made the panning of sounds across the front sound smother and had an overall more movie theater like quality.

While the TMMMMT arrangement does produce an impressive wall-of-sound I didn’t think the vertical M22 either above, below or above and below the TV made a column of sound. It seemed to blend quite naturally with the M80 mains. It only sounded thin relative to the TMMMMT arrangement.

I suspect that my impression may differ somewhat from Jakewash and Mojo’s due to room sized, speaker placement and seating distance. My listening area is smaller I sit only 6 feet from the center speaker and the mains are only about 6 feet apart. While testing I got the feeling if I was farther back and my mains were further apart the TMMMMT center would not have smeared the front soundstage and the vertical M22s would have sounded more like a column.

Besides what sounds best always being subjective I think seating distance and distance between your mains will have a great impact on which arraignment sounds best to you.

The risk you run with the extremely wide center channel is smearing into the left/right channels. That said, give it a shot. You might like it.

I talked to Mojo extensively about "M44's" as a center channel and ultimately his response was "I personally think it would work fantastic. Make sure that they are oriented TWWWWT.

You are doing the right thing in my opinion. I wish I had this wisdom before I decided to pull the trigger on the VP150. But I suppose others can now learn from my experience.

This set-up is very versatile too. If in the future you decide you need a pair of bookshelves and don't mind parting with a centre, the M22s will work very nicely."

Here's the link to his tests.

Just as no two speakers sound the same, no 2 rooms will sound the same. I am able to get my M22s to sound deep and lively in my room, while in Mojo's room they sound thin and somewhat life less, so everything writen on these forums needs to be taken with a grain of salt as you may find what works in one room doesn't in your own.

I ran with a pair of M2s as my center for a while (TWWT sounded best, I think) but eventually picked up a VP100 and was surprised to find that the VP100 consistently sounded a bit better than the M2s. I was not expecting that.

It would be interesting to hear some 2xM22 vs VP150 comparisons.

I have compared my M22s to my VP150 and dual M22s(side mounted) sound better than a single VP150 on axis, but the off axis is skewed to the side of the viewer/listener. That is to say most of the sound is not centered on the screen, but to the same side that the listener is on. Although I did have some wierd phasing going on on certain DVD's, the sound would slide from side to side when it should have just been in the center. M22s top and bottom mounted would be the best version, IMO, as it would allow for the slightly more dynamic range(they can play lower) of the M22 to shine and still keep the dialogue centered as the horizontal dispersion is better on the vertical speaker.