Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Center Channel Speaker Question

Your head must be buzzin with possiblilities and options ......your like me , wait what if I make the wrong choice, spend more, but now the vertical versus horz, your screwed!

Ya just gotta put a stake in the ground at some point. For me, it was the sub. Drove myself crazy for a few weeks until I just decided to heck with it and got the EP350.

I agree with Dean, for $15 or $20 it is well worth it to listen to both and send the 'loser' packing.

I was thinking why not use 2 - M3s for a center. Would it work and how would it sound. I know hook them up in parallel, but you would have the bigger 6 1/2 drivers and 2 tweets. Wouldnt it sound as good as a VP150 or maybe better. I was thinking lay them down and together, but would you want the tweets in or to the outside like the VP150?

General consensus from those who have tried it says that Axiom's bookshelves, at least, sound better vertical than horizontal.

Ain't nothin' wrong with the 5.25" drivers.

I haven’t heard the M3 but so far the best sounding center for the M80s besides another M80 is the M22 IMO. The M3 by design is not going to timbre match with the M80s. Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t like it as a center but the odds are stacked against you.


I agree that laying them down didn’t really work for me. Screws up the imaging worse that a standard horizontal center. OTOH it did create a “wall-of-sound” effect that was sort of cool for movies. I think JC from Axiom has a couple M22s set up this way and really liked it. Maybe you should email or PM him to get his opinion of doing it.

So JC works for Axiom. Isnt a VP150 just kinda like an M22 on its side with an extra driver and tweet. Sorry to sound like a dummy but how is say 2 M2s better timber matched than 2 M3s. I was just thinking since I have 2 M3s for rears and used 2 M3s for a center, Id have the all around M3 effect.

Not really the VP150 and M22 are very different designs. If you look at the specs you’ll see the M22 has a ported enclosure while the VP150 doesn’t, they have different crossover points and the M22 extends lower than the VP150. However, the biggest difference it the orientation they are designed for. Being designed to lay on it’s side the VP150 will likely have a better frequency response laying down than the M22s or M3s would. Again for movies this may not make a big difference but IMO for music it does. The best use of 2 center speakers I’ve seen is putting one over and one under the screen to center the dialogue on the screen. Fred does it with 2 M2s and has said it works great with his M80s.

I have no way of positioning an M22 vertically. So I have to lay it down horizontally, will that still be as good or better than a VP150?

I know I should order both, but was curious to your thoughts...

Dduval

No, that will probably be worse than a VP150.

It’s my experience from comparing them against each other that the only real benefit in having two M22s laying on their compared to one VP150 is the dual M22s give a wider center soundstage and by moving them around give you some control of how wide to make it. IMO this effect can be cool for movies but sucks for music which might not be an issue for you unless you start doing multi-channel music. But like Ken says one VP150 will still probably work better.

I assumed that JC still works for Axiom, I haven’t heard otherwise. I would send him a message and ask his opinion of the dual M22s laying down. I think they are still less expensive than one VP150 and if you move to a bigger room and decide to upgrade to an M80 center dual M22s make very nice “wide” speakers for the M80s.