Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater lateral (side) orientation for M22's L/R Speakers?

So, WAF may dictate that the L/R and center speakers (wall mounted) be mounted laterally. The V100 is designed that way, no problem. But what about the M22's? Listening area is 12 feet from speakers. Speakers will be mounted on wall at about 9 feet high and angled down.

Will this pose a problem? What sorts of problems? Will there be big enough issues to warrant using M3ti's (mounted vertically, per their design) instead? The room is big 25 by 17 by 9 feet high (with the listening axis along the 17 foot side).

I appreciate your input, even ill-informed input (as long as it is properly labeled as such).

Sam, as I've indicated in a few previous posts, I don't care for most horizontally aligned center speakers(haven't heard VP100, VP150)and use a small vertical speaker instead for a center. Perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, a vertical alignment of woofer and tweeter generally results in wider and smoother horizontal dispersion. The difference isn't huge, but it's there. Your question implies that vertical M3s would be acceptable aesthetically; since the M22s are only about 6" higher, wouldn't they also be acceptable? Three vertical M22s across the front with the tweeters angled toward your ears should work well.

Along with John's input, memory tells me that Alan has commented a few times on placing the speakers in the correct orientation rather than waht you are suggesting. Alan's comments also included quite a bit of technical "how comes" that I just can't call up rigth now.

From what I remember, the big impact of mounting speakers horizontally is that your imaging gets messed up something fierce. I have zero experience with M22s horizontally but have experimented with a number of other similar-sized speakers horizontally including M2s.

After a while I just gave up, always mounted them inverted with tweeters at ear hight, and was happy. If there was any chance you could mount vertically, inverted and angled down I think you would be real happy. If not, I would take vertical M3s over horizontal M22s any day.

Have you considered camoflage ? Seriously, can you pick a speaker & grill colour that would disappear into the wall enough that you could get away with a vertical mount ?

One other comment -- room is 9' high and you mentioned the speakers would be wall mounted about 9' high as well, was the idea to put the speakers right in the corner between wall and ceiling ? Try to avoid that if possible.

I shouldn't really sign off without mentioning that you do have a pretty big room. I imagine the M22s will sound pretty darned good at normal volumes but they are probably not going to fill the room with loud music. My guess is that you're focusing on HT which should be no problem as long as your sub is up to the task and you aren't looking for "really loud".

Thanks for the input. The speakers be wall mounted, so the M22 is about as big as a speaker can get that is hung on brackets. The speakers will be mounted in the corner, angled downwards. Subwoofer will likely be Outlaw LFM1. From what is being said, sounds like a lateral orientation would significantly alter the sound. I'll readjust my planning accordingly.

Samson- Mounting them in a corner with the ceiling (if I'm understanding that correctly) would likely make even more problems than mounting the speaker horizontally!

Mark,

Sorry about my poor description of the location. The speakers would be mounted near the cieling, but NOT in the corners of the room. There will be some additional ceiling height (8 inches) above the face of the speaker, because a soffit runs around the perimeter of the room.

Uhh, did I just confuse things further by bringing up the soffit issue? I'll just shut up now...

OK, here's a post with personal experience!

I was in very similar situation (WAF) when we rearranged our living area. There is a thread where Alan commented. The net was that horizontal is not ideal, but can be done. You want the tweeters on the "inside" (facing inwards).

As to performance, you know what? It's not bad. With some tweaking (toe in, angling downward, etc.) I've got a very wide sweet spot, and it sounds very good. Did I prefer them when they were vertical? Yes. But it wasn't as big of a trade-off as I had feared.

The speakers are about 13 ft apart, and I am sitting 16 feet back. Every position on the sectional sofa gets excellent sound.

You can PM me if you have more questions/concerns.

Rich

Hi Samson,

MarkS and Sam and Noah have nicely paraphrased what I would have told you (thanks) so I won't repeat myself. The soffit won't matter. Your room is almost 4,000 cu ft. I would normally not have recommended M22s for such a big space, but I'm always surprised at their performance when used with a good sub, and other customers have gotten excellent performance from them in fairly large rooms.

Regards,