So, after a few days with my dual M2’s as rear surrounds, I’d have to say that they work really well to create an awesome 7.1 soundstage.

I’ve been putting my new Denon AVR-3808CI and Toshiba A-35 HD-DVD player through the paces, and I couldn’t be happier with the M2’s. The slightly more directionality of the M2’s as rears really complement the QS8’s as surrounds. When a sound is supposed to be behind you, it is, but when it travels around the room, I don’t notice the transition from QS8 to M2. That goes for both music and cinema. My room is 13.5 feet wide and I’ve ceiling mounted the M2’s about 60 inches apart, angled down and toed in a bit. So if you want rear surrounds, but either don’t want to buy another two QS8’s, or you have height issues like I do that necessitates another solution, I couldn’t recommend a couple of M2’s as rears more.

Well, I'm really glad that worked out for you. I was very curious to hear what that would sound like. Are you coming over on Saturday?

Unforunately I can't make it. This weekend I have to go see the inlaws dinner theatre and we're leaving for Devon Friday evening.

Bayne, thanks so much for sharing your experience. Sometimes, I itch to go from 5.1 to 7.1, but an extra pair of QS8's is more than I want to spend on that particular improvement. Your report helps me a lot.

7.1 adds only a little bit to the surround mix, but once you hear it, you'll never go back. On the DVD of Peter Jackson's King King, the scene where the girl escapes the smaller dinosaur and crawls into the log only to be approached by the two giant centipedes is amazing in 7.1. You hear these little squeaks and claw sounds from the rears as they crawl toward her. It's terrific. It made me turn around and look to see what the cats were up to in the hall behind my HT room before I figured out what was happening.

That's very interesting. Now did you try to turn the rears off to see if the same effect is there. When I turn my rears off, I get the exact same effect in 5.1. This could of course be due to room acoustics.

In fact, I did turn the rears off and listened to the same scene. The QS8's gave the impression that the sound was behind, but the M2's made it much more precise in my room. It may have to do with room acoustics as you say. On one side of my room, that's where the entrance is. It's a wide open hall leading to the stairs, so no rear wall to bounce the sound off. That's probably why any type of rear speaker would be better with rear sounds than just side QS8's.

I think you did the right thing with the M2s in the rear. I just listened to that scene again in various rear modes and volumes and I just couldn't get that rear localization like you. It actually sounds good but it's more diffuse than what you described.

I wonder if we need to try some M22s in your rear surround positions on Saturday.

Or M60s. We can just let them hang off the speaker wire.

lol

Actually maybe we could just try them as Axiom intended, on the floor, and see if you prefer that to the QS's. How much time did I allow myself.... a few hours....we might have time to try it.

I'm tempted to try my M80s as rear speakers when I inevitably upgrade to whatever larger floorstanders Axiom is working on. I haven't gone to full 7.1 because my current room won't accommodate the rears, but once I move the system, I'll want to play around more. In the meantime, it's nice to hear what everyone else is trying.

It would be interesting playing ping pong around that rear M60.