Okay, I've got a pair of M60s as my main duo, an M22 as a front center, QS8s for surrounds, and an HSU VTF-3 sub. I've been using an AR HC6 as a rear center speaker. It's time to change that.

Here are the possibilities as I see it (other suggestions are welcome): 1) leave the M22 where it is and use either two M2s (the receiver has 7 channels), an M22 or a QS8 as a rear center, 2) move the M22 to rear center duty and get a VP150 for the front. The M22 has worked fine as a center, but I've never heard the VP150. Is ignorance bliss? What is the gain (if any) with a VP150? The front center speaker sits atop a 48" Mitsubishi widescreen and is approximately 14.5 feet from the sweet spot. The rear center speaker will be apx. 5 feet from the sweet spot. The "theatre" area is apx. 22x18x8 but there is an extra 10' on the right where there 'should' be a wall but there isn't. Any suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks.

Phil

Phil, your setup looks excellent and should be even a bit better with 2 M2s as the back surrounds, separated by about 5-6'. With QS8s as side surrounds you should already have plenty of spaciousness for ambient effects.

To me, the main advantage of the VP150 over an M22 is placement and horizontal dispersion. I'd have nowhere logical to put an M22 as a center without turning it on it's side, which makes for odd response differences in different seating positions (left, right, center) and non-ideal left/right response for anything but a fairly distant listening position. One of the things I like about the VP150 is the tweeters on the outside; it doesn't suffer much for those seated far left or far right of center in a large room. Yeah, they lose a lot in other areas, but they can always hear dialogue and the like clearly, it doesn't sound like it's rolled off at the top and it's still perceived as front and center at all times even in a fairly 'live' room such as mine. With my old Polk CS300i, those sitting far left or right suffer more high frequency rolloff from being further off-axis from the single center-mounted tweeter, and more room effect from the center channel than the VP150.

The VP150 will also take more abuse than the M22, but I don't find myself running my center channel at anywhere near its limits. My volume only seems to be really wound up when I'm listening to stereo sources and not actually sitting still in the listening room (cleaning house, for example). The M22 would likely easily get to uncomfortable listening levels in my family room (I'm not sure; I own a pair, but I use them in my home office and have never tried them in the family room... they'll easily go beyond uncomfortable levels in the office, which is more dead in response but much smaller in size).