Favorite Center??

Thanks all.. Guess I ned to rephrase.. I currently have an all Axiom speaker system With the VP-150 Center, M22i's Front, and QS8's as all surrounds. With that is a VMPS sub. I wanted to upgrade to a great 2 Channel system for my Music.. Dave Matthews Band, Tori Amos, Norah Jones, Hope Sandoval, Mary Fahl ect... However, because of others and myself, it gets used for Movies more then music. Only when I am home alone can I enjoy my music.

Needless to say in my search, I was looking into Green, Mountain, Totem, Von, ect... But I realized I never see anything about a center for these. So what I need is an upgrade from Axiom but allowing the 30% Music, 70% Movie use. I use Rotel Power, and have a Usher CD-100 CD Player. DH Lab wire, and upgraded power chords are the rest of my stereo.

I use a Klipsch KLF C-7. It is the best center channel I have heard so far. It has two 8" drivers flanking a giant horn center with an efficiency of 99dB @ 1 watt. The thing weighs over 40 pounds. I always loved the big sound heard at the movies which got me interested in horned speakers as thats what they used. That led me to Klipsch. My mains are Klipsch Epic cf3's. They have 2 10" drivers with a big horn in the center, all using neodyium magnets and are 100 dB efficient. They will play as loud as you can stand without compression or distortion and bring alot of added fun to movies and concert videos. These are not made anymore but can be found on the used market and also increase in value over time. Happy hunting

I had a problem similar to yours trying to strike a compromise between stereo music and 5.1 movie sound. I cannot emphasize enough that if you like movies, it is essential that all three front speakers—at least—are from the same company to ensure similar tonal quality (similar design and drivers) and seamless blending. If you want to upgrade your stereo sound while retaining good movie sound, you must at least upgrade all three front speakers.

At one time I used my audio speakers (Wilson Watts & Puppies) as the front left and right speakers for my video system with various center speakers. The results were consistently disappointing. During dialogs, whenever the actor turns his/her head or moves across the scene, it sometimes sounded like he/she suddenly caught a cold or had a sex-change operation in the middle of the sentence. Very disconcerting.

Since it was impractical for me to use a Watt center channel, I ended up separating my audio from my video system. I used all Celestion speakers for video with great success. You case is not as drastic. You just need to upgrade all three front speakers to get better stereo sound (and the rear speakers too if you can afford it).

If you are willing to replace the Axiom speakers, there is a huge choice out there for good movie speakers that will also make pretty good music speakers. All you need is...money.