Originally Posted by Ro_67
The room is nice, but has an existing fire. We could look to reposition or remove but I am not sure I would get that one past the executive committee wink The only real option for a centre is an in-wall speaker. Again not ideal but possible, but it will be quiet high up.
Conventional wisdom is that Trifield works best with either 3x matching vertical fronts, or the “matching” horizontal centre, but with the tweeter placed at the same height as the FL&FR tweeters. Meridian added something in software on recent models called vertical elevation (or similar) which allows one to virtually move the image in the vertical plane to compensate for placing the Horizontal Centre below a screen. I don’t think this will help here as you would have to place above the fireplace…

In the case of 8KSEs, I don’t think you’d want to go less than a 7200SEHC for serious multichannel (personally I doubt an in-wall will be man enough to match 8Ks).

My 2p worth - if you can’t lose the fireplace or reposition, just go 2-channel 8KSE/818v3. It will be a sublime, if not superlative, 2-channel system and still sound great on TV/movies. Plus there’s no faffing to incorporate MQA, just get a Roon/Tidal subscription and you’re done.

HC: 861v4/ID40/LPS, DSP5000, DSP5000VC, DSP3100, SW1600, HD621, Oppo BDP-105, Sony VPL-HW55ES
2-Channel: Oppo BDP-105, TEAC VRDS-7/Trichord Clock 3/PSU, 551, Quad 303, Harbeth Compact 7ES-3, Kimber cables, Russ Andrews mains and supports.
Previous Meridian: 5000C, 5200SL, 7200.2, 6000, 562V.2, 568.2mm, 800v4, 808.2i, 818v2/v3, 861v8, 502