Question Downsizing HiFi to upgrade home cinema

[jsl20]

I currently have both a hifi and a home cinema setup in my lounge. The former doesn't see much use these days so I'm looking to downsize. If possible, I'd like to keep the B&W 685s it runs and use them as the front left and right channels and replace the Tannoy HTS 101 system I currently have. I'm therefore looking at options to replace the centre and rear channels. The sales of the amp and CD player will fund the new speakers so I'm probably going to be trawling the second hand market rather than buying new. My thoughts on replacement speakers are:

1) 686 (rears) and HTM6 (centre) - this keeps it in the family, but the cabinets are fairly massive
2) M1 (rears plus a centre) - not a series match to the 685s, but a bit more lounge friendly

Given the age of the 600 series both options work out at about the same cost. Does anyone have any thoughts as to whether mixing the 685s and the M1s is likely to be a good option? Also, given the size of the room (about 4m x 3.5m) would the 600 series setup be a bit overkill?

 

[Timbot]

I used to have a mis-matched centre speaker and it drove me mad. Didn't matter what I did it always sounded unbalanced and wrong compared to the fronts. My general thoughts are keep your fronts and centre speaker as similar as you can (i.e. same range if poss). Doesn't make much difference with the rear surrounds IMO so go with pretty much whatever you want for those.

 

[scene]

I used to have a mis-matched centre speaker and it drove me mad. Didn't matter what I did it always sounded unbalanced and wrong compared to the fronts. My general thoughts are keep your fronts and centre speaker as similar as you can (i.e. same range if poss). Doesn't make much difference with the rear surrounds IMO so go with pretty much whatever you want for those.

Agree. I had exactly the same experience. These days with the newer Audyssey balancing, you can get away with it better with speakers from the same manufacturer and similar series. But if you want to keep the 685 (is that a straight 685, not a 685s2?) then I'd try and get an HTM62, or better still an HTM61 which was part of the original 5.1 system with 685 fronts that b&w used to offer.
There's so HTM61s2

 

[jsl20]

The current front are straight 685s (I think I bought them brand new about ten years ago!). From reading old bits of the B&W website it looks like the difference between the 61 and 62 centres is the size and matching to the fronts. There are a few brand new 61s floating around so I might grab one of those and grab some second hand M1s for the rear channels.