Here's a different example, guys. I like Definitive Technology speakers for movies, but Vandersteens for music. My reasoning? The DT bipolar sound offers me a huge soundfield, which is nice for a movie. For me, they didn't image as well as other speakers due to their bipolar implementation (yeah, I played with placement a LOT). Their high efficiency offers lots of bang for less amp power. My ex-BP2002TLs had built in subs that could slam the LFE track (well, to within the limits of the sub itself) of a movie.
My Vandersteens are more laid back, more refined. They don't have the huge (somewhat artificial, to me) sound stage that work nicely for movies, but they image beautifully for music. I find their bass to be less bloated than the DTs (that can be controlled somewhat via parametric EQ, crossover settings and gain knobs in the DTs). I find them to be warmer/less bright. They are less sensitive, so they need more power for the same amount of slam (this becomes moot if you have tons of power either way). Actually, the Vandersteens simply cannot achieve the same amount of slam as the DTs, regardless of input power.
So, to me, DTs are more "movie" speakers and Vandersteens are more "music" speakers. I have Vandersteen fronts and center and still have my DT surrounds. The mains sound great for music. From there it follows that they'll sound at least dang good for movies. And they do.
Both systems are sweet, no doubt, and I'm not trying to cut down or lift up one or the other (any of 'em are too heavy to lift up!). Anyway, that's my first hand experience with "movie" or "music" speakers in my own home. FWIW, I had the DTs for about 1.5 years, and the Vandersteens (3A Sig) for about 9 months now.
