Hello All,

I purchased a pair of M-60's and a VP-150 earlier this month. I've been trying to get my hands on some Axioms for a couple years now, and have always thought that when I had some extra dough, the Axioms would get the first at bat. Over the holidays, a buddy of mine received a set of M-60s based off a passing recommendation of mine. When he got them in I was finally able to hear the speakers I'd read so much about the last few years. I ordered mine the next day.

My original setup consisted of a Wal-Mart/HTIB from Sony (hey it’s better than nothing.... I think). A year or so later I inherited a set of old Radio Shack Mach One speakers. The Mach Ones became front speakers and I continued to use the plastic Sony cubes that came with the HTIB. The current setup is M-60 fronts, VP-150 Center, Mach Ones moved to surrounds, the plastic Sony powered sub from the HTIB, and the Sony receiver from the HTIB.

Impressions:

The overall clarity, particularly in the midrange was very good. The imaging was better than anything I had owned and especially better than anything the HTIB setup was capable of. The overall physical quality of the speaker construction was very impressive.

That’s about all the good however. My greatest annoyance is how stellar the imaging and sound quality is a relatively low volumes, and then how quickly it diminishes as I turn it up. What starts out as detailed music with "space" between the vocals and instruments quickly sounds strained and harsh when the volume is turned up past 45ish (the Sony's volume is from 0-73 I believe). Now before my fellow Axiomites get up in arms about my review/questions, let state that I do not believe it is the speakers fault. I say this because when I listened to my buddy's M-60s he received for Christmas, his didn't sound "strained" until much higher volumes. I believe the main difference was he was powering his speakers with a half-way decent Yamaha and I'm using a Sony meant to drive 2 pound 1-way plastic cubes. My friend also used a larger JBL powered sub, while I'm using the plastic HTIB Sony unit.

Now I don't think the volume levels I'm after are unrealistic or excessive. I just want drums to be as loud as if a real kit was in the room. I want guitar to sound like a Les Paul is plugged up to a Marshall amp right here. Right now all I can get is a muted toned down version of the same thing, and while it sounds great at those volumes, I'm not satisfied with it.

My Proposed Solutions:

It seems to me that my receiver simply doesn't have any oomph whatsoever. It actually sounds half way decent at the beginning of a song when the music is simple. For example just an acoustic guitar and a drum kit or vocal. As soon as the music complexity increases, all the space in the music goes away and it sounds like its coming from a loud boom box. I've searching for better amplification and at the top of my list is the HK avr-7300 and the upcoming Emotiva ULs.

The second fix seems to be my terrible little sub. If I set the M-60's to Large they sound better. They simply play tighter cleaner bass. Unfortunately this also causes the volume where straining occurs to happen at a lower db level. If I set the M-60's to Small, the M-60's sound better to a higher level as the amp seems less strained, but the bass is bloated, undetailed, and boomy/buzzy coming from the little Sony cube. I've been looking at all types of subs and my leading contenders are the EP-500, the UFW-12 with their R-DES package, and maybe even the twin UFW-10 package.

I really believe that with proper amplification and a great sub, everything will sound 100 times better and up to and past volumes I'd like. I'm just searching for opinions/reviews on some of the gear I'm looking at and other suggestions to fix the problems I'm hearing. Thanks in advance!

Kaylin R.