The idiot would be me. I’m not an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination. I haven’t had enough exposure to high end gear to begin to describe what the hell ‘bright’, ‘warm’, ‘laid back’, ‘in your face’, ‘soundstage’, or any of the other audio terms mean. I know what sounds good to me, and what doesn’t. I do know what quality, fit and finish, customer service and value means though. I’m not well off, but not destitute either. I’m somewhere in the middle. If I have my heart set of a set of $5000 speakers, I’ll get them. But I didn’t get where I am today (financially) wasting money on high dollar gadgets in which lesser expensive gadgets would perform what I was looking for.
I have had a set of M80TI’s for about two years now. I use them for a stand alone two channel system powered by Rotel gear. I have an Outlaw sub that thumps along with them. I’m not going to go into what I think about them, as there’s enough reviews and opinions here that have already said enough. In short, I’m quite happy with them. I have no desire to try anything else. They rock.
I am now putting together what I hope to be an adequate HT system without breaking the bank. I spend roughly four to six hours a week in front of a TV watching movies and a couple TV shows that I have somehow or other got hooked on. Other than that, I’m usually doing something as I have trouble sitting still for very long. But when I do sit down, I really enjoy good sound and being totally distracted by whatever is on the boob tube.
Enough of that crap and on to the new additions.
I ordered a set of factory outlet M22’s, M3’s, QS-8’s and an EP 500 in a Boston Cherry finish. They are going to my ‘temporary’ TV area in the house, and will eventually go a dedicated room for HT when I get around to finishing it. For now, I plan to use the 22’s as mains and the pair of M3’s as a center channel in parallel. When I move to the HT room, the 3’s will be used as surround backs, QS-8’s will be the side surrounds and the M22’s will be used for the center channel in parallel. My 80’s that I’m now using for two channel will be moved to this room, and used for the mains. I’ll probably get another set of M80’s in wood veneer for the two channel system.
I’ll be using a HK 7300 for the HT. I ordered it a few days ago, and it ‘should’ be here tomorrow, so this post will be a continuing story as I progress through all the steps of hooking everything up, calibrating the system and then listening to the speakers over the next few days.
Last night I packed all the boxes upstairs and unpacked the speakers. Word of advice, don’t carry the 500 while in the box up stairs by yourself. It’s not too heavy, but it’s big and awkward with no hand holds on the box. Take it out of the box first as that cardboard is slippery. Suggestion to Axiom: order your shipping boxes with hand holds. Fed-X guys will appreciate it and I bet there will be less dropped, damaged and returned speakers. Just the big boxes.
Starting with the QS-8’s, they are bigger than I had imagined. Quite heavy for their size too. I could not find a damn thing wrong with them. Nothing at all and I am a wood worker who knows what to look for. The grills snap into place and the pins have a round head that will obviously not allow them to come off without considerable effort. They ain’t going anywhere.
Then I unpacked the M22’s. Man these little fellers are cute! They are much smaller than I had thought they’d be, even though I had drug out a tape measure before ordering them to visualize how they’d fit in my entertainment center. They are narrow and very unobtrusive if that’s the look you are going for. By now looking for imperfections was a game to me. I couldn’t find anything wrong with the first one. Ah-ha! I found a blemish on the second one! ……..a slight imperfection on the bottom of the speaker that will never be seen.
Then I unpacked the M3’s. First impression was that these are not ‘little’ bookshelves speakers. Although they are not as tall as the M22’s, they ‘appear’ to be bigger. They are wider and just look more menacing than the M22’s. I’m actually considering using them for mains and the M22’s for a center now. If you are looking for a ‘small’ bookshelf speaker, I recommend that you cut out the M22, M3 and M2 dimensions on a chunk of cardboard to see what I’m talking about. I could not find any blemishes are imperfections on either of the M3’s.
Now to the EP500 that I’ve heard and read so much fanfare about. Found a defect! The bottom rear corner of the lamination is wrinkled. It will never be seen though, so I couldn’t care less. Found a second defect……someone forgot to install the two front threaded inserts for the carpet spikes. They started to drill the holes, but only down about a quarter of an inch. I’ve emailed Axiom and asked them to send me two inserts because I don’t have any with the same thread pattern as the spikes. If I did, I’d have already fixed the problem. This will be a fairly simple fix. I’ll just finish drilling the holes and epoxy the inserts in place. Anybody with a cordless drill can do this. For now, the sub is sitting patiently on the carpet waiting for a receiver.
When I pulled the EP out of the box and was surprised that it wasn’t as heavy as I expected. My Outlaw is just as heavy. Being a mechanically orientated kind of guy, I like heavy things. Heavy usually means stouter to me. And with all the comparison’s I’ve read where this sub performs as well as some of the top line SVS and HSU subs, I was expecting it to be physically larger and heavier. This probably means nothing, but just my initial perception. However, I am wondering if I should have bought the EP 600, but I’ll give the 500 a whirl first. If it performs as well I’ve been reading, I’ll keep it. If not, I’ll trade up to the 600.
I also ordered some pre-terminated speaker wires and a sub cable from Axiom. If you think the cables look sexy on their web sight, you’re in for a pleasant surprise when you get them. They are just too cool! They look badass. Kinda like a viper the way the cover reflects light and feels. The outer cover is tough as hell and will definitely provide plenty of protection.
When I get the AVR and fire these up, I’ll post an update.
