Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater An audio idiot’s thoughts of the new additions

While filing away on the Outlaw’s binding posts with a jewelers file yesterday morning to get the new speaker wires to fit (just couldn’t wait for an exchange), Fed-X dropped off two more boxes. (no more blinds thank God). The new HK 7300 and my SAVR2 device for my mega changer controls. I can tell I’m not gong to get any work done on the house for a while……….too many new audio toys to play with.

I bought one cable with terminated ends that I cut in half and installed banana plugs on the cut ends to go into the amp. I didn’t realize that the Axiom speaker wires are actually dual pair wires (two reds, two blacks). Not sure what size the conductors are, but my Klein strippers cut them perfectly with the 16 gauge slot. The insulation on each of the conductors is pretty wimpy, but that is negated by the polyvinyl sleeve and braded cover that encases all four conductors. I just twisted the reds and blacks together, added a little solder, slid the bananas on and cinched them down. Worked great. I wish I would have had some of those nifty two-into-one shrink sleeves that Axiom uses, but a few raps with good ol’ scotch super 88 electrical tape worked just fine. If you are planning to use Axiom speaker wire, I suggest you call and ask if they’ll sell you some of those shrink rap adapters. It’ll make for a real clean and professional installation.

Well I figured I might as well fire up the 80’s and listen to some tunes to see if the new speaker wires made any difference. The wires they replaced are Home Depot 14 gauge. I wasn’t expecting to hear an improvement (I’m not in the speaker wires make a difference crowd). But what the hell, I might as well keep an open mind. I found Alison Kraus in the changer and ran the Rotel’s volume to about the 12 o’clock position (about 100 db’s or so). Alison Kraus has an amazing voice to my ears. Out of all my CD’s (two full 400 disk changers), I think she sounds the best of them all. Great recordings and between the different instruments you hear with blue grass and her voice, the M80’s really shine.

My conclusions to the speaker wire debate: this is a stretch, and I mean a BIG stretch……There may be a slight, - very slight - improvement in SQ. If (and I do mean if) there is any improvement, it was only at very high volume levels (about 3 o’clock on the dial).

For the price though, Axiom speaker wires are one hell of a bargain. I’ll definitely be buying a roll for the HT room.

Now that I had speaker wires for the HT system (those 14 gauge Home Depot wires off the two channel system), and my new AVR, I spent the rest of the day yesterday getting that system fired up.

I ended up running two cables into banana plugs for the parallel center channel M3’s. Worked great. I didn’t even solder them together this time and the binding screws on the banana connectors held the wires just fine.

While running wires to all the speakers (six of them), on the last speaker, I finally noticed that little washer under the binding post nut. While standing with one foot on the arm of the couch and the other on a coffee table with one of the M3’s balance on my thigh with a little help from an elbow trying to thread a needle (speaker wire into binding post hole)……..I finally noticed the washer. It’s the same color as the nut, so I didn’t even know it was there. When you have a speaker upside down, it slides up the post. And when you insert the speaker wire into the little hole ‘below’ the washer, and then tighten the nut, you cut the damn wire! So, after re-doing the other five speakers I finally got to start playing with the 7300’s configuration screen. Remember this…….put the wire between the nut and the washer!!

The 7300 is a beast. It’s huge, heavy and has more in’s and out’s than the mustang ranch. It also has more frigging ways to set up a HT system than I’ll ever care to figure out. Not only do you have to set up the audio, but there are more configurations for video than audio. I’m not exaggerating either. If you’re bored and want the kill some time, download the owner’s manual. There are even advanced options for the advanced options. The manual is very thorough as well. Doubt I’ll ever read the whole thing, but all the info is there.

All that being said, I spent about two hours screwing with the settings; calibrating the speaker volumes with my Radio Shack meter, setting the delays and the X-overs (everything at 80 right now). One point of interest to make, the two M3’s running parallels are set 6 db’s lower than the M22 mains with the AVR to get the volume the same.

I popped in Mission Impossible II and jumped to the first car chase scene (where he’s chasing the chic through the mountains) for a quick “test”. Son-of-a-beeeaaaccchhhh!!! Crap! The only place I can fit the EP 500 in this little area (10 X 12) of the loft is right behind the couch under the vaulted ceiling about two feet behind it. Earlier, I had set my beer on the window sill while ‘re-doing’ the speaker wires. The beer didn’t stay on the window sill and ended up half in my lap and half on the carpet. I think I might have pissed my pants a little too. Frantically reaching for the remote, I hit stop and took a couple moments to collect myself and take a quick look out the window to see if anyone was outside the house (surely they’d have heard the sub if there was anyone out there). Phew…..no one outside.

I forgot to set the sub’s volume and just plugged it in and turned it on. From the factory, they left the volume in the max position and having the HK turned up to around -15 didn’t help much. I’ll just say that the crash screen was pretty f-ing loud. I turned the sub down to half volume and continued to watch the movie.

I had a dinner party to go to last night, so I haven’t had a lot of time to watch movies or listen to CD’s yet. Over the next few days I plan to do that and I’ll post an update. I also need to play with the 7300 quite a bit as I’m pretty baffled right now. One thing's for certain though, I'm pretty pumped over this new system. TV used to be nothing more than a mental distraction to me for re-charging my batery. Now I'm just looking foward to 'hearing' and 'feeling' the movie. I've got close to two hundred DVD's to 're-watch'.

Initial thoughts for now worth mentioning:
- the M3’s seam to overpower the M22’s, even though they are all calibrated to be equal. They just seam to have more of a presence than the M22’s.
- the M3’s blend nicely with the M22’s and don’t sound out of place, just more as stated above.
- the video processing of the 7300 is real. No [censored]. I haven’t even figured out all the features, but can say with absolute certainty that I can see a significant improvement with standard digital satellite signal. Before, watch satellite TV was like watching TV when I was young and up on roof turning the antenna while my sister would yell “back the other way stupid”. Now it’s every bit as good as a DVD.

Gotta run for now. If anyone has any suggestions for setting this system up, fire away.