I was hoping to report that the sub had eliminated the problem entirely, alas that does not appear to be the case.
Let me begin by confirming that I have reached 99.8% audio nirvana with the addition of the 800 and could not be happier in any universe that I can imagine at the moment.
Watched Titanic with my daughter this evening and the sonic veracity of the 7.1 dvd soundtrack absolutely blew my mind, I never would have believed it was possible for sound to be so lifelike and without reservation feel I could die happy having experienced this level of audio reproduction and nothing further.
There were a few electrical pops in the hitting-the-iceberg scene that I mostly noticed because I am attuned to the aforementioned defect I chose to label "crackling speakers" yet they were extremely brief, minimal, and interestingly they did not appear at time of deep LFEs but a bit higher in hz, and it was the dual M80s that expressed the defect.
BTW the 800 manual recommends 40 hz crossover with the M80s, and running no EQ, I couldn't agree more: 80hz and 60 hz sound too unnaturally bright in my room (muy trebly) whereas 40 hz crossover is absolute sonic heaven. I do have wood floors so that may play a role as well, however I am still very happy with the no EQ Axiom philosophy so will persist with that for a while yet. Perhaps if my system were calibrated different a higher crossover would work but the blend at the moment is so sweet, why bother tweaking (except of course for the occasional "pop")?
My one major regret with posting my experiences has been contributing to the nonutilization of the XPA2 since I suspect that the problems I had with the electrical popping issue that may have triggered the protect circuit were largely running the M80s at low hz, and it seems most do not set the crossover much lower than 80 hz and would probably be not have an issue. I would love to hear if others were successful with the XPA2/M80 combo, I would feel less foolish for having pursued that possibility and it is a nice amp.
The whole wind/applause thing I brought up is completely alleviated with the introduction of the 800, as I suspected it was a problem of unanchored HFEs sounding cheesy, accompanied by appropriate LFEs the HFEs are simply superlative.
As when I first purchased the M80s I have reached a watershed moment, although this time I feel it is the promised land, the grass is only greener here, not on the other side. I am so much more impressed with the Axiom system, before I was of the opinion that OK yes this is very good/extremely good, especially for the money and I couldn't think about spending more to increase my reach because how much more would that have to be to incrementally improve the sound in a meaningful sense (while secretly wondering what it would be like if I could afford better) whereas now I am in a state of perfect satisfaction and care not that in some hypothetical world of course things could always be even more superlative.
Better has no meaning once you reach best.
Thank you, Axiom,
