I just picked up a pair of M22's in the burled walnut. They look perfect in the living room as they work very well with similar colored furniture...they passed the WAF!
I love the sound but noticed that they need a sub to get a fuller range. I don't want anything too large or loud. I'll be using these for light listening when we have company. The EP125 seems to be a good choice for my needs. It'll have to go in a corner, out of sight, to get it past the wife. It may not be the best place but I only want a little bottom end warmth anyway.
When I got them I took them over to a friends so he could hear the M22's. We put them on his HT and demoed some movies which sounded great even at very loud volumes. The clarity that these added in place of his mains was very noticeable. Next we put on some cd's and put them though their paces in stereo. He has a 7.1 Pioneer Elite amp (about 2 years old) and when we pushed it to "-20" volume the amp shut down under overload protection! We were a little confused by this as the movie demo was louder (ie: higher volume setting than the stereo demo).
We tired several different music genre's which produced the same protection shutdown around the "-20 volume". I realize the issue has to be with the amp but why would this issue occur in stereo and not in an HT setting?
I have a similar amp but it's their higher end Elite model (about 4 years old). I haven't tried the M22's on mine and may not if these speaker's would cause the same problem in my amp! Has anybody had a similar problem?
One thing I should mention we checked all the connections for his speakers for correct polarity and tightness. He is using either a 16 or 14 gauge wire in a short 10 ft. run with banana connections at the amp and speakers. The only other thing running is a self powered sub. We didn't run an EQ for the M22's, we set it to "direct" to bypass any EQ settings. Sorry, I don't have the model number for the amp but it is 110 watts per channel. Could the M22's have exceeded his amp's capacity by being more efficient than his current speaker setup?
He still likes the Axiom's and is looking to get their center and new mains for his system. I'm worried that he'll have the same issue in HT if he pushes it too hard!
My setup for the M22's are on an older Technic's amp which I'll probably never push past quarter volume - no worry with overloading! I just want to try and understand what is happening and why the issue occurred in the first place.
Thanks in advance for your comments and answers.
