Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Paradigm studio Front and Axiom for surround.

congratulations on your paradigm studio speakers. I was seriously considering buying a set of them (well the Studio 100's) but the cost difference between them and the Axiom M80's was huge. I also found the M80's did sound better than what I remember about the Studio 100's but never had the option to try them at my own home. I too did end up however returning the M80's and I ended up with the LFR1100's.

As for your surrounds. There are two school's of thought with your surround sound.

in a 5.1 setting, your surround sound speakers are really mixed for ambient non directional sound. Like a bullet wizzing past you from behind. You can tell it's from the left behind you, but exact placement is not possible nor really wanted. The surround is a large soundstage there to add effect and not the point of focus.

But it seems that now they are trying to change that thought and have everything really directional. Where they will tie sounds into a location and having a wide soundstage speaker will just muddy the effect.

Personally I like the more defuse and so I went with a set of the QS8 speakers. I have had small directional speakers for the longest time and find it too distracting and quite often the sound is bordering on unbelievable as the sound that should be all over is too dominant on one side or another. With too directional a speaker you have a smaller sweet spot to sit and if your room is like many, and have a larger couch and want to watch with your family, then someone is going to be sat too near to a directional surround speaker and the effect gets lost for them.