>>They'd be awful huge for a bedroom. I'd go with the 40s.
It's funny... when I ordered the M60s I was thinking they would be about M40 size. Imagine my surprise when the 60s came out of the boxes.
I definitely don't have room for M60s and the 50s are only a bit smaller. The 40s are probably as big as I'm going to be able to fit... and the bedroom is actually smaller in the new place. Hmmm... don't like where this is going.
>>You won't go wrong the M40's. And, you can be another member of our small-but-proud posse of M40 owners!
40s do look like the way to go. Nice setup, BTW.
I had been wondering how much bass difference there really was between M2, M3, M22 and M40 so took the soundstage magazine NRC response curves for each (using "listening window", ie +/- 15 degrees only) and overlaid them into a single chart. Interesting :
1. The curves for M3 and M40 look very much alike as do the curves for M2 and M22.
2. The M3 and M22 both have a "hump" around 100 hz; the M2 and M40 do not. The M3 hump starts to rise at 150 and keeps rising down to about 90 while the M22 hump starts at the same point but goes back to "flat" at 120, ie much smaller hump.
3. The M3 and M2 curves join up from 80 hz down to about 60 hz, then the M2 curve keeps going down while the M3 levels off again.
4. At 50 Hz relative to the average for the rest of the frequency range, the speakers are down by :
- M22 11 dB
- M3 13 dB
- M2 16 dB
- M40 steps down a couple of dB at 200 Hz then is surprisingly flat to 40 Hz
5. The "midrange dip" on M3/M40 relative to M2/M22 is about 5dB at most, around 3 KHz. It starts at 1 Khz and disappears around 10 KHz but is fairly smooth.
6. The M40 response does some "jumping around" between 700 and 900 Hz, no idea what causes that. Maybe unique to the sample ? Almost looks like someone opening the door of the room while the tests were running
Based on this I guess I can conclude :
- There is a noticeable but not huge improvement in bass going from M2 to M3 or M22
- M22 bass is actually a bit better than M3, although M3 has a more prominent peak above 100 Hz which probably adds to the impression of bass fullness
- M40 is impressive right down into the bass region -- response at 35 Hz is the same as M2 at 70 Hz or M3/M22 at 65 Hz
All of the above is anechoic response from one set of magazine reviews over the last three years and not necessarily representative of in-room behavior blah blah blah...
For moderate room size and standalone stereo usage the M40 looks pretty hard to beat. I understand that they won't really play any louder than M3s but that is not a big concern for me.
Looks like I have three options then :
1. Try to find a room & furniture layout where I can "hide" the M60s in the bedroom and not have them seem so out of place (won't be able to do that in the new place anyways and I have plans for the 60s)
2. Go with M40s. Looks like the obvious answer.
Only downside to getting M40s is that for the price I could get QS8s for the HT system, which would be real nice but wouldn't do anything for the upstairs sound ;(
3. Admit that even M40s are going to be hard to place in the new house and go with larger bookshelves looking for a slight improvement in bass. M22s are a bit better than M3s in that regard and have some other advantages but also the price is getting into M40/QS8 territory.
5. Get a little sub and live happily ever after, just don't listen too closely to the crossover range.
I had an option 6 which was looking at some older Axiom AX2s from eBay but from the reviews it looks like the older units didn't have the same wonderful midrange behaviour and soundstage that the current models offer.
Hmm. M3s and M22s don't seem to offer enough improvement in the bass region to justify getting new speakers, although in hindsight buying M3s instead of M2s would probably have saved me a lot of money (might have stayed with them instead of getting M60s
).
M40s or a sub would both provide great response, probably M40s would sound better without relying on the (asymmetrical) crossover in the sub. M22s give something like 5-6 dB improvement at 50 Hz (nothing to sneeze at; nice in other ways and I could mix and match in the HT system later.
