Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater epic 80-600

i finally received the package.....and was able to connect all the components....yamaha RZ1 receiver, mitsubishi 62 in 1080p tv and oppo digital player using 16 guage speaker wire and monster sub wire....and was greatly disappointed !!!!!!!!!i was expecting that WOW but never got it .....it sounded no different than the energy encore that i replaced.....not sure if i am doing everything right........i don't yet have the 4 ohms receiver but the axiom guys told me repeatedly that the yamaha receiver was more then enough....i do have another 20 dyas or so to make up my mind..any suggestions are welcome

As I'm sure others will soon mention, speaker placement, set up and source material are very important. Make sure the M80's are at least 12 inches away from the back wall, 18" would be better. It takes some tweaking to get everything set up properly.

Poorly recorded music will sound poor no matter how good the system. Make sure you are using source material that is of high quality. For movies, try The Incredibles, track #9.

16ga speaker wire is thinner than I would use, but should make very little difference if the runs are short, less than 12 feet or so.

thanks for the reply......i will try to move the speaker away from the wall.....and this was a trial run with my previous speaker wire .....i did order the axiom cable wire which i believe is 12 guage ....but i didn't want to cut it small pieces ......just in case i decide to return the package.....i will also try the incredibles and see what happens

we watched "pirates of the carribean" and the sound effects were not at all impressive...

The most obvious question is whether you have calibrated the speaker and sub levels yet. The mains/center/surround probably won't be too far out but the sub level does need to be set correctly for sure.

If your receiver has auto EQ options TURN THEM OFF. Even the automatic level setting sometimes gets things wrong; the auto-EQ often just makes good speakers sound crappy.

Sub placement also makes quite a difference... you can gain or lose some huge holes in low frequency response depending on where the sub is placed. Have you done a "sub crawl" ?

Past that, I'm not sure what to say. If you were in a small room or had all the speakers arranged in a small part of your room (the room was 23x17 or something, wasn't it ?) and were playing movies quietly I can see how you might not notice much difference from the Encores, but in your large room at real "movie experience" volumes on a movie with a dynamic sound track (ie stuff blowing up) the difference would be night and day.

I'm assuming you have been watching some of the movies that can really show off a good sound system ? The English Patient ain't gonna sound any different on the 80/600 than it did on your Encores

newkid ... Take a DEEP breath. Now exhale. Once you have the system properly calibrated, it will impress you.

So, for starters, have you calibrated it with a Radio Shack Meter and a disc like Avia ?

>>we watched "pirates of the carribean" and the sound effects were not at all impressive...

It's been months since I saw that movie but I don't remember much in the way of sound effects that would be impressive on any system... and normally I remember the soundtrack more than I remember the plot

no !!!!!!!! i haven't done anything like that.....i just connected the components and was ready to be blow away.....how do i do the caliberationssss....i am new to all this .....as you guys must have figured out by now....but i like to do things myself with some help..

i mean there are cannons fired, sword fighting, choppy sea water ?????? i will also try my pink floyd wall dvd, matrix series, lord of the rings and star wars and see what it sounds like

Ahh, stop worrying then

The basic idea of calibration is to play the same tone (usually pink noise) through each speaker in turn and adjust the levels (using adjustments in your receiver) to make each speaker play at the same volume. There are a bunch of other adjustments but getting the channel levels set is the first and most important.

The best way to do this is with a test disk (eg. Avia) and a Sound Pressure Level (SPL) meter from Radio Shack, but you can do a rough calibration with the test tones that your receiver generates. I'm not sure if the Yamahas output a test tone to the sub though...

Anyways, step 1 is to pull out the manual and find the section on adjusting speaker levels. The same section of the manual will normally also tell you how to play test tones since the two work together. The manual should also describe what you do...

- play the tone through the first speaker, note the SPL level if you have a meter

- go to the next speaker and adjust its level until it matches the previous speaker. If you don't have an SPL meter just toggle back and forth until the two seem to be about the same volume

- repeat for all channels including the sub. Note that you might have to adjust the level control on the sub to get within the range of the receiver adjustments

BTW do you have the speakers set to Large or Small, and what crossover frequency are you running ? You can probably start with everything set to Small and 100Hz crossover for now, and you can improve on this later.