Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Introduction and m22ti shielding question

Hello all,
I've been lurking and posting here for a while now (mostly lurking), but am finally ready to pull the trigger on some m22ti's. A couple of weeks ago (or was it a couple of months...time flies!), I stopped by Peter's (pmbuko) house and demoed his 22's. As a matter of coincidence, I actually work with Peter's wife. Small world.

Anyway, I am about to purchase some FO black oak 22's. My only concern is that they aren't shielded enough to be placed ~2" away from my 27" CRT television. Bridgman reported successfully placing an M2 right next to a TV in this post (jeez those dogs are crazy looking). What is everyone's thoughts on the 22? It has an additional 5.25" driver over the M2, so I would imagine it will need to be further away from the TV. Will 2" be enough.

I called Axiom and asked this same question and was told that the 22's should be 2-3' away. I find that hard to believe given the success Bridgman had with the M2.

Another factor is that my TV has builtin speakers on the vertical sides, and it looks like Bridgman's doesn't. This should serve to functionally place the 22's even further from the CRT than the physical 2" between the edge of the TV and the edge of the speaker, right?

I've attached a picture....let me know what you think!

those shelves appear to be adjustable, could you fit the M22's on the floor below the bottom shelf but still within the 4 legs of the unit? The 22's are 19.5" tall. I wonder if what Axiom was telling you was for a good sound stage you want some distance between your mains, or were they specifically talking about the TV interferance? I appears your center is right on top of the TV, do you have problems with that? If you could adjust the shelves to accomodate the 22's underneath the TV, you may have to do something else with the center. Possibly move the receiver over and put the center on that shelf, or put in under the TV, between the 22's, but raise it with a speaker stand so it is right below the TV. Don't know, just a few ideas I see.

Kai, when I first got my M22s I experimented with placing them directly on top of, or on the side of, a CRT TV. This was to check how they worked as center channel speakers(very well), not for magnetic shielding, but I experienced no problem with shielding. I do recall reading here a couple of instances where a problem was experienced; in one case it required only turning an M2 on top of the TV upside down to remedy it, so in some cases a few inches may make a difference.

Looking at your setup, aside from the shielding question, it appears that placing speakers alongside the TV wouldn't be ideal from the standpoint of having adequate separation, unless you happened to be only about 5' away.

The only concern I have with my test results is that the TV was showing a blue screen (no input) rather than an actual picture. It's possible that with all guns firing there would be more interference. I'll run a couple of tests with M2s and post back.

I definitely didn't see as much interference with the speakers mounted at the side as I did when they were on top, although that is partly because the M2 driver is closer to the bottom than the side of the speaker. I did have to invert my M2s in order to use them on top of the television.

My TV does not have side speakers so you might be OK... bear in mind though that the M22 will probably cause a stronger magnetic field than the M2 due to the dual woofers. Having said that, my guess is that you will be OK if you can keep the M22s a few inches away from the side of the TV.

Thanks for the replies. Bridgman, thank you so much for doing some more tests with your M2s, hope its not too much trouble!

Placing the speakers on the shelf next to my TV isn't the optimal placement for them, but it's the best I can do given my apartment layout. As you can see in the picture posted above, the wall behind the TV has openings on either side. One side opens into a dining room and the other side opens into the kitchen. I can't place the speakers any further apart because of these openings.

My current speakers are old JVC hand-me-downs. One of them partly blocks the opening to the dining room (you can see this one in the picture) and the other is placed on the other side of the opening to the kitchen.

My seating position is 9-10 feet from the TV. If I get stands, I could put the M22's on either side of the wall openings. This would place them about 12 feet apart. Probably not ideal, but it is better than the ~3 feet apart if they are next to the TV.

I'm kinda rambling now, so to get back on topic: given bridgman's and JohnK's experiences (and hopefully some new experiments by bridgman!) I feel ~75% confident that I won't experience shielding problems with the M22's.

In reply to:

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My seating position is 9-10 feet from the TV. If I get stands, I could put the M22's on either side of the wall openings. This would place them about 12 feet apart. Probably not ideal, but it is better than the ~3 feet apart if they are next to the TV.

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Hey guys, would it be possible for him to experience good or great sound from doing this? I would think if toeing in the speakers a great deal it might work. Any thoughts?

It could be feasible.

Just my opinion but, even if you placed them where you initially intended, I doubt you'd have a problem with shielding. However, as John pointed out, in that position, they are a bit closer together than they should be. I would suggest trying them in both positions, toed in when you have them wide apart, and see which sounds best to you.

Hello kaid,

All of Axiom speaker's are magnetically shielded except for the subwoofers and the QS surround speakers. However, the dedicated center channel speakers have more shielding than the bookshelf and floorstanding models.

That said, it's very rare that the M22s or M2s would cause any problems when placed on top of a typical CRT set. Whoever told you two or three feet may have been erring on the side of caution.

In my experiments with several 28-inch CRT monitors, there were no interference problems with the M22ti, M3ti or M2i. Even the floorstanding M80s caused no problems placed beside a 28-inch CRT set.

Some older large-screen Sony CRTs--36 inch and 40-inch (Mitsubishi?)--can be more sensitive to magnetic interference, and for reasons that puzzle me, some CRT computer monitors are especially sensitive.

I doubt you'll have any interference issues putting an M22ti on top of your CRT set.

Regards,

Thanks Alan! And thanks for everyone else too.

I've got m22ti's on order. FO is 9 weeks though...ouch!

When I do get them in my apartment, I'll try out a couple of configurations and see what works best.

You know, in 9 weeks you could scrape together the difference btw FO and new on just about any street corner in Berkeley.