Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Axiom vs. $80,000 System....

I thought that title might get your attention.

I have a very good family friend who has been the primary influence of my home theater sickness. He is a hard-core audiophile, and has been so for most of his life. This guy has lovely custom re-engineered ADCOM and Rotel amps lying around in his basement. Needless to say, he's spent decades on both his home theater room and his 2-channel room, and recently moved to a new home (specifically because it had better acoustics than his old one ). He recently invited my wife and I over for an afternoon of wine and music. What I heard was nothing short of awe-inspiring. We spend a lot of time talking about soundstage, presence, depth, etc. It's hard to really grasp those concepts without really hearing them.

I can't go into the details of his setup, simply because I don't remember all of it. What I do know is that it's a 2-channel setup, enormous 2 channel amp (130lbs, I believe he said), line conditioners, CD player with seperate D/A converter, suspended wiring with speaker cables as large as garden hoses, everything on anti-resonance feet, speaker stands bolted to the floor, etc. No TV's, no subs, just an acoustically lovely room, drawers full of CD's and vinyl, a rack of equipment, and two goregously massive B&W 801 speakers.

I now understand that two channel stereo is absolutely capable of three dimensional imaging. I have never heard an orchestra sound so real, so detailed, and so dimensional. I could plainly pinpoint precisely where various members of the orchestra were seated, left-to-right, and front-to-back. Oh god the detail - a couple of jazz tracks that involved a drum and brush, I'm pretty sure I could count the hairs on the brush if I had wanted to. Norah Jones, Diana Krall, Mary Black - they're right there standing in the room. Awe inspiring. This is what this hobby is all about! We listened to about 4 hours of music, and then spent some time playing around with some specific demo CD's to highlight the soundstage and dimensionality of the system. I was blown away at how much those speakers absolutely dissapeared into the soundstage and created a totallly 3 dimensional environment. Who needs DPL II processing and 8 speakers?

So here's the deal. I brought along several of my 'reference' albums. Music that I know and love for both the musical content and the technical aspects of the recordings. My little setup doesn't really sound half bad compared to his monster setup. There are obviously huge differences in the presence and detail, but really, truly, I'm pretty impressed at how my stuff sounds. Until it comes to soundstage.

I want that glorious 3- dimensionality from 2 channels. I spent an hour or so tweaking the placement of the m22's over the weekend, and I did improve the soundstage a bit, but not enough. Building such a system is a long (and expensive) road, but where should I start? I just bought the SVS sub, and that has gone a *long* way at balancing out my system. But what's next? Like most of us, I can't just whip out the Amex card and spend $50K+ on a system, so this needs to be a gradual thing over years. Should I start down the path of discrete amplifiers? Upgrade to M60/M80's? Invest in better wiring? Just curious about some of your thoughts.

Thanks friends!

Er, I am tremendously unqualified to even begin to answer your post... except for one part. (And I'm sure someone will probably disagree.)

I am on the verge of getting into the hobby, having only purchased a solid receiver (Pioneer Elite VSX-72TXV that I got at a steal), which I haven't hooked up... because I have nothing good to hook it up to! I will (hopefully) be purchasing a 5.1 setup of Axioms shortly... which is why I troll the boards.

I am answering you because, as I don't have any good equipment yet, I spend inordinately stupid amounts of time reading, planning, scheming... and figuring out "what" I will be buying.

SO... the only thing I think I can say for sure is that I have read a TON of articles (including articles from this site) that indicate most "high end" speaker cables are poor investments with negligible discernable effects on sound. (The phrase "snake oil salesman" is used regularly to describe the purveyors of said cables.) So long as your speaker cable is "good" (i.e., a nice 12 guage... 10 guage for long runs), my understanding is that you essentially will not hear a difference.

Perhaps when you're at the point that there isn't "anything" else to buy... (like it sounds your friend is), using such dramatically insane equipment, probably using expensive diagnostic equipment to measure it, etc., then you need to upgrade your cables. Honestly, though, I'd really think at that point the only way to tell a difference may be by using the equipment... "the diagnostic tests tell me it sounds better."

I suspect people "in the know" would say if you're going for great, two channel sound... the first place to look might be for a great full range tower speaker. (Though I'd almost think the M22s plus a good SVS sub would be hard to beat without spending "a lot"... i.e., I don't think spending $900-1000 for a set of M60s or B&W DM603s, etc., etc will blow you away like they would if you hadn't purchased the sub.) However, my guess is that "in the know" people will say that eventually... once you're willing to spend $2000+ (?), upgrading to great floorstanders is the way to go.

The next step for you would probably be better amplification? That would seem logical. If you're really into two channel, buy a good separate two channel amp.

After that... a decent power conditioner, better rated "source equipment"... meaning get a "better" CD player?

Also, one of the consistent themes that everyone says is critical is not equipment, but positioning/placement/acoustics. Your friend obviously has the means to address that. A dedicated room with acoustic treatments, etc. is probably pretty important... once you've spent $2500 on a pair of tower speakers, $2000 on amplification, and another $1000 on whatever, you probably can't go too far if you are limited by your room.

Anyway, there's the opinion of a guy who owns nothing but has read far too much.

I know how you felt, I've been there before (listening to a friend's great stereo system). Of course it takes years of research, trials and lots of dollars to achieve that. Here is a couple of first steps you may want to consider, based on my own experience:

1 - Room acoustics and placement. The cheapest method, play with moving your speakers, sub around before considering cheap acoustic treatments to your room (starting with rags)

2 - Switch to separates, I see you have a receiver (pardon me if mistaken). It does make a difference for 2 channel stereo. It did for me. I am talking about didicated 2 channel power amp and pre-amp. There are many people who would question this advise, but who cares, listen for yourself and decide. Do a search on this forum on this topic (separates vs. receiver) and you'll probably find many thoughts.

I won't go any further, as I think I am not that qualified. Hopefully somebody else will jump in. One thing is for sure, this is an expensive hobby!

There is no way that switching to separates will make more of a change than switching the speakers. M80s, baby.

Well, M80s vs. M22s plus a nice sub is a very close call I would assume. Aren't they both from Axiom? I own M60s and never heard either one, but I have read a lot in this forum, and specifically comparing M22s plus a sub VS. M80s for a 2 channel system. I'd also agree that I'd purchase M80s if I had to do it all over again. Also, there is price difference isn't it?

Thanks for the great replies. Yes, I certainly understand that home audio is an incremental hobby that (usually) takes years to build up to a 'master' system. Right now, I'm sort of looking at where to enter 'the next level' of sound. My friend's 2-channel room doesn't really have anything special done to it acoustically other than nice thick carpet. The acoustics of the room itself seem quite nice, as even the tone of your voice sounds richer.

I digress...

I spent a couple of hours tinkering with my home setup over the weekend after listening to his stereo, and did make some improvements. Pushing the m22's further out to near the walls of my room, and slightly toe-ing them in helped the sound stage and did result in real improvements (my wife commented that it sounds better, so I'm not imaginging things). And while I do love my Pioneer Elite receiver, I've definitely been lurking about on several preamp/amp manufacturer's sites and learning what I can. Outlaw Audio is one in particular that I keep coming back to. My receiver also has pre-outs for all 8 channels as well, so I might not need a new, pure pre-amp right away....

For example, the 'exercise' that just kills my system involves nothing more than a man and a microphone (Chesky system setup tools, FYI). He announces that he is standing front and center at the microphone, then walks halfway between center and stage right, then full stage right, then off stage to the right. Then he does the same thing on the left side. It's about as simple an exercise as you can have. On my friend's system, the placement is absolutely perfect, and when the man is beyond the stage his voice actually seems to come from beyond the L/R speaker - spooky and fascinating. On my system I can tell when he's dead center, and full left or right, but the in-between positions sound undefined and confusing, and the far off-stage test sounds very strange and not natural, with no 'beyond-the-speaker' feeling to it. On my friend's system you can hear details in the recording such as the echos from whatever theater where it was recorded quite clearly. It sounds and feels very much like you're in an empty concert hall, which is exactly where it was recorded. There's very little of that feeling in my system. It's quite revealing and disapointing. Again, $3k worth of components vs maybe $80k - rather difficult to compare!

Honestly, right now it boils down that proably in about 3 or so months I'll be ready to make another home theater purchase, and I don't know whether I should go the M60/M80 route, or the seperates route first - knowing that *eventually* I'll probably do both.

I suppose the best next step would be to build myself a new house with an acoustically magic room .

With that Chesky test it sounds more like a placement and room acoustics issue. For an accurate result it would seem a symmetrical set-up would be beneficial. That way, all the reflections would be hitting your ear in an orderly fashion.

when i upgraded my integrated amp to mono's and a preamp i noticed the biggest difference in sound out of all the other upgrades i have done, minus speakers.

I would say maybe Speakers then amps.

It is simple, and yet difficult.

1) Speaker position.
2) Room acoustics.

The list is simple but getting the right angles, toe in, left right distances, etc. is what makes it hard.

Jordan and i did some listening awhile ago and he had one song in particular that we heard. Both of us needed to check to see if the surround speakers were playing because of the amazing 3D effect that was happening. Alas, the receiver was in Direct mode and only the 2 M60s were making sound.
I've never heard that before until that day, at least not that effectively.
I never heard it at all in our other home. In the new media room however, it is much more common. Keep playing with the golden ratios, you will make it happen.