Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners M60 vs. M80

Thanks, for the input everyone. From the sounds of things, I will run M22 centes in parallel with M60's for my fronts.

I've I have plenty of power, would the M80's be a better choice due to 4 ohms impedence?

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I've I have plenty of power, would the M80's be a better choice due to 4 ohms impedence?

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The 80's would not neccesarily be a better choice because you have plenty of power to drive them, Imo the size of your room and use should determine what speaker you choose.

Although I haven't purchased any Axioms yet, I have run through the Home Theater Wizard a couple of times.

On paper my dedicated theater room is 14-8 W x 21-4 L with a ceiling height of 9-2. That's only 313 square feet, but almost 2900 cubic feet of volume. By the HTW, that is barely considered a "large" room, but the recommendation for a 7.1 system is for M60s, a VP150, 4-QS8s, and the EP500. Your type of movie/music listening will change what is recommended, too. And from what I'm reading here, you're probably wasting money by going with the M80 unless you've got a really long room (>25') and an amp that likes 4-ohm loads.

I will be running a pre/pro combo of some sort (in the 200WPC range), so power won't be a problem. But I haven't figured out which one yet. That's a question I need to ask in another thread.

Best of luck in your decision.

It's interesting and yet a little confusing to me what some of you are saying about the M60s vs. the M80s.

One person said that the M60s are "easier to drive" due to their higher impedance. Take note however that the M80s are 2 dB more efficient. If you run the math, you almost need the same amount of current to run the M80s as the M60s for the same SPL. The difference in drive current may matter on a tube amp but the majority of solid state amps should not care unless you are trying to fill a very large room or listen at extremely high SPLs.

Another person said that the M60s are a better bet due to the smaller room size. Now I've never heard the M60s but don't the M80s provide better imaging and greater clarity due to a lower cross-over for the mid-range, a higher cross-over on the tweeter and the dual mid-ranges and tweeters?

Am I missing something on these two points?

Mo, I don't have any worthwhile comments about the relative crossover frequencies, but I've commented several times in the past about the effect of the slightly higher sensitivity of the M80s on the relative current requirements at a given sound level. I just did a brief calculation(details supplied upon unlikely request)using the reported 2dB sensitivity difference. For example, at a sound peak which required 100 watts for the M60s, about 63 watts would be required for the M80s at the same sound level. The calculated current for the M60s would be 3.53 amperes for the peak and 3.97 amperes for the M80s, not a major difference. It can also be noted that if the difference in sensitivities was exactly 3dB that the current requirements for the two speakers would be identical, and if the 4 ohm speaker was more than 3dB higher in sensitivity(not an unknown situation)that it would use less current than the 8 ohm speaker and therefore could be said to be "easier to drive".