Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater M60 - small or large?

I just picked up a pair of M60s to replace my M22s as the main speakers in my surround set up. I also have a VP100 center, QS4 surrounds and a sub.
With the extended bass range of the M60s, I'm confused about whether to set them as large or small.
Also looking for suggestions for the crossover setting. My receiver is a Denon AVR-3803 if that matters.
Thanks.

Hey Joe,

You too, eh! I've tried both. I'm not sure which I prefer. I think it works either large or small. Whatever your personal preference is would be your norm.

This question comes up often...I owned 60's for 2 years and now have 80's. I still use small, with a 80hz crossover on the receiver. My Denon 2805 just has one crossover setting that applies to all speakers. Not familiar with the model you have, it might have individual settings for each speaker?

This would allow you to look at the specs of each speaker and set the crossover a little higher or lower, depending on the speakers abilities.

Yes, the 60's have a much lower range than the 22's, however, you will still get killer performance out of them with an 80hz crossover. The sub will do a better job in those lower categories, as it was intended. Also, when we say 80hz, I don't believe it just CUTS off there, you have a gradual slope or blend, when it passes off to the sub.

Also, make sure your not using the crossover on your sub at the same time...

I would suggest that large is acceptable for 2 channel music listening if you prefer it without a sub. However, for movies it is highly recommended that one sets their speakers to small regardless of size as some heavy bass such as explosions in a soundtrack can quickly turn your speakers into Mondays garbage, by setting to small all of the potentialy damaging bass is sent to where it should be handled, the sub.

Enjoy your new 60's
Chris

I would agree with setting the M60s to small for home theater application. A review of the EP600 and M80s (http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/axiom/axiom_2.html) illustrates this point by stating: " And don't be shy about crossing over whatever speakers you are using at 85Hz or so and let the EP600 carry the load. The larger your speakers, the more robustly they can produce down to 85Hz for a perfect hand-off to the EP600" . If you take this logic and have a decent subwoofer, you may benefit by setting the M60 to small . The cross-over setting that is used most often and also recommended by THX (if you are into that sort of following) is 80Hz. Finally, by setting your M60s to small, you will also benefit your amp as it will work less while focusing its efforts above the set cross over.

John (also in CT)

I have M80s. What I find works great in my environment is having them set to small, always, with a cross-over of 40 Hz when I'm listening to music and 80 Hz when I'm watching movies. You may want to try this too.

It would be nice if my receiver would allow me to set a different crossover when listening tomusic via CD or direct modes, and something different for movies, seems that would make sense.

I agree.

Ultimately, I want to see a configurable cut-off frequency matrix consisting of channels as the rows and music mode as the columns. In each of those cells, I want to be able to enter unique cross-over frequencies in increments of at least 5 Hz.

And I want to see volume increments of 0.1 dB. This is more important for the pre-amp section so that I can squeeze as much power out of the power amp before it starts clipping (or shutting down).

>>It would be nice if my receiver would allow me to set a different crossover when listening tomusic via CD or direct modes, and something different for movies, seems that would make sense.

Can you say "Harman Kardon" ? I knew you could...

I like my M80's set to small with the crossover at 60hz. I like the lows from the M80's, but I want my SVS to handle the really deep stuff.

So Harman/Kardon AVR's allow multiple crossover settings for different sources? That's very cool, and a very excellent idea.

If it's like mine, it's not for different sources, but rather listening modes. Such as L7 Film vs. L7 Music mode.

Joe, regardless of the pretty good bass response of your M60s, a good sub handles the lowest bass even better and relieves the M60 of some of the lowest bass burden. Set them "small" with a 80Hz crossover, which is a good compromise frequency, being high enough to take a significant load off of the speakers, but not so high as to make the sub easily localizable.

Incidentally, several receivers beside HK(e.g. some Denon and Onkyo models)provide for setting different crossover frequencies for different speaker groups.

You got it right, if your sub does not have a "bypass" option on the knob, just crank it all the way clockwise to the highest setting to get it out of the way.

Does your sub amp have a 'bypass' switch? That would be the ideal setting. If not, crank its crossover up as high as it will go, 160hz, in your case.

Quote:

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Thanks to everyone for the great responses. Small it is! My sub amp has a variable crossover range of 40-160Hz. If I use the receiver's setting for 80Hz, where should the sub be set? Should I turn it all the way up to 160Hz, or does it just have to be above 80?

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ha ha I beat you Peter, and I'm up at the inlaws using their slowwwwww dialup connection, man I miss my DSL.

Randy
"central Iowa"

>>If it's like mine, it's not for different sources, but rather listening modes. Such as L7 Film vs. L7 Music mode.

That is correct. The only thing that makes it work (in a wobbly, indirect kind of way) is that different sources tend to invoke different modes and that the HK receivers will automatically pick an appropriate mode, ie you never get Dolby Digital off a stereo CD.

It's confusing to work with, and there are a couple of things you have to do manually (I don't remember the details) but it does cover most of the things I wanted to do.