Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater VP150 bass weaker than itty bitty Bose?

I can't seem to get around this...I love my Axioms in every way but one. The bass output of my VP150 sounds weaker than my fathers Bose lifestyle 48 system. How can that be? It is especially prominent with male dialogue. His Bose system sounds very, for lack of a better term, movie theater-like. Whereas my system sounds weaker, and some movies have very shrill high end dialog that is slightly irritating and sometimes creates a little distortion in the tweeter. Is this just the axiom style? Or is there some deficiency in my setup? Frankly this has been bothering me for a long time, how can those crappy little speakers sound so much more theatrical than my axioms? Is there something I can do to improve dialogue bass? I've seemed to play out every scenario within my Yamaha V2600 and nothing works. Is this what people have been talking about axioms being "accurate"?
Set up: Vp150(small), M60's(large), Qs8's(small), M2 backs(small), EP500(X-over 80hz) -- Yamaha V2600

Have you tried setting the VP150 to large? As for the shrillness, I have no clue what that could be.

I wanted to add that I just finished watching Unforgiven. I had one heck of a time understanding the dialogue. I tried raising the bass (via the tone control), increasing the centre channel volume, increasing the main gain...all to no good effect. I found however that by setting the centre to large (which by the way I can only do by setting the mains to large), I got very good understandability.

I've never had this problem before. It appears that the mixing on this movie could have been done better.

Drew, a couple of comments that might not solve the mystery, but should be relevant: my understanding is that in the Bose system neither the cube surrounds nor the small center can handle below about 250Hz and that the bass module has a crossover to take care of even the upper bass frequencies, so you're not actually hearing the "itty bitty" speakers there. When you speak of an 80Hz crossover on the EP500, if you mean that the control on the back is set to that, then you should set it to "Bypass" instead, in case this is causing some mid-bass weakness in the "small" speakers. From what you say, you've apparently already experimented with various crossover frequencies on the 2600 in the 80-120Hz area.

Your overall impression of the VP150 doesn't seem to be that of other users, so you might contact Axiom on the possibility that it's defective. One suggestion would be to temporarily move one of your M2s into position as a vertical center(replacing the VP150)to investigate the likelihood of a problem with the VP150.

Seconded. That "shrill sound" doesn't seem right. Give Axiom a call and more info.

I really hate it when voices try to sneak through my sub. And if I cross at 80hz, sometimes they try. So I use an M3 for center crossed at 60 and no voices! And the M3s happily cross at 60 and still have plenty of bass available down there so....no itty-bitty sound from the center, and no distracting voices from the sub, which may sound theater-like; but can tend to occasionally foil the dialog.

Best of both worlds!

I've tried setting my center at large but it didn't seem to do much. I then tried playing movies in two channel with my M60's but it didnt seem significantly better. The Bose system has nice oomph in male dialog that has a movie theater vibe to it. I'm pretty sure there is something slightly wrong with my VP150's right tweeter though, which is dissapointing, this is the second defective speaker i've recieved from Axiom, the other being an EP500.

are you comparing the same movie on both systems?

all movies have different quality of sound, I am assuming you used the same source material?

Another dumb one. Have you calibrated the system?