Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate Thread
Page 1 of 2 1 2
EP500 in a relatively small living room
#173889 08/06/07 01:01 PM
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
J
hobbyist
OP Offline
hobbyist
J
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
I recently visited axiom to audition and pick up my new speakers and I think I may have made a mistake in my sub choice...

I have a small living room (13x13x9) with a number of speaker placement restrictions. After alot of back-and-forth I decided on the M50s, VP150, QS8s and an EP500. The sub HAS to go underneath an end table; there's really no place for it elsewhere and it barely fits.

When I first listened to the m50s with the EP175 I really felt it was lacking bottom end. Debbie convinced me to take a listen to the EP400 for comparison purposes...now that was more like it! On our way back from vacation we stopped in to pick up the speakers and audition the EP500 as well. I liked what I heard enough to dish out the few extra dollars for the EP500.

I will be buying a Denon 3808CI just as soon as they're available in this area. In the meantime I'm using my old Carver to drive the M50s. There's no sub-out so the EP500 has yet to be hooked up.

I'm absolutely astounded by the beautiful low end I'm getting without the sub. It was literally a "holy crap, where did THAT come from?!?" moment. I'm afraid that when I get the Denon & hook up the sub it will be way too much for my living room.

Unfortunately my 30-day grace period will likely be up before the receiver is in my hands so I have to make a decision now. Do I keep the EP500 or should I scale back to the EP175? I'd appreciate any opinions...

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173890 08/06/07 01:07 PM
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 16,441
Jim,

Congrats on your purchase. I envy your ability to pick up the stuff directly from Axiom. Also, you're to be especially commended for purchasing the M50s. They are seriously under-represented on this forum.

With that all being said, you don't need to worry about the EP500 being too much for your living room. It has its own volume control so you'll be able to dial in its performance easily enough. When properly set up, the sub should only call attention to itself when its supposed to. It will seamlessly fill in the bottom end and make it seem like the sound is coming from the M50s. As good as you think the bass is now, you'll know you made the right choice after hearing the complete system.

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
pmbuko #173891 08/06/07 01:11 PM
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 6,331
axiomite
Offline
axiomite
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 6,331



Jack

"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue." - G. K. Chesterton
Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
pmbuko #173892 08/06/07 01:18 PM
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
J
hobbyist
OP Offline
hobbyist
J
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
If I have to scale the volume way back do you think it will make enough difference to justify the extra $700?

Obviously I agree on the m50s. Strangely enough at louder volumes the 50s sounded better...alot better in our opinion.

Dwight is not that far away, only a couple hours north of Toronto. Fortunately for me I'm even closer

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
Ajax #173893 08/06/07 01:24 PM
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 6,955
axiomite
Offline
axiomite
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 6,955
My HT room is of similar size and I was able to get the EP500 to blend very nicely. If anything, it took a big sub to meet the challenge of a square room. My couch has a VERY noticeable amount of less bass than if I walk over to the rear corners and some other spots in the room. It can be uncomfortably loud in some areas compared to the seating area.

Of course, I have little to nothing to diffuse the standing waves and refections and such so it's worse than you may have it. Unfortunately, this is the last room to get dollars put to curtains, rugs and other sound enhancing decor because we are still trying to get our main living areas filled in our new home.

The EP500 is till my most favorite thing ever, after my Jeep and of course my wife. Who probably will never read this, but you can't be too careful...


With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.
Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173894 08/06/07 01:29 PM
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 6,331
axiomite
Offline
axiomite
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 6,331
Jim, the volume knob controls the quantity of what the sub puts out, not the quality. Though I understand your concern, only you can decide if the extra depth in the frequency range, and linear frequency response of the 500 justifies the extra $700. To me it would, but YMMV.


Jack

"People generally quarrel because they cannot argue." - G. K. Chesterton
Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173895 08/07/07 02:29 AM
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 10,654
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 10,654
Jim, welcome. It's good to read how you're enjoying your M50s, but I think that you'll find that the EP500 will add significantly to that enjoyment. Although not ideal, you can try it right now, before you get your receiver that has bass management. Use regular speaker wire from the Carver outputs to the high level inputs on the EP500 and set the low pass filter on the sub to 40Hz(you might also try 60). This won't work as well as with an HT receiver that can do a crossover, but at least you can begin to enjoy your EP500 immediately.


-----------------------------------

Enjoy the music, not the equipment.


Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173896 08/07/07 04:05 PM
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 1,333
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 1,333
Quote:

If I have to scale the volume way back do you think it will make enough difference to justify the extra $700?




Keep in mind it's not always the volume of bass, it's the quality of bass. When you get your HT set up and play a movie with good LFE, you'll know. I routinely listen to music w/o the sub and turn it back on again for movies. It's a real thrill while watching a movie to have the couch rumble and and your clothes vibrate without hearing anything; really makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up!

The EP500 is the one component I would not give up if I had to make a choice, in fact I'm contemplating getting a second.

Just my $0.02

Scott

Axiom is great to work with, so if you've got a new AVR on the way that's pushing the 30 day thing, let Axiom know.


Scott

My HT
Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JohnK #173897 08/07/07 07:14 PM
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
J
hobbyist
OP Offline
hobbyist
J
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
Quote:

Use regular speaker wire from the Carver outputs to the high level inputs on the EP500 and set the low pass filter on the sub to 40Hz(you might also try 60). This won't work as well as with an HT receiver that can do a crossover, but at least you can begin to enjoy your EP500 immediately.




good idea, only problem is the 12-guage speaker wire I picked up from Axiom is too thick to get two wires per binding post. These tired old eyes have a hard enough time with one set of wires

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
a401classic #173898 08/07/07 07:22 PM
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
J
hobbyist
OP Offline
hobbyist
J
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
Quote:

Axiom is great to work with, so if you've got a new AVR on the way that's pushing the 30 day thing, let Axiom know.




I couldn't agree with you more there. I spent a good 3 hours at the factory with Debbie trying out just about every piece of equipment they sell (and even some that aren't out of the prototype phase). Only managed to make her wince once (guessing she's not a huge Frank Zappa fan).

Judging by the comments I'm hearing from all of you I'm thinking I lucked out by goinging ahead with the EP500.

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173899 08/08/07 02:25 AM
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 10,654
shareholder in the making
Offline
shareholder in the making
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 10,654
Jim, the stripped ends of the wire don't have to stay at 12ga. It's the overall resistance of the entire length of wire that's relevant, not the resistance at a particular point; this isn't analogous to a 4-lane highway suddenly turning into a 8-foot wide dirt road. You can trim enough strands off the ends of the wires so that they fit, and the overall resistance won't be significantly affected.


-----------------------------------

Enjoy the music, not the equipment.


Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173900 08/08/07 05:33 PM
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,625
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 1,625
Quote:

. Only managed to make her wince once (guessing she's not a huge Frank Zappa fan).




Oh, I don't know. I've seen her tapping her toes to Joe's Garage . . . Now Valley Girl, that's a different story . . .

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
Amie #173901 08/08/07 06:13 PM
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
J
hobbyist
OP Offline
hobbyist
J
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
Quote:

Oh, I don't know. I've seen her tapping her toes to Joe's Garage . . . Now Valley Girl, that's a different story . . .




ah, she told you it was Joe's Garage.

Then again it might've been the 4 days camping at Arrowhead prior to coming in that made her wince

Your staff is stellar btw. I've never met a nicer bunch of people.

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173902 08/08/07 09:06 PM
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 160
veteran
Offline
veteran
Joined: Nov 2004
Posts: 160
ok, I have another solution. Get the EP600 in the Horizontal Orientation. You can then double it's use as your coffee table killing two birds with one stone.

However, you will have the problem of nothing being able to "stay" on the coffee table.


Shag
Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
shag #173903 08/08/07 10:25 PM
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 1,189
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 1,189
Especially with the tapered sides


-Dave

M80s VP150 QS8s EP500s
ravenmanor.com/cinema/
Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173904 08/10/07 12:34 AM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 315
devotee
Offline
devotee
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 315
Just curious- what carver equip. do you have? When I went multichannel I integrated my old school 2ch carver system in with the new.

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
duckman #173905 08/12/07 12:58 PM
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
J
hobbyist
OP Offline
hobbyist
J
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 20
Quote:

Just curious- what carver equip. do you have? When I went multichannel I integrated my old school 2ch carver system in with the new.




It's a MXR-150 (I think). There's no model number on the amp or in the manual so I'm guessing. If I wasn't going the HT route I'd keep it; it sounds amazing with my new M50s.

Re: EP500 in a relatively small living room
JimLogan #173906 08/13/07 08:47 PM
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 110
D
veteran
Offline
veteran
D
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 110
I have two EP500's and can't be happier. Just don't have them too close to the seating area.

Page 1 of 2 1 2

Moderated by  alan, Amie, Andrew, axiomadmin, Brent, Debbie, Ian, Jc 

Link Copied to Clipboard

Need Help Graphic

Forum Statistics
Forums16
Topics24,940
Posts442,457
Members15,616
Most Online2,082
Jan 22nd, 2020
Top Posters
Ken.C 18,044
pmbuko 16,441
SirQuack 13,840
CV 12,077
MarkSJohnson 11,458
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 563 guests, and 1 robot.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newsletter Signup
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4