Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater One more time... 6.1 or 7.1?

And for those of you who have never seen a Michaura M66, here's a pic of an M55 in the foreground and an M66 in the background.

Ray Adkins at audioholics.com did a review of an epic 80-600 system but added and extra vp150 to have dual center channels, an extra ep600 and dual m80's for the surround rears. I guess you could call it a 8.2 system.

Link: http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speakers/floorstanding/axiom-audio-epic-80-600/page-5

Reading this review convinced me that this would be the system to shoot for in the distant future. However, most people cannot afford having m80's for the rear surrounds so I thought that m22's or even m2's would be a great substitution. But, most folks around here who have tried this haven't been very impressed. It sounds like having 2 qs8's in the rear seems to be what everyone thinks sounds best. Even Axiom is pushing qs8's for the rear surrounds when demoing the new amp in Florida this coming October, so they must be convinced that is the best sound. This is obviously the case since very few people can afford the system that they are demoing, having 4 ep600's added into the epic 80-600 package and the new $3,000 amp. If they were convinced that having 7 m80's all the way around would sound the best then that is what they would demo. Think about it that would only be about another $1800 on top of an already priced $13,000 system. It doesn't make much of a difference.

So, I guess to sum it up, going with qs8's in the surround rear positions sound like the safest way to be happy. But, some people like having direct radiating speakers there instead. Or, if you have the money to put m80's there and already have m80's up front then by all means put m80's in there. The rest of us will be very jealous.

- Nick

Bayne,

If you are doubting the M2 rears, I would say, at the most, your room only needs QS4 rears, not QS8s. If I were to get rear surrounds, they would probably be QS4s (not QS8s).

This is turning out to be a very hard decision, indeed.

I really like the idea of going with two M2's. They'd fit nicely tucked up high in my HT room. QS8's or even QS4's would probably be too large due to the room layout, however just one QS8 centered is my second best bet. I find if hard to believe that having direct firing speakers for just the rears would make that much of a difference besides maybe not sounding as good outside of the centre sweet spot. Surrounds yes, but rears? I dunno. I really think it's going to come down to a choice between either two M2's or one QS8. Fortunately I won't be buying my new receiver until just after November 20th and don't have to make a decision on my rear speaker set-up until a week or two before, so any more advice or comments would be much appreciated.

After reading this post I decided to spring for a couple QS4's to replace my direct radiating speakers in rears, because of my open room layout I think this may be a better choice for me.
When they arrive in a couple weeks I'll let everyone know if they made a differnce in my setup.

M80s front and rear, twin VP150s up front and a pair of QS8s, twin EP600s ... could it get much better than that?

If you go with two M2's you'll be happy. Just plan to point them down and toe them in a bit. In all reality, matrixed 7.1 isn't much more than a bunch of gargled noise anyway. After hearing it you feel naked without it, but when you listen to it with all with all other speakers disconnected, you'll understand what I'm saying. Discrete 6/7 channel has defined sounds as well as some multi channel music cds / dvds, but that's the only exceptions. If you don't like the M2's, you can always upgraid.

Crown on the rocks with a drop of bitters ... is that a Canadian thing? Whazzat? Good?

Actually, mdrew lives in Alaska...