Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions M80s with Single Tweeter

Someone on the boards asked what M80s with a single tweeter sounds like. It was posited that perhaps, M80s with a single tweeter sound less accurate at higher frequencies.

I did some critical stereo listening earlier today with and without the top tweeters. I disconnected them and stuck them back in the cabinet so as not to change the cabinet response. I used the Ventana al Sol track from Echoes of Incas. There was no difference in clarity, transparency, soundstage and instrument separation between the speakers nor accuracy (what some call high frequency "harshness"). However, I found it extremely surprising that the soundstage differed beyond the speaker boundaries . The first 15 seconds of this soundtrack is punctuated by chirping birds and one appears against my EP600 wall about mid-way between my left M80 and left QS8 (see below). That effect was moved to just outside the left M80 with the tweeter removed. This is not a subtle loss if one listens critically. After listening to a few other tracks, I concluded that a single tweeter results in a narrowing of the soundstage for higher frequency effects. For the majority of recordings I doubt anyone would notice a difference. But for high quality recordings, there is a definite difference under critical listening conditions...at least in my acoustic environment.

Maybe I should also try leaving the top tweeter in tact and removing the bottom tweeter to see what effect that has.

I recall Someone at Axiom stating the M80 has dual tweeters for the sole purpose of handling the power that they are speced for.

Obviously not important for my half watt .

I'm thinking if you removed all of your 80s drivers you'll probably save yourself from expending all of them....that watt and a half Mojo.

Obviously

As long as you are disconnecting..........try this for me:


Disconnect 1 tweeter, and 1 mid-range....you now have a M60.
Next, see if the "M60" configuration in the M80 cabinet, has more bass, than a "stock" M60.

Larry you need a set of M80s

Rick, Larry's motive is to have Mojo send him the extra mids and tweeters so that he will then be able to add 'em to his existing 60s for an in-house upgrade to a pair of 80s. I know how those ex-Floridians think.

He was from Il. first though, he was a transplant He came back for the winters

Transplants in Florida?!?!

Can't be.

Hey you guys,

VERY funny, now where's the "rim shot" icon on these new boards?

What took you so long?

Sure. Send me your M60s for a frame of reference.

I would think by disconnecting one of the tweeters you would also be changing the characterstics of the crossover circuitry's effect on the sound.

Then again, I may be talking out of my ass again.

The spec sheets for the two have different x-over points, so I suspect they would sound different.

Scott

Hi Brandon,

I thought about the same thing before I disconnected the tweeter. I was thinking of ways that I could muffle the tweeter and then I just decided to go ahead and disconnect it. I was worried about damaging my amp or the cross-over itself (not good to drive an unloaded cross-over). Perhaps the tweeter is predominantly mechanically crossed over or each tweeter has its own cross-over. These are guesses...I really don't know.

You have mentioned that the M80s with the grilles on are not as forward, could you try the grilles just covering the tweeters, tweeters and mids, to see if it changes anything?

Good grief. How much TIME do you guys have?!?!

I'm going with: don't have kids.

I have two kids and a wife. Like Jason, I sleep very little. Unlike Jason though, I don't have to work with heavy machinery. You better get some sleep, man. I don't want you dozing off in our Paradigm/Axiom showdown tomorrow.

Hmm... child care? Maybe kids take less time as they get older. Yeah, right.

My typical day,

I am awakened around 7:30AM thanks to my 4yrold, out of bed by 8AM to get oldest(7yrs) off to school or at least say goodbye, check the forums and Email, run 5K and/or hit the weights for an hour(my 4yrold 'helps and joins me' then we play. Some days I pick up my oldest for lunch. Run him back to school 12:45, then run the youngest to preschool or some other afternoon activity. If he is at school(MWF), I will sometimes grab a nap for an hour or so. Pick him up 3:00PM my oldest is home from school 3:30 my wife arrives home around 4:00 I have started making myself some lunch for work at night around 3:30 and then start supper. I head off to work at 5PM and then arrive back home at 2:30 AM and off to bed around 3AM then start all over again for 5 days. I get a little extra shut eye on Sundays, but I do find it hard to sleep more than 6hrs at any one time now.

Right now I forgo the naps to play and experiment with the speakers. Once I decide which ones I will go with, I am sure I will calm down a little.

Oh, you win. Fine.

Do I get an EP600? Other than spending the extra time with the kids(which I wouldn't trade for anything), I think that would make the sleep deprivation much easier to take.

Heh... you get an EP600 the minute I can afford 5. And the WAF to go with it.

I think that's about the same time I get one too!

Last friday night after work I came home and decided to get a head start on the weekend by staying up until 1am dismantling my stereo rack, cleaning all the connections with deoxit and progold, then polish off any dust and fingerprints from the components and throughly vacuume where the rack sits, And then reassemble everything, First by putting the components back one by one, carefully measuring each one into its place on the shelf within less than 1/16" tolerances followed by paying carefull attention to keep all the wires organized and neatly placed and ziptied.

I then proceeded to wipe down my M80's with a microfiber to remove any dust (no chance there would be fingerprints on them lol) However that is something I do on a weekly basis. Although i did do it a bit more carefully by gently wiping any dust off the drivers along with dusting the insides of the ports.

And after that was done with I tested all 7 of my sources to make sure everything still worked.

I guess its pretty sad when you actually like doing that, Which I do.

I hope my wife doesn't read this post. She'll end up giving me more chores.

We all have our obsessions, Brandon. Some worse than others, for sure, but we all got 'em.

Yours appears to be changing your avatar every 4 months .

Kids grow. What can I say?

I hear that happens only when you feed them.

Except all the food is on her chin and not in her tummy.