Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Swapped M22's for M60's, Need a little help.

Ok, in a nutshell I am not very impressed by the M60's vs. the M22's. My setup is this: 2 M60's, VP150, 2 QS4's, 2 M3's, HSU VTF3 MK3 and an Onkyo 705. The M3's are at the rear about 6' away, QS4's are on either side of the sofa the left is 4' and the right is 6'. Now for the front....I sit fairly close to the TV/Speakers, I would say about 6' to the center and 7' for the M60's. I mainly watch movies eg: Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, etc and I am just not hearing the "Bass" that read so much about in the forums, I even heard someone say they almost did not need a sub with the M60's. I have ran Audyssey setup 5 times now and basically get the same settings every time. I personally think the problem is that the speakers are not far enough to either side of the TV/VP150. The left M60 is only 1.5' from the center and the right M60 is about 3.5' to the right of the center. So the distance between the M60's is 7'. The M60's are set at 40Hz, I thought that would do it but.....
I hope this is not to confusing. Thanks for any help in advance!!!

Are you not getting enough bass from your sub?? I have a similar setup with M22, VP150, STF-3 sub and QS8's and get all the bass I need from the sub.

I dont own M60's, but after a big listening session at MOJO's place we had M3, 22, 60, 80's and personally the M80's, were the best speaker of them all, but next to them I prefer the clarity of the M22's to the extra bass of the M60's.

Maybe somebody else that upgraded from 22's to 60's can suggest something, but M22's were my 2nd favorite Axiom speaker and the sub fills in for its lack of bass.

Set the front XO to 80Hz, 40Hz is way too low.

Set your speakers to small in the receiver with 80hz crossover.

By the way, how did you run Audyssey with an Onkyo receiver?

I believe the 705 and other models have MultEQ built in, not just Denons.

You are correct sir!

Here is what Audyssey set the speakers as.
Front: Full Band, which I changed to 40Hz
Center: 70Hz
Surround: 120Hz
Surr Back: 60Hz
LPF of LFE: 80Hz

I thought that by lowering the Hz it would send more low freq (Bass) to the M60's.?.

My onkyo 605 does the same thing with front speakers as it seems yours does. No matter what speaker is in the front it automatically sets it to full range.

OK, looks like no one posted the obvious one here: make sure the binding straps between the posts on the speakers are all in place. Did you verify that all 4 of the drivers on each speaker are working by sticking your ear up next to them?

I like my Onkyo 705 but I am looking at the new Denon's that came out a month or so ago. The 889 or the 1909 look like a good deal and they have a new version of Audyssey that is miles above the version I have....But it still won't make the M60's sound any better. It's not like I need any more bass the MK3 handle's that without problem. I did the "trade in" that Axiom was doing, not sure if they are still doing it or not but I don't think I could afford to even ship these things back anyway.

Another thing I would suggest is stepping back, running the receiver in pure direct (or direct, or stereo, or whatever it is without audyssy or bass management) and listening to the M60s in stereo. Do they have sufficient bass in that realm?

Audyssy could also be killing the bass frequencies in calibration, or it could be you're sitting in a room null.

Could it be that you are so used to (and like) the sound of your sub it makes the M60 seem as if they are lacking? How hot do you normally run the Hsu?

"sirquack" AND "SRoode" are right. 40hz for the crossover is way too low, especially for movies. You are essentially filtering out the bass at the lower end of the M60's range and remember these filters do it in somewhat of a gradual way, and at that crossover level you are kind of in a no-man's land so you won 't hear anything from the sub unless the particular sound passage is REALLY deep and you won't hear any meaningful bass from the M60's because it has been transferred to the sub. I switched from M22's(I now use them as rear surrounds with QS8's) to M60's several months ago. I found the M60's to be a better blend with my subs especially at the mid-lower end of the frequency range and I can drive them considerably harder than the M22's. I have a Velodyne SMS-1 digital drive bass equalizing system that gives you many more set-up options than the average AVR or pre-pro and after many hours of experimentation, the best blend between the M60's and and the subs was in the 70-80hz range. 80 hz is still pretty low even though theoretically the M60's should play down into the 35-40hz range. Make no mistake about it and as anybody in this forum would tell you, regardless of the nature of your left/right speakers, full-range or not, when it comes to home theater, and "maybe" to a lesser extent music, at least one good "correctly set-up sub" is all but mandatory.

I have not tried that yet, for the longest time I did not use audyssy at all because it was killing the bass from the sub. So after much reading, ran audyssy again and everything seems about right. Maybe I'll try some music cd's and switch it to the fronts only and see how that sounds. I will give it a try, thanks for all the feedback!

Func, first take note of Ken's comment about the connecting links on the terminals being tight; on two occasions in the past here the owners complained of "no bass" with their M60s, and it transpired that loose(or removed)connectors resulted in the woofers not operating.

Beyond that, Onkyo has Audyssey implemented so as to set any speaker which has good response at 80Hz to full range. It's better to instead manually set that parameter for the M60s to 80Hz in the 705. The MultEQ XT in the 705 is the best Audyssey implementation in receivers and it's unclear why you say that the one in the Denons that you mention represents an improvement.

As to how M22s plus a good sub(I use the EP500)do, my view is that they are entirely satisfactory and that I have no need for a tower speaker.

The woofers are working/moving so that's not an issue I don't think. I wish I had stayed with the M22's they were great. As far as the Audyssey goes, there is a different version (or an addition to) in the new Denon's here is a site that talks a bit about it. http://www.electronichouse.com/article/denon_shows_off_10_new_receivers/C157

BTW, did Axiom stop the trade-in deal? I don't see it anymore unless they moved it.

The most significant Audyssey change is Dynamic EQ(added to both the new Denon and Onkyo models), which is a more sophisticated version of the old loudness compensation, which boosted highs and more significantly lows by arbitrary amounts at lower volume control settings. Dynamic EQ modifies frequency response and the level of surround speakers in variable amounts according to the actual level of loudness at the moment. Reports of users have indicated that they consider it to be a significant improvement at lower volume levels.

As to the basic room equalization function of Audyssey, however, you already have in the 705 the MultEQ XT version, which as was said is the most advanced version, with more measuring points and higher resolution filters than the MultEQ version(see Audyssey description )present on the Denon models you mentioned.

Func, again you have your crossover settings and large setting wrong on the receiver for the 60's. Use Large and 80hz.

Don't you mean small and 80 Hz?

That's audio to you: the smaller the frequency, the larger the speaker!

I think he does, yes.

Are you sitting in a null? Does moving the speakers position change your assessment? Do you live in New Hampshire?

oh yeah, thanks for the catch. Also, make sure your bypassing the crossover on the sub, since the receiver is doing the management. :0

Since the M60s have rear ports I would also ensure that there is enough space behind the speakers. You may have to try several distances to determine what sounds best!

I checked the amp on the sub and it is set for
Crossover Frequency (Knob) 90Hz
Crossover: "Out"

I am not sure about the crossover set to "out" or not. I read somewhere at HSU that maybe it should be set to "IN", it was a while back so I don't remember exactly.
The back of the speaker is a little over a foot from the wall. This weekend I am going to watch a couple of movies that I'm familiar with and turn the EQ off and see if that makes a difference. On a little different note I read on a AVS/Audyssey Thread that the LFE should be set to 120Hz, NOT 80Hz. Now this thread was pertaining to calibrating with Audyssey. Just wanted to through that out there....

With the Hsu the crossover should be set to out. It shouldn't matter as to the position of the crossover dial.

Not to get completely off subject but here is the quote on the 120Hz for the sub.

"B. Raise the low-pass filter setting (usually incorrectly identified as a crossover) of the LFE subwoofer in the receiver / processor to 120Hz, if allowed."

Again this pertains to the Audyssey Setup.

Ok, thanks I could not find the thread.