Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Saying hello, M22's vs M40/50/60 for roomsize

Greetings to all. I am thinking about my next speaker purchase, and after doing a little research online found that Axiom seem to have an extremely good reputation both in terms of speaker quality and company satisfaction. As of a week ago I hadn't even heard of Axiom, and was pretty much convinced that a higher-grade Energy or Paradigm would be my next set of speakers. So I'm here to offer a friendly hello and ask for a little bit of advice from all of the wise Axiom owners here. I've read through many, many old posts gathering info, but I wanted to get all of your takes on the situation.

My setup consists of a Pioneeer Elite VSX-43TX receiver (absolutely love it), Sony DVP-NC650V SACD/DVD player, Energy Take 5.1 L,R,C,LR,RR speakers, and a Kenwood 10" sub. I am quite happy with the Energy's for home theater purposes, but am looking for more depth and warmth from music sources, particularly from traditional Classical fare and Contemporary Jazz (Spyro Gyra, Rippingtons, Marc Antoine, Keiko Matsui, etc..) SACD's. Franlky though, between my wife and I we listen to about everything - so these speakers need to be able to handle a wide range of music, including some Aerosmith, Metallica, and Top40 stuff. Our entertainment room measures 19x15x8, with the mains along the 19' stretch of wall, so the primary listening positions are a scant 6-7 feet from the mains.

I emailed Axiom and got a reallly wonderful response from Alan Lofft, but I am eager for even more input. His advice is that the M22's would probably be ideal for this situation, and I agree that they're really nice and would be a vast improvement over what I currently have. Asthetically (sp?) my wife and I are leaning more towards towers than bookshelves, but sound is paramount here, not looks.

So what about the m40 & m50? It seems that these two have a less-than amazing reputation around here, and I'm curious as to why (especially since the Overstock store has m40's for less than $400/pair.) I've read many posts saying that for most applications, the m22 and m60's are the best, with the m80's being the ultimate if you've got the room. I really don't think my area is large enough to let the m60's "breathe".

What does everyone else think?

Thank you for any and all advice, I really will appreciate it!

Eager to become an Axiom fan,
Peter Chenoweth

Welcome, Peter. First, although this may be only a matter of semantics, depth and warmth in sound are characteristics of the original recording; we should be looking for speakers which accurately reproduce those characteristics, neither increasing nor decreasing them with unusual dispersion characteristics or response fluctuations. The M22s do this at a relative bargain price, but you may be disappointed if that's not what you're looking for. In my view, they're ideal.

The M3, M40 and M50 use a different driver for the mid-range than do the M2, M22, M60 and M80. That area is slightly depressed or "laid-back", which some prefer and which tends to make some poorly recorded pop items less intolerable.

Peter,

I would definitely go for the M22s in your situation. I also own a pair and listen to CDs and SACDs of "just about everything" like you do (including Metallica). Mine are about 8 to 9 feet away from the listening position and also about 8 feet apart. (My living room is roughly 12' x 13', with the speakers along the 12' wall.)

This past March, I upgraded from Paradigm Monitor 9 speakers, which were very much larger and heftier than the M22s. I was expecting a side-grade (no improvement in performance, just a smaller package), but I ended up with a much better speaker overall. So many more details came through the M22s than I had ever heard with the Paradigms. In retrospect, the tower speakers were way too big for my room and that could have been a large part of why I wasn't hearing everything I should have.

You say that you're looking for more depth and warmth. The M22s have a very flat frequency response across the board, so that makes them borderline cool with almost no coloration. Thus, they are highly accurate, so when Lars bangs on that darn snare drum, it's going to bite your head off. In other words, these speakers won't add warmth where none existed before. The speakers really shine with high quality recordings and SACDs are truly impressive on them.

I don't want to make you nervous about high recording quality being a requirement, so I'll tell you that I also play back my MP3 collection through my M22s and the majority of them sound great, too.

Thanks for the great replies! By warmth I mean to say decent low-midrange response. If I'm confusing terms I appologize. In some pieces of music, there's just not enough oomph in the low end of the mid-range to really satisfy. I know it's there, as I can listen to a particular CD via a nice set of headphones or through (heaven forbid) my old Sony speakers and hear midrange "warmth" that the Energy's just don't have in that specific range.

For instance, a Yo Yo Ma's solo cello SACD I like has some amazing runs up and down the range of his cello, while the highs and mids and deep lows sound great (I'm sure they'll sound even better with some Axiom's ), there is definately some mid-range lacking somewhere around the 100-200hz range that neither the little 3.5" Take 5 woofers (for lack of a better term), nor my 10" sub can handle effectively. It is precisely that weakness that I am trying to fix in my quest for "the next level" of speakers.

The M22's with a good subwoofer would be perferct for you. Your room isn't really large enough to need the extra the M60's can give you.

Don't skimp on the subwoofer. I HIGHLY recommend the Hsu VTF-2. Many Axiom board members have the M22/Hsu combo (as I did) and it's an amazing combo.

I think you nailed the lack of warmth that you are hearing within this response. I would be very surprised if there was not a hole in the frequency response with your current equipment. There is a limit to how much bass a small cone and enclosure can produce, and you do not want to force your subwoofer to handle frequencies much above 100 Hz as you will then be able to localize the source. I'm curious as to your reasons for leaning toward tower speakers? I believe that as your room size and distance from the speakers diminishes, there is better imaging from speakers that approximate a point source, that is, all the sound originating from a single spot. Anyone care to comment on that?

The only reason we're really leaning towards a tower is that we have it stuck in our minds that towers will sound better than bookshelves, and be more visually impressive. I know, I know, silly. I know it's simply not true that towers are always better than bookshelves, but stereotypes can be hard to break! :-)

Also, it's the fact that with the 22's we would definately need more substantial speaker stands, and from my perspective I'd almost rather spend more money on the speakers themselves, than the speakers and nice stands.

The more comments I'm getting, the more I'm really warming up to the idea of the 22's.

If you rearrange your room so that you're more than 10 feet away from the speakers, then I'll heartily recommend the M60s to ya.

Yep...If you can get yourselves back from them, the M60's are indeed a better speaker. I'd even suggest more than 10'.

But if you're sitting close, and don't intend on really BLASTING the volume, the M22's and a sub is a better choice.

I have the M22s and an Adire Rava subwoofer, I must say that the audio quality is unbelievable. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the M22s to anyone. You might also consider getting these speakers, and upgrading your subwoofer later. I don't know how good your current sub sounds, but adding high quality bass really does compliment the M22's sound.

I have to ask a quick question here. If the recommended distance for the M60's is 10+ feet then what is the recommended distance for the larger M80's? I ask b/c it seems to me that Peter's room at roughly 2500 cubic feet (19x15x8) would be large enough to accomodate the M80's, and easily the M60's as long as the speakers were put along the short wall. Placing the tower 3 ft from the front wall and the listening position approx 4ft from the rear wall would still leave 12 ft. for him to play with. Would this not be enough for the M80's to breath?TIA

Yeah. I don't think we can stress that enough. I got my M22s before I got my sub (an SVS PB1-ISD). I fell in love with them even though they couldn't go very low. As my "brain broke in", however, I began to appreciate the bass they did have more and more. (This was a big adjustment for me, since my previous speakers were Paradigm Monitor 9 towers.)

I had a couple weeks of time on the M22s before my sub arrived. After I set that up and calibrated it, the difference was astonishing. Wall o' big frickin' sound.

No no, I don't think the M80's would happen - they're just a little bit outside my price range and there's no good way to rearrange that room so that the speakers are in the short end. Thanks for the advice though!

Believe me, my wife and I have tried different room combinations to try to open up the room a little audio wise and there's just no good way to do it. One short wall is to the outside with a row of windows with a radiator (house built in 1910) in front of them, so anything placed over there would A) block the windows and B) be subject to the heat of the radiator in the winter. The other short wall has a closet that can't be blocked and has no access to outlets or cable (w/o drilling, anyway). Floating the couch 3 or 4 feet from the rear, closet-wall might work if I could be convinced that heat wouldn't be an issue against the windows, but we have hardwood floors and the couch has wheels - so it likes to move.

The worst part about living in an old house is there's never an outlet where you need one.

Ok, I see Peter. I had a similar situation in my previous home so I understand.

I'm looking at the M60's now for my wifes room which is approx the same size as my theater room (19x13x8) except my theater room has vaulted ceilings @ 10 feet, and she had her eye on the smaller M60's, but I thought we might be able to swing the M80's in that size of a room. Maybe not though.

Anyway, I was just curious since the consensus is you should be 10'+ from the M60's and 13'+ for the M80's. Seems like alot of "breathing room".

In general, a large speaker's drivers occupy more linear space than a small speaker's drivers. For example, the distance between the topmost driver and the bottom-most driver is larger on the M80 than the M22.

As a rule of thumb, try to put a proportionate amount of space -- I'm not aware of an exact ratio, so just experiment -- between your ears and the speaker in order to allow the soundwaves coming from each driver to reach your ear coherently.

OK, so that means that the high frequency drivers should be further from the listener than the lower frequency drivers. To attain the "coherence" you seem to be talking about, you'd need a slant faced cabinet with the drivers aligned parallel to the floor. That's how "time coherent" speakers are designed (like Thiel, Dunleavy, MM deCapos, Meadowlarks, etc.)

Peter, I wqs in a similar situation, I ordered and received the M60's. They were quite beautiful, however they were a bit too large for my room. They did not fit, and stuck out from their assigned area, leaving them eye-unappealing. I had to ship them back and order the M22's which I am waiting on. Make sure of the room size, hate to have to spend extra cash to send them back. In my case it was 90.00

Once again, a big thanks to all who have replied. Thanks too on the FYI on the reverse-shipping cost on the M60's, if I weren't to like them. Good to keep in mind.

Visited the local Paradigm dealer today and listened to several in their line, and my wife and I like the sound of the Legend quite a bit. At $750, it's just as much as a set of M60's. So since I can't actually hear the Axiom M22's or M60's, can any Paradigm owners comment on how the Axiom's sound compared to the Legends?

Another goofy question... how common are Axiom dealers in Canada? I ask because my wife has been bugging me to take a long-weekend trip to Canada (Windsor is about a 12 hour drive from where I live), so I'm wondering - we could actually drive to Canada and buy them there, depending on where the nearest dealer is. Living in Illinois, can anyone tell me where, exactly, the closest Axiom dealer is?

Thank you, once again.
Peter

True. I'm not sure how speakers such as Pipe Dreams ( a very tall tower filled with tweeters and midranges) maintain coherence -- unless they electronically time-delay the drivers...