Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater W22's or M60's?

I posted this on Audioholics, but think its better for me to go to the Axiom source!

I am debating the on-wall speakers w22's (have a toddler and newborn!) vs. floor standing, m60.....I also like the flushed uncluttered look of the on-wall. I will pair this with rears and an EP500. Still debating on 5.1 vs. 7.1

here is the setup: We have a room that is 30' x 18', with 11' foot ceilings....the back half will have a pool table and ping pong table and the front half will have a TV, sofa and other media stuff...so its not a "true" media room. The sofa will sit at the midpoint or so at 15', so that will be the viewing distance for sports and movies. I plan on getting a projector and screen.

I want speakers that will be good for movies from this distance, but also give me enough sound for the whole room for music when shooting pool.

Keep in mind we don't need loud blazing music...just good sound.

Can I get by with the W22's, and EP500 and set of rears or will i need to get the floor standing?

Finally...should I get a 5.1 and set the rears at the back of the room or should I get a 7.1 and place a set of rears halfway near the sofa and then another set of rears at the back of the room?

Looking for some good insight...Thanks!

Welcome Parin,

Well, that is a pretty big room, tuff call. Actually, my room is similar, just wider with 9ft ceilings, 31 x 30 x 9. I've never heard the 22's or w22's, they do get good reviews. A floorstanding speaker will give you better bass performance overall, in addition to the sub.

For 5.1, you want the "surrounds" to the side of the listening area (couch) or for 7.1 you add the "rears" which go further back, that room could definately handle a 7.1 environment.

For music, I only listen to my m80's with the sub, never use the rear speakers, so if you like to turn it up once in awhile for pool playing like I do, you may want a larger full range speaker. A lot depends on your listening habits.

I have kids to, but they learn to stay away, if you give them that look. Axiom is planning on coming out with a m60 and m80 version of the T-Series flat wall speakers this year I believe, not sure if you would have enough depth in your wall cavity though for them, they are almost as deep as the real thing.

Another welcome, Parin!

I, too, am a bit unsure of the 22-series filling that room for you. Sirquack's response above really covered things well, but I'll add one more thing: Axiom's towers, for all their great attributes, can be a little tipsy. It's not like they'll fall over if you look at them wrong, but I think a three year old could do if he/she tried. Honestly, I would be a bit concerned about one of the kids bumping a speaker over onto another.

Of course, the problem would be easily solved with some fancy (or very simple) "outriggers" to extend the footprint of the speakers:

Thanks for nice welcome and quick responses! Both of you guys had great ideas. My living room/kitchen right now is roughly the size of that area that we will be building in the new house. Maybe I should buy a pair of M22's with the sub and see how they sound? I would rather go for the w22 cuz along with the kids I really do like a nice flushed look without stuff on the ground.

I will be buying a 110" Carada screen and will really need to figure out how far off the ground and far from the screen i should put the w22's, if i go that route over the floor standing. The benifit of the floorstanding is that i don't have to worry so much about placement right away.

Thanks again!

If the W22s don't work, for the cost of shipping, you can always upgrade to the M60 for the cost of shipping within the first 30 days.

But the W22s require in-wall installation to really know how they'll work or sound...

Good point. Now he has two holes for in-wall AV equipment shelving started.

Maybe try the reverse, Go with M60s because you can move them around and can be shipped back without hiring a drywall guy. If you like the sound and want to commit to wall units, you can then exchange them.

However, I'm guessing that once you hear them, you will never want to be without them. Not even long enough for the new ones to arrive.

Each room is different in the way the acoustics sound, so trying them in your kitchen/living room won't give you the same results as you might get in the final location. It might give you a little idea if the 22's would meet your needs in a larger space.

Normally, you want the tweeters of the left/right/center to be as close to ear level as possible when seated. With speakers not attached to the walls, you will have more options on positioning them to get the best soundstage, vocals, bass response, etc... If you go fixed, I would try to experiment by using chairs/boxes or whatever at different heights and distances from side walls to make sure music and movies sound the best before you make it permanent. The voices in musice if set up right, will appear to be coming from your center speaker.

Here are a few pics of my theater through the years.

I would check with Axiom directly on this one. It looks like they are still an encased speaker - they have their own box - so I would think that you would get a pretty good idea by positioning them on wall without cutting holes.

Maybe Alan will wander by today.

OMG, you mean Alan is not here yet today?

I sense great disturbance in the force. Like a thousand web board posters cried out all at once.



That's no Orb, It's a space Bose.

In hind sight to that post, I have decided I'm wayyyy overtired.

Thanks for the info.

We are building a 5500sqft house, and this room is going to be on the ground floor. I currently have the gameroom upstairs but feel too lazy to keep going up there!

We haven't started the building process on the new house, but want some thoughts before we do. Its a 8 month building process, and the wiring won't happen for a few months.

Just debating if i should wire for the w22's or for the m60's...

Actually, I thought it was funny.



I wondered about that too, though it misses what is likely an important part of it's sound: the bass enhancement from the "Boundary Effect" every in-wall is designed to deal with...

It might be close enough for government work though....

Hi all,

Just wandering by. . .

Yes, you can get an excellent idea of what the W22s will sound like without drilling any holes by positioning them close to the wall roughly where they might be located. The enclosure is self-contained and ported, however as Mark points out, the W22s will have more bass when they are recessed into the wall because of the increased boundary reinforcement of bass.

The W22s will play loud in a "normal-sized" room--i.e. about 2000 to 3000 cu. ft--but they can't duplicate the clean SPLs in a big room that the M60s or M80s are capable of. Axiom's listening room is very much smaller (about 2,400 cu. ft. if that) than the room described in this thread. Generally speaking, the limitation of smaller speakers with fewer drivers, and smaller woofers, is maximum output before distortion or compression begins, along with deep bass extension.

Regards,

sounds like I am better off with the m60's or 80's...is that right? Any recommendations of one over the other?

what do I do with my center channel...should i get the inwall center? since i have a projector screen on the wall i am not going to have a TV stand...or do I get something to prop up the center channel?

If I get a 7.1, should I place some rears on the side wall halfway, or off the ceiling and place them right behind the sofa?

Thanks!

You can see by my pictures above, I just mounted mine to the wall below the screen using some black shelf brackets I found at the local home improvement store. I flipped the vp150 over as the slant gives it a nice direction towards my ears in both rows of seating.

If you have the space, which it sounds like you do, go 7.1. Especially with the new bluray technology out, why would you want 5.1 in this day and age especially in that deep room.

The "rear surrounds" go behind you, the "side surrounds" go to the side. You want them spaced out with lots of seperation to get the best experience, not all crammed close to each other. Also, you want them to be at least 2-3ft above your ears or higher works, for best results, mine are about 7ft off the floor.

Here is a drawing from Dolby on 7.1 layout, in a larger room, the speakers would be more spaced out.


http://axiomaudio.com/home_theater_layout.html

Also, the sub is one of the hardest speakers to place, to get the best outcome. We will be glad to help, but for that room I would at least get the 350.

Ha! Good gue.. err, call by me.

I laughed. Feel free to post when you're over-tired any time.

Thanks! I was thinking of getting the EP500 sub...is this too much with the m60's? dont want to get more than i need too.

Also...the sofa is midway in this room. There will be pool table/ping table behind it. If i did a 7.1 should I keep all speakers around the sofa or should i place some at the end of the room near the pool table?

If you have the funds its not overkill.

"To Much"? If your talking budget, I have no idea. I assume your talking bass in the room? The sub handles the real lowwww freq's, so you will adjust the crossover in your receiver to re-route those lowwww freq's, usually 80hz and below, to the sub for all speakers in the room.

First you need to get your speakers, then we move on to the setup and calibration and positioning.

The Axiom surrounds are very forgiving on placement due to their 4 driver design. The side surrounds go to the side or slightly behind a parrallel line where the listeners sit. The rears might be able to be mounted along the back wall, depending on how far back that will be, or suspended from the ceiling, but that might be to high.. The Q's come with a T bracket that allow a flush mount on a wall.

Or, some people opt for a bookshelf or W series speaker for the rear channel for multi channel music listening. I think the Q's do good for both music and movies.

I have the M60s and an EP500. They sound fabulous together. Remember, a sub is only as loud as you turn the dial to be. When it is calibrated nicely, it blends perfectly with the M60s and let me tell you, although it can produce beautifully subtle bass in music, it can equally pump out some serious vibes when required.

Did I just use the words beautiful and subtle together???
OK now I know I'm overtired.

I would be inclined to go 7.1 with QS8's on the side and get W22/M22 for the rear since you want music while playing pool. Depending on your receiver you could probably switch the use of the rear channel to 7.1 or zone 2. Meaning go into the menu change from 7.1 to zone 2 when listening to music so you have the M60's in front playing and then the zone 2 W22 by the pool table play the same music as well...

For a room of your size I would go with 2 Ep600s, the subs get calibrated so they won't over power the mains

Here's a pic of my in-laws system that I helped piece together. Standard ceiling height. I don't recall room dimensions but the table should give you a reference. We use a Hsu VTF3 and it BOOMS. Very cool to watch sports while playing pool.

The front speakers flank a 58" Panasonic, FYI.

That is one nice room, great job.

Thanks. Setting up that room made me jealous w/ my 3 yr old equipment, including my ED plasma. (This panny is 1080p).

Suffice to say the drop in the market last year put an end to those upgrade dreams...

Looks great! I will have to take pics once I am done.

If i get everything prewired, is it easy to install everything?

Not to bad, just make sure you experiment with ladders or whatever to try various locations for the speakers, once the wire is run and the speakers are mounted your screwed.

Make sure the installer puts a decent gauge wire for the inwall runs, once the drywall is up it is to late.,

I vote for M80's

I second that.

what gauge wire?

I would go with 12 ga.

And don't let anyone talk you into expensive monster wire, good ole 12 ga from home depot, menards, lowes, or online will be fine.

thanks!

Monoprice is a great quality, (but low-cost), reliable dealer. They have suitable in-wall and regular speaker wire.

Meh, 14 gage will do just fine unless you are doing very long runs. The 12 gage monsters (not TM) in my livingroom are kind of a pita to handle.

Parin, it would be a bit better to sit a little closer than 15'(e.g., 10-12'), since there's a partial bass null directly in the center of the room. Then, if you go with a 7.1 setup(you have plenty of space behind the seats to form a rear soundfield with the back speakers), the side surrounds should be directly to the side of the listening position and the back surrounds on the back wall, separated by about as much as the distance that they're behind the seats. All the surrounds should be 2-3' above ear level.

I'll add that since you may have enough room beneath the screen, you should consider a vertical M22, M60 or even M80 for the center speaker.

John makes a good point I didn't think about regarding bass nulls. In my research, the ideal position is 38% from the front wall, if this is not possible 38% from the back wall works well. The exact center is not good, but sometimes you have no choice.

Should have bought Axiom wire

Yep.

My 12 guage from Home Depot is like working with rebar. I'd even suggest wearing gloves when working with the bare ends.

On the opposite end of the scale, my Monoprice 12 guage, even with the in wall sheathing, is extremely workable.

And the Monoprice wire doesn't even come close to the pliability of the Axiom wire.

If I sit 10-12', how big a projector screen can i get? How about if I go 15'?

Depends on the projector. I would recommend you hang out at projectorcentral.com they have a calculator for each projector that will tell you what size screen you can get at any given distance.

My projector is 13ft back and I also sit about 13ft back (front row). My screen is either 105" diag for 16:9, or 130" diag for 2.35 material.

I have a 92" screen and sit 10' away. I would not want to be any closer than that for this size of screen.

Regarding pre-wiring, do yourself a favor and run a subwoofer cable (or a coax cable with an RCA termination) to several different points in the room. There is just no way to know where your sub(s) is/are going to sound best, and pre-wiring to at least 2-3 locations is going to save you a lot of heartache during setup.

Also, this positions you well for the possibility of two subs (either immediately or in the near future), which I think in your situation [huge room] could give you very noticeable improvement in sound. I'd do a sub run to each corner of the room at a minimum since you have the luxury of being able to do so now before the drywall is up.

Also be sure to run conduit (PVC pipe or corrugated tubing) from the main equipment rack location to your projector so that you can rerun cables in the future easily without tearing the walls apart.

Jason

Ok...so after reading the thread initially, I thought I would settle with the floorstanding m60's or 80's. But after more thought, I really want a clutter free look on the ground.

Went to the builder today...the room will be 28' long, 18' wide, 11' ceilings...so about 5500 cubic feet. Again pool table in the back of the room (bar on the side wall in that area, sofa will be placed approx 10-12' from the front wall, and i will be placing a 100' screen on the front wall)

Is the major problem I will have with the w22's over the floor standing is distortion at high levels? If that is the case, how many decibels are we talking? Aside from movie watching, I don''t plan on "blaring" music. I have 2 kids...no keg parties in store for me these days...

again...if I get the w22's with a complete 7.1 system and the EP500 sub, I feel that will that provide me a good amount of sound....any takers again?

I appreciate everyone's input!!

That's quite a large area (5500 sq ft), I would email Alan regarding using W22s and see what he says.

5500 cu ft (sq ft)

That is a big space, but it sounds like you are listening to music mostly during other recreational activities. What i mean is there wont be much critical listening. So while you are in back playing pool not paying too much attention to the background music, you wont care too much about a flawless stereo image at reference volume levels. If this is right then you will be fine with 22's, and you won't even hear the fronts from back there anyway. Or I'm completely wrong! Hah!

Adrian, Alan already commented on page 1 of this thread. Parin, I understand your concerns, just not sure I would say having floorstanding speakers would be considered clutter. I fully understand you wanting something that is up off the floor, I have kids to, but in my case, they don't mess with the speakers really.

The 22s (w22's) will most likely play plenty loud, even if you want to crank them up from time to time. They will even have decent bass, however, a larger cabinet like a floorstanding speaker provides helps with the low end. They can go much lower and produce better bass.

The sub will help a lot, but you may want to consider getting something like 2 350's, versus 1 500, to help even out bass throughout the room. I think the 350's are more musical than the DSP subs.

Sirquack: That is a good point. I could get two EP350's...maybe place one in the front and one in the back. Any other takers on this idea?

Vadergeta: You are correct. I actually don't do any critical music. its always background music. I amy play music while entertaining, or playing pool, or to turn on with the kids playing...but unfortunately don't have the time to sit with a glass of wine and enjoy the music.
While watching movies (happens once every 3 months or so these days), the sound is important though.

Thanks for the input guys!

If I have everything prewired in the right spots, are the w22's, center and surrounds easy to install?

Sirquack...just noticed you are in iowa...I am from cedar falls and a HUGE Hawkeye fan!

Sirquack: That is a good point. I could get two EP350's...maybe place one in the front and one in the back. Any other takers on this idea?

Vadergeta: You are correct. I actually don't do any critical music. its always background music. I amy play music while entertaining, or playing pool, or to turn on with the kids playing...but unfortunately don't have the time to sit with a glass of wine and enjoy the music.
While watching movies (happens once every 3 months or so these days), the sound is important though.

Thanks for the input guys!

If I have everything prewired in the right spots, are the w22's, center and surrounds easy to install?

Also...will a denon 2805 be adequate for a 7.1 or 7.2 setup?

Another thing to consider is that you could run the system in multichannel stereo to spread out the sound when looking for background music every where in the room, opposed to blaring it out with just the 2 floorstanders. The volume doesn't have to be as high when the music is coming from all the speakers in the room. I do this quite often. And YES for a dual sub system in a room of that size.

Hey Parin, I'm a UNI graduate, so you know who I follow. I like to see the Hawkeyes do well also, but ISU's new coach graduated high school with me, so watch out....

Me and Nickbuol on this forum like down by Des Moines....I get up your way once in awhile as the in-laws live north of you in New Hampton.

For HT(movies) 2 subs, one centered in the front, and the other centered in the back are ideal...or centered on the side walls work great also. This helps even out the low bass in the room for all seats. You would have to make sure you run jacks for those locations when finishing the room.

I have 2 350's up front, and a 600 near the back of the room.

Parin,

I'm not really sure what you're used to in terms of sound quality. For me the move to Axiom was the first time that I have owned real quality speakers capable of beautifull sound. I have listened to nice speakers at dealers such as Paradigm, B&W, Polk, but never really owned any of them. I know my room is a little smaller than yours. About 4000cf and it's also open to a dining room which is about 2400cf, but I have to tell you that the sound amazes me every day. Again i have the inwall setup. w22s w150 and now the qs8s paired with 1 ep350. For music I never need more bass, for movies I would not mind more event though what I have is plenty. The speakers NEVER feel distorted or strained. Even if I turn it up really high. I'm sure the towers would impress me even more, but my point is that if you're a novice like myself you will be impressed with the 22s and you'll keep the speakers off the floor. I had the same concerns as you before i took the plunge, but i haven't regreted it for a second since..... wellthere are days when I wish I got the ep500 for movies, but that's all. You can check out my setup in the gallery.

Given that I suggested it a few posts earlier, am I a giver or a taker on that idea?

sorry myrison...i read through these really fast...sometimes i read twice so i don't miss something, guess i did. good point though.

So you guys feel two 350's is better than one 500?

Ditto that. After many years I am still shocked how good Denon's multi-channel function is. For non-critical listening I generally prefer the 5 Ch surround mode for the very reasons stated above. Just don't go cheap on the surrounds, as they will play a significant role in this set up. So M22's all around or QS8's in the back would be my suggestion.

The 500 will play a little lower, and has a bigger amp, however the 350s are dang good amps. The more subs you have spread out in the room, the flatter frequency response you can achieve if you have multiple seating locations for movies...

I have a Denon 2805. Is that sufficient to power a 7.1 or 7.2 system?

I don't see 2 subwoofer outlets on it.

Will it be able to play 7.2 in the room and still play music on zone 2 (outside speakers)?

I have a 2805 and it works great. Most receivers only have 1 sub LFE out jack, you can daisy chain the subs togethor:

receiver - sub out jack - sub 1 - sub2 - sub 3 (the sub channel is a mono channel.

or you can put a splitter or y cable on the single sub out and run 2, 3, etc. lines off of that...

Are you planning on getting a different receiver, the 2805 is getting dated..

what receiver would you recommend?

also...my AV guy sells Triads, and is pushing them. Any thoughts on them vs. Axiom?

By all accounts the Triads are very good, never heard them myself though.

I have not checked, but I thought Triads were much more expensive than the Axioms - at least for similar traits.

No hard feelings at all. I was just ribbing you b/c you were giving all my credit to Randy. :p

Jason