Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo large room, small speakers

Hi all.

I have a large room -- 16ft x 30ft with high ceilings -- 15 feet at one end, 8ft at the other. I have a Yamaha RX-397 w/ 50 watts each side running two VERY old Sanyo speakers with 8-inch drivers.

Sound-wise, the current setup is okay.

What I want to do is to replace the floor standing speakers with a pair of M3s mounted on the wall. They will be at about the 9 foot level, with another 6 feet above them to the ceiling.

Would a setup like this make any sense?

I'm not going for big sound, and swapping out my receiver for a 7.1 model and sprinkling speakers all over the room is not going to happen. I just want to get rid of these old Sanyos and put up something small that matches my decor.

Thanks.

Gardner, welcome. The thought that strikes me is why the M3s would be mounted 9' high rather than approximately at ear level. Nevertheless, especially if they were tilted slightly downward so that the tweeters pointed toward the ears, there's no reason why that wouldn't be acceptable for a moderate sound level.

Hi John,

Thanks.

The walls are painted plaster up to the 8 foot level, then tongue and groove cedar for the remaining 7 feet and across the ceiling. I would order the speakers in a similar wood grain finish and colour, and mount them on the T&G wood part. This puts them at approx 9 ft off the floor. They would be at either side of my fireplace, about 13 feet apart, at the high end of the room.



Lower, at maybe the 6 foot mark would be possible, but I would rather put them farther up out of the way.

I realise I won't get a big sound out of them to fill that room, but I am not sure if being up on the wall so high will undercut what bass they can deliver.

I hope you have some big area rugs!

I wouldn't expect much bass with a small speaker in a large room at that height. Maybe if you could hide a small sub in a corner somewhere.

Yeah Dave, looks to be a very reflective room. Some throw rugs, wall hangings, and/or furniture will help with the sound, it will be interesting.

This picture is from when we were first moving it. It's full of furniture and junk now. Mainly hard surfaces though, so pretty reflective still.

My vote would be for installing them 6 feet from ground. If you get the Vassalo custom wood and match the paneling, it would look fantastic. Very nice room by the way, however, I do agree with the others that an area rug may help with reflections.

If you are interested in sound enough to search out this forum and buy Axioms (over Bose or whatever little cubes are the fad of today at B Buy) you should seriously consider a sub to go with the M22s, and forget the M3s. Even the M22’s simply can’t make realistic lower-mids and bass in such a room, with 50 watts of power. But they can fill the room with highs and mids at 50 watts, while a separate subwoofer (and included amp) cover the heavy lifting. And before you cry interior design foul, know that you can mount the sub on the ceiling and get the same sound as if in the lower corner. Tuning it became a real pain in the arse, so look for remote control features, but you need a sub. It can match the wood so it would be virtually invisible that far out of the line of sight. But that way you get solid sound. With the super-reflective nature of that room (seriously, you should call that the echo room) you might get better sound with the 9 foot setup aimed down approach over the ear lever or 6 foot level aimed down the spine of the reflective beast. The reflections from top to bottom may be less harsh than when the signal is sent parallel to every hard surface. The complex math escapes me, but off-axis reflections have to be weaker that direct - right?

You know, a pair of M80s hanging up in the roof would look cool! It did in the Axiom factory.

Seriously though, have you considered the M22 or are they just too big?

What did people do before subs came along?

I concurr, a very nice room - nice light.

Fullrange speakers

Or at least we thought they were. They were certainly advertised as so but I don't think most could really pull it off.

I agree Rick, even the old floorstanding speakers with 12-15" woofers back in the day are not the same thing as a well designed Sub.

They seem a little big, and are starting to stretch the budget, particularly in cherry wood finish. They also would probably benefit from a little more power than I have going on.

I would definitely consider these though.

On a different tangent -- the Axiom wall mount brackets, I assume, allow the correct/enough clearance behind for the port(s). Would I want to mount M3s or M22s right into the corners, or set in from the corners -- and if set in, by how much?

According to the bracket info, "for heavy speakers like our M22, an optional wedge is supplied to help balance the weight." Can anyone explain what this wedge looks like and how it fits?

The wedge is relatively thin and made of sturdy black plastic. It is the same length as the part of the bracket that goes against the wall, do it blends in and looks like it's part of the bracket when installed. It (optionally) goes between the wall and the bracket.

The brackets can be adjusted to rotate your speakers horizontally or tilt them vertically. My speakers are pointed straight ahead (no toe in) and are tilted downward slightly. I found that the vertical tilt increments provided by the brackets alone weren't fine enough for my tastes, so I ended up using the wedge thick part up behind the brackets in order to point the speakers downward to the exact angle I wanted.

I don't own the M22's or M3's so my advice is very general. But given the price difference, I think you need to decide about the subwoofer first. If you are going to spend a good bit more $$ to get a sub, then perhaps the M3 is the best bet for you to save $150. If you are not getting a sub, I would be very concerned that two 6.5 mid-bass drives for a room that large would disappoint you and thus make the $$ you spend more of a waste. (I’m a big believer in high return on my investment. – No cracks about my $$$ Transparent Speaker cables! I was young, it was the booze talking.) The M22 doubles your mid-bass surface area so I would expect dramatic improvement in your room as compared to the M3 without a sub, for a moderate investment increase. But, the M22 makes 50 wpc a more pressing issue, however. If those are real watts, your fine. If they are 1990's claimed watts on a Japanese AVR (overstating watts as a fund pastime for many companies), you might have some problems filling that room with decent mid-bass (i.e., male vocals, acoustic guitar, stand up bass, piano, etc.)

As always, the answer is to up the budget! Real helpful, right. But my point is this, get the better speakers and find a $200 used but decent AVR. You can get 100 watts and a sub level output. Go to the Axiom outlet or factory store and get the M22s or a sub and the M3s. For under $1,000 you could dramatically increase your enjoyment of that room. Or spend $500 and risk not being as happy. Of course, you have 30 days to return the Axioms so you should at least try the M22s and see how they work out.

I have exhausted my two cent.

Relax, we like the deaf monk. Its all good.

There's such a huge range in what people consider "reasonable" sound levels that it's hard to give good advice. My primary music speakers are M40s, which are basically tower M3s, in what amounts to a 20x40 room with cathedral ceiling.

They can easily play quite a bit louder than I would normally want without any stress -- but if I crank them up for that "wall of sound" they are instantly and clearly not up to the task.

If you're looking for "pleasant" listening levels I think a couple of M3s on the wall would be fine. If you need to crank the volume then IMO M22s plus sub aren't going to be "better enough" to justify the cost & complexity.

I'm very surprised to hear that. While I own neither, I would expect a pair of M3's to be incomparable to M22's and a sub. If you meant M3+sub compared to M22 alone I could see it. But M22+sub is dramatic change in sonic character - three additional drivers and probably 5 times the driver surface area. I find that hard to comprehend.

The driver surface area on an M22 is roughly the same as an M3, so any additional surface area would come from the sub and only be effective below the crossover freq. I expect there would be a difference in quality of sound, but not so much in terms of ability to play at higher volumes.

This is based on a lot of testing of M2 + sub vs M60, M3 and M40 at various times, not M22s, but for casual listening (where casual does not imply low quality) I ended up going with M40s and being very happy.

Really? That surprises me, though I admit I never looked at it closely.

OK, curiosity got the better of me so I calculated the increased area of the M22. If you compare the 1x6.5" of the M3 to the 2x5.5 of the M22, the M22 has 43% more cone area, a fair increase. It also ups the efficiency slightly and has slightly better power handling.

OK, playing with a power calculator, you are only going to get 2db more out of the M22. You can still reach 95db at 68w with the M3, at 4 metres. Given that this is well inside the maximum power handling of 175w for the M3, they should still sound good.

Interesting. I guess there really is not much difference in volume between the two.

Just enough for the M22s to be noticeably louder.

I have M22s and my father has M3s. I took my M22s to his house one day and we compared the two sets. They both seemed to play equaly loud and clear as far as we could stand being in the room listening. :-) As for quality of sound, well I prefer the way the M22s blend perfectly with a sub woofer, while my father prefers the richness of the M3s. I guess we both have the speakers we like in the end.

I have learned something. Thanks all. Too bad I am not in the market for a new small speaker.

Thanks everyone!



This is the conclusion I am coming to. If I wanted big sound I would need a lot more power for starters, and then look at different speakers.

For what I want, which is not big sound, I think M3s would suffice.

>>OK, curiosity got the better of me so I calculated the increased area of the M22. If you compare the 1x6.5" of the M3 to the 2x5.5 of the M22, the M22 has 43% more cone area, a fair increase. It also ups the efficiency slightly and has slightly better power handling.

If you measure the active cone area the difference is quite a bit smaller. Measuring to the center of the surround the sizes are 5" and 3.75" respectively, which results in about 12% area difference.

The Axiom specs indicate that M22 has roughly 1dB higher efficiency relative to M3 and essentially the same power handling (200W vs 175W) so in terms of ability to play loud I would say the two are essentially the same. AFAIK you buy M22s for the sound, not for their ability to play loud.

>>For what I want, which is not big sound, I think M3s would suffice.

Yep. IMO you would need to step up to M50s or M60s to get a "bigger" sound. I guess the simplistic picture is that M50s sound like big M3s, M60s sound like big M22s, and M80s sound like big M60s

So if I wanted to get a pair of bookshelves for my kitchen (and no sub) (to run off my second channel on my 2309) which would sound better as a standalone speaker at low to moderate volume? (Kitchen area and table area combinesd 24' long. Speakers at the end of the table area facing into the kitchen area throwing the 24' length)

There is ongoing debate about M3 vs M22; M22 strictly speaking goes slightly deeper on bass, but M3 has a bit of a bass "bump" which gives the illusion of deeper bass without the bass bump being obvious (as it is with, say, Paradigm Atoms). I really like M3s, even though I ended up with M40s.

M2s are wonderful speakers but really benefit from a sub.

I haven't had a chance to compare M3s with Algonquins; if they are close enough in sound then Algonquins would be an interesting choice because you could haul them outside for the summer.

Bose Wave Radio

Seems like you've got it figured out Gardner.


I wondered about that, but I was too lazy to figure out actual cone size.

Even if the M22 had a lot more cone area, that wouldn't lead to more volume unless it had correspondingly higher power handling (I think).

Looking at the M60 it dosn't have the ability to handle a huge amount of power either.

I wonder how the ability to produce a wider range of sound at a given volume affects our perception of loudness? Probably not at all.

Hi all. Thanks for all the comments and info. I have my new M3s now -- in cherry custom finish -- and I think they look great.





They sound just fine and have plenty of oomph for the listening level I am looking for. I'm confident I'm sacrificing some base by having them so high up, but even so they sound better than my old Sanyos.

Nice blending of finish!
Congratulations!

Looks great. Glad to hear you are enjoying them.

Those really came out nice. I doubt most people even notice them until you point them out. But I thought we agreed you would also put a big sub hanging from the roof? What happended to the flying sub I ask!
Now look, you have gone and upset my Avatar.

They look fantastic! I'd say the compromise on positioning is worth is as they virtually disappear. Congrats!

Wow that does look nice, congrats.

Very nice indeed!

Beautiful. I am glad they meet your expectations. This thread was a bit of a learning experience for me on small speakers and big rooms.

Those are so beautiful! They should add those pics to the main website. The M3's in the custom cherry just disappear in your room. Nice job!

I really like that look! They just blend in.

Hi,

Those are really gorgeous and blend in very well. Thanks for the picture. I'm amazed at how capable the M3s are in your huge room.

While I've never heard our bookshelf models installed in such a big room, it nevertheless doesn't surprise me that they're capable. When I do listening tests at the Axiom room (which is very typical living-room size), I sometimes crank up the speakers under test to see what the power handling is like and when the blind tests are over, I'm astonished to discover that what I was listening to was M22s or M3s with no subwoofer playing at volume levels that are way above the norm. Power handling has always been a major design criterion for Ian when he designs the Axiom speakers.

Regards,

Alan

Looks nice.

Thats interesting that you say that. Audioholics did an article on power handling and in the torture tests they used samples from Axiom.

This is a portion from the article.

Upon inspection of the deceased, it became apparent why it took so much power to burn this speaker. The VC wire was wound on an Aluminum bobbin, which in turn was directly coupled to an aluminum cone. This combination of parts allowed much heat to be drawn away from the VC, keeping it cooler than almost all other 1” VC's of this height and size would be. Kudos to the designers at Axiom for an excellent design job.

http://www.audioholics.com/education/lou...he-test-results

A near perfect blend, looks perfect to me.

glad to hear that the speakers are doing what you wanted... they blend in perfectly!

One question though, from looking at the pictures, It looks like there's only 1-2" between the wall and the back of the speaker. Does that limited amount of clearance for the rear port affect the sound?

Axiom recommends 1 foot clearance for the rear ports...correct?

The reason I'm asking, is because I wanted to do the same thing but was worried I'd negatively affect the sound of the speakers.

You don't have to use 1ft, not sure I've seen that recommendation. I've heard anything from 4-12" is fine, mine are about 8".

With small bookshelf speakers the closer they get the better bass/room gain you achieve. Floorstanders are generally put farther away from a wall to decrease room gain/boomy effects, although I have my M80s 3-4" away and they sound fine with the XO over at 60hz and up.

Yeah.... what Jay said. I don't see bookshelf speakers needing as much space behind them, and if you get a little bass reinforcement from Boundary Effect, it'll probably prove very helpful in a big room!

Welcome to the forums, by the way!