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?