Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater looking for new home theater speakersHi, I'm look

Hi,

I'm looking for some new home theater speakers to replace my 8 year old Acoustic Research HC6 HTiB speaker set. I have a new subwoofer on the way, so I don't need a sub. I'm not opposed to only purchasing new fronts for now and picking up new rears later.

My budget is $1000, although I could spend a little more, I'd like to stay close to $1000.

My living room is my home theater room, and it's roughly 13'x23'6", with a vaulted ceiling starting at 8' and rising to 15'6". The living room has a 5'6"x7' opening to the dining room, which in turn opens to a large kitchen. The living room also has an open stairwell leading upstairs.

I'd really like the speakers to be black w/ black grilles.

The electronics these speakers will be matched with are an Onkyo 606 receiver, Panasonic 50" 720p plasma, DirecTV HD DVR, PS3 for gaming and Blu-Ray, and a Roku Netflix box.

Would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks!

Jason Boehle
jboehle@gmail.com

Hi Jason,

Quick thing, if it's not too late, you'll want to remove your email address from the post, unless you want more spam.

well if you're willing to go about $20 over your 1k budget + taxes then the M60's through the factory outlet would be a nice choice if you don't mind waiting a month to get them. and the Axioms happen to be available in black with black grills too!
I've had mine (in Boston cherry mind you)for about 2 years now and I'm still amazed on a weekly basis when i re hear some recordings i "thought" I'd heard before.

oh btw...expect an email from a rich Nigerian prince friend of mine tomorrow.

Jason, welcome. There would probably be different opinions expressed depending on whether your $1,000 budget is spent on mains alone or with surrounds included. My suggestion is that for about $900 from the Axiom factory outlet that you consider M22 mains plus QS8 side surrounds, which should give you more listening enjoyment than spending the entire amount on the mains alone. If you'll have a good sub the combination with M22s would give excellent full-range sound and in my view tower speakers aren't necessary in that size room(if preferred however, the $900 also could be used for M60 mains alone). Although my M22s are used in a somewhat smaller room now, I've briefly run them in a room similar to yours in size with fine results overall, including plenty of sound level capability.

The speakers from the outlet carry a 10% discount, and are brand-new, but have a "cosmetic defect" which most of us have had difficulty in even seeing. All the Axioms are available in black with black grills.

I'd say in that room, you'll want towers; probably M60s. If you can swing it, do the M60s and a VP100 or 150 now, then get the surrounds later.

Are you planning to listen to music on this setup? I mean, you'll end up doing it anyway, but if that's no focus on that, you could do M50s for your fronts to save a little dough. I think I'd prefer the M60s for music in general (although the M50s are no slouches), simply for the sake of imaging. Now, I haven't heard M50v2s, so they may have improved along those lines over my M50tis.

One for the M60s and a center now if affordable and going through the Factory Outlet.

Either suggestion so far will probably work.

Advantages of the M60: will play louder (if you like to listen loud) and will be more forgiving of less than well recorded material (which includes a lot of rock/pop). They will also have a noticable better bottom end if you like to listen to music in two channel mode.

Advantages of the M22: Will give you an amazing level of detail on well recorded music (at the expense of the not so well recorded stuff) particularly stuff like clasical where you have a lot of instruments involved. The surrounds make an amazing difference in movies so you could start enjoying that sooner.

I've been meaning to ask this for a long time. The US dollar is shot just about everywhere in the world. I can't believe it's still worth more than the Canadian dollar. You guys are in worse shape than us?????????


btw the M60's are $892 shipped from the Outlet Store down here. jboehle may be from the states so they're under $1000!

$992 shipped out tomorrow!

Bob, as you know, our economy and the US economy are very intertwined. If the US sneezes, we catch a cold. The main drop in the Cn $$ is mostly due to the drop in oil prices although the car industry has hit Ontario really bad (we build as many if not more cars than Michigan). I'm of the belief, contrary to many out there, that higher oil prices would actually help western economies (not necesarily $150 per barrel/maybe 100ish). This makes importers think twice about bringing so many products from China which becomes a lot more expensive due to shipping. When oil was up alot last year, many co's in N. America were starting to think about bringing offshore work back from China and giving it back to the workforce here. Just some thoughts. (the record profits of oil co's should be taxed accordingly though)

I don't think it's so much that the dollar is shot as the economy is hurting. Its not really the same thing. One of the ironies of the situation is that the USD actually became stronger after the collapse as the speculators stampeded back to the known "safe" haven of the buck.

Not to belabor a point about economies and why the difference in the CAN./US dollar, certainly the oil prices have a dramatic change in the CAN dollar but the US dollar is now artificially high because so much of their mammoth(and growing) debt is being bought up by foreigners via the sale of their treasury bonds. The US government is selling these to finance all these stimulus packages. China alone, owns almost $500 billion of these. If the Chinese ever decided to pull the plug and dump these, the Mexican peso would start looking good. Over the next year it has been predicted with the printing of money, increased inflation, the US debt continuing to grow, and oil prices starting to edge back up, the dollar difference will narrow.

We can only hope. *sigh*

Yup. It turns out that there is not yet a replacement for the US as a safe haven, thought I am not so sure how 'safe' the US financial system is any more.

I was reading a very interesting article in The Economist. It is postulated that some of the financial bubble in the US was driven by world money coming back to the US. It seems most of the world trusts the US financial system more than what is available locally.

I tend to agree that the US$ is over valued and will fall again over time. Canada, unfortunately is tied to the US economy and resources, both of which have taken a beating of late. I expect that the C$ will go through another rapid climb once once we are through the current mess.

Oh yeah! The M60's

Some would argue that gold is the only real safe haven, but it also fluctuates quite a bit. If it were to form a solid base around the $1000 level, who nows where it could go? (I don't own any, couple of shrinking positions in some juniors though)

Isn't this the investment forum? Oh yeah, sorry!

Gold is an interesting beast all on its own. If you look at it over a 400 year period, it has fallen in value steadily, probably because of the rate of extraction. OTOH all the gold ever mined equals two olympic swimmingpools in volume.

I believe gold to be a true measure of inflation because, unlike currencies and financial markets, it is very hard for governments to manipulate gold, particularly since most of it is now held in private reserves.

The fact that gold is now quite well supported at the $800 level where in 2000 it was only 200 tells you that a lot more inflation has taken place over that period than official sources would have you believe.

Actually Fred, the quantity of gold "sold" vs the quantity "extracted" are two different subjects. I don't want to try to remember figures I heard a good ten years ago, but my understanding is that more gold has been sold on paper than actually exists in extracted form. Kinda reminds you of banks lending money they don't have.

Well, there are the consiracy theorists that claim that the US government has done this to manipulate the price, and there are cliams that some ETFs are not holding the reserves they claim.

The former is probably doodoo, the latter, who knows.

A good conspiracy theory sounds good on a full HT system, doesn't it?

Yep. Lots of LFE. All those rumblings and undertones...

Hi guys, Im new here and let me say that this forum is one of the best forums for audio info that I have come across ,so I decided to join. NEWAYZ, Im looking into getting my first true HT system.I dont know to much about HT electronics, but im very well experienced in the car audio field, hence my migration into HT.I have a Denon 1907 reciever. I was wondering if this thing had enough ballz to power some m60,vp150,and a pair of QS8.
I am on a budget so I cant upgrade my reciever. Also Im going to use a pw2100 paradigm subwoofer with this setup, does anybody know if that sub meshes well with the axiom 60s? Any help would greatly be appreciated

Thankz
NorbPac

Norb, welcome. As always, the question of how much maximum power capacity is needed in a receiver will vary with factors such as your distance from the speakers, how loud an average level you listen at and how wide the dynamic range of the material that you play is. It can be said that in the vast majority of home listening situations that the 1907 has plenty of power for those Axioms, which use about 1 watt at a comfortably loud listening level, while split-second peaks, depending on the material, might hit the 100 watt area.

There're more powerful subs than the PW2100, but certainly it can extend the bass coverage of M60s very usefully.

A friend of mine has a total Paradigm setup. I think that is his exact sub. He says my EP500 would eat his and burp more bass if they ever were to meet in person but I actually think it does a good job in his particular setup. I think it would sound very nice with M60s.

Thankz guyz my room is approx 1600 sq. ft 16x13 i was thinking m80 but i think my room is to small for those(from what I've read)

Your receiver can handle the M60s in that size room but again it also depends on your listening levels as JohnK mentioned.

I like it moderately loud(to many SPL contests in my life haha)Normal listinig levels, I would not go more than 3/4 way up on the reciever with my klipsch 8.5, that brings me to another question. Can i use the Klipsch 8.5 as a rear and my qs8 as R surround for a 7.1 or will that horn tweet totally distort the SQ of the axioms?

(My HOPEFULLY SOON QS8's)haha

they are Klipsch KSF 8.5 to be exact.

ThankZ

You can use the Klipsch as rears the QS8's are better for the side surround duties, the question is can you handle the tonal differences on rear pans across the back, if it bothers you then you would need to get some M2s or more QS8's or similar, otherwise you would be good to go.

Your Denon is more than capable of running the M80s, I ran mine off an 1804 and had no problems what so ever. In a room of your size you could even run M22s and upgrade your sub to have more impact for HT as the M22+ sub is very good, nearly as good as M60/M80+sub. I still prefer my M80s+sub to M22+sub, but that is me; and I have both M80s and M22 around the house to continually subject myself to listening tests to assure myself I made the right decision in purchasing the M80s,

You can also look to the Factory Outlet to save a few more dollars, 10% off list price as well as another 5% for the HT discount which is any 5 products.

What do you guys think of Cambridge soundworks dual 10" sub or a Swans dual 10" sub, compared to a paradigm pw2100?