Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Thanks for Visiting my Home Theater Micah!

Micah and his lovely girlfriend came over to visit today to listen to the Axiom setup. Although a short visit, I had a wonderful time and just wanted to say what nice people they were. I hope you enjoyed the visit Micah, and I hope you liked what you heard.

-Steve

Is that the new Micah800?

So Micah, what was your appraisal of the M80's? What were/are you deciding between.

OH MY GOD!!!

That's the short version, and it says it all. For anyone who's ever been wowed over the internet with descriptions and pictures of Steve's HT room... let me just tell you it's much, much more impressive than you can possibly imagine. I am completely humbled and honored to have been invited into such a lovely home, with such an increadible set-up! Steve could easily charge money to give such a tour and never have to work another day in his life, it's that spectacular!

The visit was cut a little short because of a few unexpected business problems that came up for my girlfriend and I. We arrived at Steve's home a little over an hour later than we had originally planned. But there was no let down, I assure you all of that. The hour and a half that we stayed there was quite possibly the most impressive hour and a half I've ever spent anywhere! I will post pictures soon, but there's just no way on earth that they will do his HT justice. I'm in love, truely in love with the room he's built, tweeked, and labored over. Oh to be one of his lucky kids (both of whom we were delighted to meet, as well as his lovely wife). They get to enjoy the music and movies when ever they want... oh God they're going to be SOOOO spoiled when it comes to HT systems later on in life. How will their first attempt EVER hope to compare to what dad had all those years? Ha ha ha, they are truely blessed let me tell you.

So we arrive, Steve greets us at the door and we introduce ourselves. Right away I knew we were in for a treat because the further we drove into Steve's neighborhood the nicer the houses seemed to get (when we pulled into the drive way my girlfriend exclaimed, "this is his house"?)... ha ha, Steve has a great house, and the 'secondary' entertainment space in the upstairs living room has a 65 inch DLP surrounded in a beautiful wood entertainment center... yes you heard me, this is his 'SECONDARY' entertainment area. We briefly walked through the upstairs and went down into his basement, this is a kingdom any man could be locked up in and never ever wish to escape. He has a full bar, a professional poker table, and of course, what we were there to see, his home theater room.

Now when he very first opened the double doors to his room it ALMOST seemed a bit on the small side. But this was mostly due to the dark colors and dim lights when we first went inside. Once we took a seat in the front row of his theater and he turned the lights up I can honestly say it seemed absolutely perfect in size. Steve will tell you he wishes it extended back another 6 feet or so, but I certainly couldn't find anything to complain about once I got situated in there. The screen is 106 inches, absolutely amazing. And although his projector is 3 generations behind the newest stuff out there, I was completely amazed by how great it looked! And the sound... good God almighty, how do I describe it? Ok, ok before I discribe the sound of his set-up let me just say that I can only imagine maybe 1% of all home owners in the world who have as nice a set up as Steve has. Oh I'm sure there are nicer rooms with better accoustics (his room is rather squarish, which he doesn't like), but if there is a list of things you could do to Steve's room to improve it, then it must be the worlds shortest list. Even before he played anything at all I could tell I was in for a treat. As soon as he closed the door it was like putting a pair of noise cancelling headphones on. It was dead quiet in there. We started off with a few songs he wanted me to hear to show me what 'poorly' recorded music sounded like through the M80's. And I'll be honest here, I really didn't think it sounded all that bad at all. I mean it was a bit 'thin' sounding, and wasn't very dynamic at all. But it wasn't harsh or hard to listen to at all in my opinion. Then he played a song off the same CD, only recorded a little better, and the dynamics leapt completely off the charts!!! Tight bass, open sound field, floating mids, crystal clear highs... oh my, I was sitting in heaven. I brought my Tom Cochrane CD and we listened to 'All the Kings Men'... it blew me away. I used to have a very high end car stereo system that I loved to listen to that song on, and the Axioms (we were listening to it in 5.1) took that song to a completely different level that I've never heard before... it was entransing.

Next up I wanted to hear some LFE, so he put 'Finding Nemo' in and we watched the 'aquarium' sceen... MY FUCKING GOD, I have never been in a theater with a sound system as awesome as this, her finger tapping the glass shook his concrete floor, I swear to God it did! The LFE coming out of his dual EP800's (be afraid, be VERY afraid) was out of this world. He moved us to the back of his theater and played it again for us to show us how much more bass there was in the back of the room. And indeed it was noticable, but not annoying in any way, shape of form. Back to the music I also brought along some Floyd and Great White. They both sounded increadible, but Great White's 'Rock Me' took top honors. I could have been in the front row of a Great White concert, the staging was more realistic than I ever knew was even possible out of a home stereo. If I closed my eyes the speakers completely disappeared and if you would have spun me around I never would have been able to point out where the speakers were sitting. There's no other words to decribe it other than it was as if we were in the room with the musicians while they were recording the CD. I've read about this experience many times, only now do I actually understand what they're talking about though. It's a life changing experience hearing a sound system of this quality, combined with a room of this caliber. Have I mentioned I am in love?

We rounded the demo off with a little Roy Orbison on Blue Ray. And he truely saved the best till last. I won't even attempt to put this experience into words, I'm not that eloquent. Let's just say it made an impression that will stick with me. It was like nothing else I've ever sat through. I want to be Steve's new best friend. I want to have sleep overs. I want to house sit for him. I want to hit the lotto and offer him double what ever he paid for his humble abode so that I can experience that AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN (etc into infinity)...

About 20 minutes after his kids returned home I wanted to let him get back to enjoying his family (Steve does a lot of traveling), so Amy and I thanked Steve for his generous hospitality and expressed how much we appreciated experiencing his pride and joy with him like that. It's not everyday you invite a couple total strangers into your digs like that and give them the run of the place. I felt very comfortable and right at home the entire visit which is a true testament to Steve and the way he treats his friends. He must make for a fantastic neighbor.

My fears about getting the M80's, in a word - gone. In fact my excitement is now 100 times what it EVER was before. I'm in complete understanding that I have a TON of work to do to get anywhere near the sound quality out of my room as Steve got out of his room, in fact I know my room will NEVER sound quite that great. But I know what they can sound like, I'll just have to work with what I have. I do enjoy a challenge, so I'm up for it.

Thank you so much for being such a gracious host Steve, I hope some day I may be able to return the favor in some way. If not, then I'll just always remember what an impression you made on us today. I was absolutely blown away completely beyond any measure I ever could have imagined.

Be jealous everyone!!!

Sounds awesome, I'm sold, sign me up for a second 800, could you go ahead and include an invisibility cloak with that?

I'm definitely jealous. I can't wait to have a better room for my system. It'll never be ideal, but I definitely want better than what I have. I'm sure I would really enjoy experiencing Steve's system. I wish you luck with your own system.

Looking forward to more photos

Nice! You are ahead of the curve on understanding the speaker room interaction. Still, now you know what the system is capable of and have something to work towards.

Is the order in yet?

Pics are loading onto http://www.photobucket.com as we speak!

Micah,

I'm sitting here blushing right now. Thank you very much for your VERY kind words. I have to say that anyone who is on the fence about holding Axiom auditions should go ahead and do it, and if you are lucky enough to have anyone over who is half as nice as Micah, you will have a wonderful time! I told Micah that even though I don't get to come home too often, I was actually really looking forward to this audition because I love listening to music, and I also love introducing people to speakers they have not really heard before. We had a great time talking about room affects, and how even something as small as adding a riser for 2nd row seating or putting the speakers on a wood floor rather than a concrete floor will totally change the sound of the system. We also briefly mentioned Bob (Micah has been in touch with him via PMs), and both hoped he finds a sound that makes him happy.

It's kind of hard having people over and not going crazy about how you feel about Axiom. I wanted Micah to judge for himself whether or not he liked the sound. So, I wanted to start just by popping some discs in and listening. After a while, we started talking a bit about what we were hearing, and it was clear that Micah was very satisfied with the sound. In my opinion, going with a Axiom speaker also gives you that sense of security, knowing that they will always be there, and help/assistance is always a free phone call (or E-Mail, or Forum post away). The customer service is more than icing on the cake, it's one of the things that makes Axioms great.

For those on the fence about speaker finishes (there is another thread here on that), when Micah saw my speakers, he though that my speakers were wood finish. I had to tell him that I just have the basic black vinyl. The basic vinyl finishes on the Axioms are really that good (although I'd love to have high gloss rosewood for another room!)

I'd also like to mention that during this audition, we had the music pretty loud (I wanted Micah to listen to the speakers the way he would listen to them at home). I took out my SPL meter several times during the day, and we were constantly between 100 and 105 db. It was a nice test for not only the EP800s, but the Denon AVR-3806 as well. As expected, the Denon just shrugged the M80s off... I did notice some tapping on my EP800 on the left during the fishbowl scene in "Finding Nemo". My guess is it's one of the wires inside of the cabinet hitting a driver during it's excursion (we were really blasting the system, the room was literally shaking). I'm not going to open the EP800 yet since Axiom has already said they are sending new amps to the people who bought the EP800s early. When I open the speaker to replace the amp, I'll check it out. Again, knowing you have a 5 year warranty help you to not worry about these things, or rush into doing anything. You know that Axiom will make things right.

Again, I just wanted to say thank YOU Micah for coming over. I had a great time and I do look forward to seeing your system when it's all set up!

Best Regards,
Steve

PS - HEY! My screen is 126", not 106"