Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Affordable Qs8 brackets with tilt option???

Just curious if anyone has come across any "ceiling" brackets with tilt down ability, that are more affordable than the Axiom ceiling brackets? At $50+ ea. that is more than I would want to spend.

Of course you need the breathing room for the top driver, and the ability to hold the weight of the Q's.

Since my Q's are 7ft off the ground, I've always felt that if I could tilt them down it would help the experience. Sometimes I feel I'm missing some of the sounds as they are aimed above the heads of the listeners. Also, I plan to move my rears Q's back further.

thanks, Randy

Well, I found this Omnimount 20.0 which holds upto 20lbs, comes in black or white. http://www.vanns.com/shop/servlet/item/features/763039417

Looks like Lowes home improvement stores caries them as well, may have to check them out. For $38 bucks at some online etailers, that is cheaper.

The problem may be that they fit speakers with a threaded 3/8-16 insert. If I recall, Axiom does not have that, I can't find any information anywhere on what Axiom uses.

Well, I just googled it, and looks like Axiom uses a 1/4-20 insert, guess that idea just got flushed down the toilet.

I suppose I would have to get a 3/8-16 to 1/4-20 adapter to make it work, why can't anything be easy in this world.

Lol, that's the truth. I could have helped you a couple of years back, Randy, when I worked in the machine shop, easy to make then just send them to you. The biggest problem I see with some of the other brands of brackets is they only hold a couple of pounds, unfortunately. Someone out there must make some heavier duty ones though.

I hear Axiom makes some that work with the QS series for a bit more than the workarounds mentioned.

All things considered, it would cost more (alot) to get a M/C to make some one-off brackets unless you had some free time to make them. Looking at the Axiom brackets, they look more robust then most of the aftermarket types that seem more geared to smaller satellite speakers.

I seem to remember someone here posting some pics of their white QS's ceiling mounted with a longer mount than Axiom's, that simply screwed into the threaded insert. This was quite awhile back maybe in '04.

Found the post sadly the link to his pics are no longer working but the link the the mount is

http://www.racksandstands.com/asp/show_detail.asp?sku=OM0012&catid=12

He said they worked great and that he contacted Omnimount about the weight issue and they said the 10lb rating was on the conservative side.

hmmm, that one comes with the 1/4-20 shaft, which would match the Axiom female threads...I'm just worried that when tilted it won't hold position from the weight of the Qs8's...

Randy, I did this same research on the Omnimount finding the 3/8" 20lb brkt. issue. Nice to hear the 10lb Omnimount wold probably hold, BUT, if you look at the diagrams of the 10 and 20 Omni's, you'll find the 1/4" SS 10's are about 2" shorter. That would give them essentially the same 2" (parallel) and 3"+ (tilted). If that works for you, I'd say it is a good way to go. Expescially if you find them in stock at Lowes. Easy to return if the socket has any problem holding the 13 lbs at an angle. Mount them, tap them a bit to see if the swivel ball moves. If not you should be good to go. For me, I want to mount them parallel to ceiling with maybe 5" top clearance. I have the space (vaulted ceiling), so why go with a min. possible top clearance, to me. For the height. If I decide I want to tilt, I'll consider the longer Omni 20's with an adapter.

I did not go at far as to look for a 3/8" to 1/4" adapter. Where did you find that one? (say Lowes! ;o)

I went to Lowes to look at the Omni's but totally forgot to look at them because I got side tracked looking to 'create' a mount I could easily swivel front to back. I thought the Omni 'ball' would need to be loosened to spin 180º, which I'd rather not bother messing with. My plan A will be mounting QS8 to a 1/2" galv. pipe which is threaded into a flood light receptacle cover, mounted to a ceiling rafter.

Randy, for you setup, I would consider either insertinf a wedge of the desired angle, made out of wood. You should be able to attach the wedge to the QS8 with a 1/4-20 bolt, then just use two or three screws through your existing (nice looking) shelf brackets. The wedges painted black, I think would look good. You could even paint them gloss black to match the nice covers over your shelf brackets. Just a thought.

I am considering purchasing some kind of tilt bracket for my QS8's as well. They are my side surrounds, but I have them placed on the rear wall facing forward b/c I have a brick fireplace on one side and no wall on the other. My couch is a few inches off of the back wall... I basically had the option of mounting on the ceiling or mounting on the back wall and facing forward. All I had was the T bracket so I went with the second option. They are about 5.5 feet off the ground and sound pretty good, but I think if I angle them in toward the couch they would sound better...

What do you guys think?

Given the nature of the QS design, I am surprised so many are looking at angling them. I can see if you have a space issue above the top and tilting gains some clearance for the driver. But I don't see how aiming a QS would do much, as their is no focal point to speak of. What am I missing here? Maybe I need to do this as well.

I remember his pics and he had them tilted.

It is just to give the top driver room to breath as we are looking at only 3-4 inches of clearance on top, the tilt allow a little more room.

In my case, the tweeters are 7ft off the ground and shooting over the heads of the listeners left/right, tilting them down slightly should help direct the enveloped sound more downward. Often I can't even hear my rears or sides.

I have the same problem...

I was thinking that if I angled them in toward the couch a touch, and angled the inner most tweeter down a bit this would really improve things. Maybe I will give it a shot and see. I already have them placed at studs with the T-bracket so it should be pretty easy to swap them out for the axiom FMB (or whatever other bracket I end up using).

I guess I just realized that the axiom QS brackets only provide a couple of inches of clearance from the wall... so I wouldn't really be able to tilt them in that much, if at all. Also, if I tilted one tweeter down toward the couch some, the bottom driver would then be aimed away from the listening area.


Maybe I should try the QS stands, or maybe I should just live with it the way it is until I buy a house hopefully within the next year. I really don't want to bring the speakers down as low as the stands would.

You guys could turn up the surrounds a couple db like what happens to the center channel often.

I am surprised you say you can't hear your surrounds sometimes Rnady, is that due to the fact you are expecting more from them than what is actually in the sound mix?

I think part of the problem is they might be to close to the seats for the 7ft height location. I know my rear Q's are not far enough back, I'm still kicking myself for the installation. When your sitting in the back row, they are only about 1ft behind and 7ft off the ground.

I do hear them, I just think I'm missing something.

I'm surprised to hear that. Mine are 7ft high and 12 to 15 inches behind the seating positions (direct distance about 6 ft to ears) and they do a great job. Try some M80 back there, I hear people like those.

Terz,
I believe only the ceiling mount FSB have any concern about closeness. From the QS8's on 'wall mount' FMB's, they seem to tilt to maybe 45º if memory serves. In your case, against the back wall, tilting would make the lower woofer, reflect off the back wall, maybe right at your ear level.

Like Zimm, I always figured in theory, the tweeters tilting down, were still going off to the sides. I would look at the 1st reflection point and think they would reflect down to the carpeted floor. Keeping parallel like Randy's now, I guess I could see in theory, the extremely directional high frequencies might just remain above ear level mostly, at least through the first few reflections. Hmmmm... You guys are making me look at tilting them down slightly. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the high frequencies, even more than the mids. reflect just like you'd expect a pool ball to bounce off the cushion. The angle the ball or sound hits the surface, is the same angle it reflects off at.

For my rear ceiling mount set up, as I'd imagine would be mostly true for all rears, it might work like this:
Right rear surround tilted so L tweeter points at ear level of the left side of center of the sound field. The R tweeter would point towards the wall (or open space if no wall), and either reflects off the floor or the very bottom of the front wall, and then the floor. Hmmmn... This would tell me to forget about the L tweeter hitting a listener (who in never there anyway!) in the left of the sound field. Maybe start by making my best eye ball guess at how the 'pool ball' would reflect off the side wall, then front wall, then ?surface. Doooouhh! I gues you just stick it up there and play with it! (the speaker I mean).

Randy, did you give any more thought to brackets or maybe wooden wedges for a tilt in your set up? Have you been toLOwes to see if they had the Omnimounts. Sometimes a mfgr will show a chain as carrying their products, but the chain, or that store doesn't get the memo. ;o)

I have always just blamed the occasional lack of surround sound on the source.. because some movies/games they sound great... especially anything with car wrecks, gun shots, slamming doors, barking dogs, ect. you can def. tell they are working and sound fabulous.

However, sometimes if watching a movie that I can't hear much surround sound, I can get up and stand close to the surrounds and hear small surround sound effects that I can't really hear from the couch (wind through trees, quite bird chirps, ect.) However, sometimes these "ambient surround effects" come through clear... so prolly just a source issue I guess.

I have my surround level matched to 75 db with mains when they read 1.0 db on receiver... I often run them at 2.5 db but the problem still persists.

I can't help but wonder how they would sound if they were at the side aiming in, instead of at the back aiming forward like they should be. Not sure if it's worth all the hassle since I am looking to move (eventually)

SirQuack,
My trip to Lowe's got the same result as yours. Nada on the Omnimount brackets. You can order them from Radio Shack on line and they will ship for free to your local RS store. So if you know what you want that is a way to go. I did not ask my local RS guy how a return would go on that kind of order, though.

Have you gotten any closer to trying some tilt option?
Hey, do you have a sledge? That would likely tilt 'em good. Oh, and probably knock 'em back a few feet to boot!