Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners M22 vs M60 comparison

I know this has been discussed many times, but I just did a back-to-back listening test in my 20'x16' home theater room of M22ti/VP100/QS8 vs M60ti/VP150/QS8 in a 5.1 config, driven by a Yamaha RX-V1400 receiver and Sony DVP-NC685V SACD player. Both used a Hsu STF-2 sub, also I tried both configs without the sub. Material was primarily multichannel music using SACD and DD/DTS 5.1.

Executive summary: both sound great, but the M60s were better. However M22ti with sub vs M60 without sub is a closer call.

You won't go wrong with either. However to my ear the M60s were better, fuller, and worth the upgrade assuming you've got the space and money. With the same amp, room, sub, source material and settings, the M60s had more punch and depth at the upper base and lower midrange.

That said, the difference between M22s in a poor position with poor material vs good position and good material was greater than the difference between M22s and M60s. So don't worry so much about the speakers; try to get the proper speaker angle, make sure listening levels and sub are calibrated, watch for room acoustics, use good material, etc.

Some questions I had before were whether M22s with a sub are equal to M60s without a sub. To my ear this was a close call. M22s with a sub are very, very good. The crystiline M22 highs are nicely augmented by the sub's bass. The M60s with sub were better (not saying M22s were bad -- they were very good). But removing the sub from the M60s diminished the punch and impact more than I expected. Note I recalibrated and switched M60s from "small" to "large" after removing the sub.

My conclusions are: M22s with a sub are very competitive and a nice package. M60s are sufficiently better to warrant the upgrade if you have the space and money. M60s need a sub for most optimal results, although without a sub they're very impressive. M22s need a sub. They are all nice speakers and Axiom has been a great company to deal with.

Thanks for the report. This kind of detail is always welcomed, no matter how many posts there are on it (and I don't recall any this specific, where someone was able to test them all at once in the same room with optimal placement etc. Two questions --

• Did you make a direct comparison in 2-channel stereo of the M22/sub vs. M60/no-sub set-up?
• And whether or not you did this, at what level did you set the cross-over from mains to sub when the M60s (and M22s) were using a sub and set to "small"?

Birdman

PS - As an anecdotal contribution, I too have the M60s and a Hsu STF-2. My wife DESPISES all configurations & placements I've tried using the sub FOR MUSIC (NOT HT - ALWAYS GREAT ON HT). I'm a bit more open minded about it than her, but the end result is I more or less agree and so for music we're pure M60s except when I feel like playing around. What I have noticed, listening in our decent but somewhat challenging 14'x18' room with an open wall along the back, is that when I'm in the ideal listening position for 2-channel, the sub-on/M60s pairing can work great on lots of music (David Gray's "White Ladder" album offers great tests for bass integration, and it's a fantastic CD too). But when one of us is at the back of the room, or in the adjoining kitchen, or generally outside the sweet spot, the sub & M60 pairing is much harder to pull off -- whereas M60s alone sound great. By themselves there's a bit less on the approaching-sub-sonic low end, of course, and there's perhaps ever so slightly less crystalline info in the mids and highs, but the overall integration works more seamlessly. This is outside the sweet spot, mind you, but that's a pretty frequent reality for us.

Re direct 2-ch stereo comparision of M22/sub vs M60/no-sub -- no I didn't do that. My time was limited and I focused only on multichannel. I did briefly have a stereo M22/sub config, and it sounded very good.

Re crossover, for DTS/DD 5.1 material I used the RX-V1400 internal crossover at 80Hz, with M22s and M60s set to "small". I tried setting the M60/VP150 to "large", and it seemed slightly less optimal.

With SACD material (which means I can't use the amp's crossover, EQ, speaker size, speaker distence, or calibration), I set these (where available) using the menus of the Sony DVP-NC685V player. It has a fixed crossover at 120Hz (of unknown slope), and no way to set speaker distence. I manually set speaker levels with the Radio Shack meter. I tried setting the M60s to "large" and "small" -- in this case it sounded better on "large", even with the sub. I don't know why -- maybe the fixed crossover.

Despite the theoretical SACD player limitations, good multichannel material (whether DTS/DD 5.1 or SACD) sounded fantastic on the M60/VP150/QS8/STF-2 config. The Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon SACD, Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road SACD, and Eagles Hotel California DVD-A all sounded fantastic. It was almost as if I'd never heard these before, it was so improved.

When you have a decent system the source material quality becomes much more obvious. And by that I don't mean SACD vs CD, but the original source material quality and how much care was exercised during the multichannel remix. Wasn't Dark Side of the Moon originally quad? Maybe that's why it sounds so good on multichannel today.

Re your wife not liking music with the M60s/sub, at least in my listening I liked it a lot. It seemed to add that extra bit of impressive authority down low, without being boomy or artificial. However all my listening was from the sweet spot, not beyond that. I liked it well enough I'm upgrading from an STF-2 to a VTF-3 Mk2, intended for both HT and music.

austinbirdman,
Excellent well written review of the M60s at audioreview.com. I raise my glass to you sir! I'm sure I speak for everyone here when I say thanks for the praise of the forum.

Wow. extremely clear and praising without getting mushy. Nicely written!

That was a good review.
mhorgel had one in there as well, as does spiff and sonicfox.

It is interesting how at least 2 reviewers noted the Monitor Silver serires in comparison.
Can you believe that someone actually called these speakers dull and lifeless?
Man, they must be deaf.
Axioms are anything but a dull sounding speaker. Too bright is a common remark, but DuLL???!!!!

I wonder how many words they allow for reviews now.
When i did mine, the damn thing cut me off at the knees. I had to shorten the review so much so that now it sounds cheesy.

At present audioreview.com allows 5000 words. Thanks for appreciating the review - kinda surprised it was read so quickly, since it just went up yesterday. In my day job, I am a professional Bulls@#!!-er -- however, this review was entirely sincere, and much easier to wing out than your average day's PR fare.

On another note - joema, thanks for the details. Someday (more than a year off) when I get a new receiver with a variable crossover, I believe I will be able to get the M60s-Sub configuration set up for music so my wife likes it. (Her antipathy toward the sub for music at the Yamaha's fixed 90 Hz xover was so intense, she even learned how to manipulate the subwoofer settings -- and let me just say that previously not even the inducement of a $500 treatment at a Mediterannean day spa would have led to such miracles.)

Two thoughts re: 5.1 music with the fixed xover on the 6-channel source: 1) yes, surely that 120 Hz xover is what gave you some problems with the set-up of the M60s ... that's a lot of info to lose on any good speaker, 2) it is disappointing that bass management is so rudimentary on many of the 6-channel players still.

Birdman

In reply to:

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...she even learned how to manipulate the subwoofer settings...

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When given the proper impetus, most wives can become experienced at knob manipulation.

ooooh, Peter, that was worse than usual