Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Excited about my VP180

I think you have fingered the issue right on. If a male voice is above 80Hz and the VP180 is set to a threshold of 40Hz, then our experience was that the non-voice sounds between 40-80Hz were reducing the clarity and intelligibility of the dialogue. As I moved the threshold up from 40 to 60 and then from 60 to 80, the dialogue became increasingly clear and focused.

I am going to continue to experiment with the threshold setting to see if this is simply a matter of me adjusting to the system.

If there is material in the 40-80Hz range, it's because it has been mixed there. Maybe it's a bad mix? Did you try with different source material and got the same effect?
In any case, setting the xover at 80Hz will redirect this info to the subwoofer so it would still be there. Can't really understand how that effect voice clarity. That puzzles me...

OK, thanks for the push-back. You're the expert, not me! I'll continue to experiment.

Most male voices fall into the 80-160hz area fwiw.

darbo, I do understand what you're inferring(right or wrong, I don't know) in that when you add other low freq's by means of a lower crossover it can affect other, slightly higher freq's as the speaker is doing more work(that the sub could/should handle). Do some experimenting, it's possible if you remove the lower, under 80hz freqs, then the centre can in fact, play more clearly in the 80hz+ region where male voicing is prominent.

I'm wondering if the speaker is mounted low and there isn't some muddiness happening due to floor reflections?

Funny if you look at the 2010 highlights it says "Axiom introduces the VP180, a 'monster subwoofer' inspired by customers seeking the ultimate in home theater sound playback."

http://www.axiomaudio.com/corp.html

I am really appreciating this dialogue very much; it is encouraging me all the more to experiment and reassess!

I just ran the system through the Audyssey calibration for the first time with the Axioms and it set the M80s and VP180 to full. Hmmm. My initial reaction to the calibration is positive (music sounds absolutely awesome in that setting). I have a Blu-Ray disc playing right now and the dialogue seems quite intelligible. Could it be that the system simply needed to be calibrated to our listening environment?

That said, the audyssey calibration results lead me to this question: Is it harmful to the M80s or VP180 to have them set to full for blu-ray/dvd content?

I am open to the possibility that I simply need to adjust myself to the VP180; that the only thing that needs "breaking in" is me. If it won't harm the speakers to leave them at full, per the Audyssey calibration, I'd like to do so for an extended period to ensure that we're sampling enough varying content and to learn if we simply need to adjust our own "hearing posture" to the system.

By "full" I assume you are saying your receiver set your m80's and 180 to "large". Audyssey does not do this, but looks for the -3dB point of each speaker and reports this back to the receiver. Each manufacturer of the receiver would determine if the speaker is set to large or small. Most of them use 40hz as the cutoff, which Audyssey recommends.

Anyway, unless you don't have a sub, you want to go into the receiver setup and change each speaker that was set to "large" to "small". The crossover for the m80's and 180 could then be set to 60-80hz.

That's interesting that you should say that...it was my very first thought before I went down the raise-the-xover-to-80Hz route. But, I discounted it because the speaker is sitting on an speaker stand designed by Axiom; an "audiophile-quality" stand, no less! But, perhaps it's just the challenge of our unique room environment.

OK, thanks for the Audessey information...there's a lot to learn there! So, it appears that the Onkyo receiver has taken the information from the Audessey calibration and set the M80s and VP180 to "full range", which is probably Onkyo's term for "large". Is it harmful to leave it set like that? Or will the super-low frequencies in Blu-Ray/DVD content cause physical harm to the M80s/VP180? Just curious.