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

I can't understand why you're considering that a push back. That wasn't in any way meant to be an offense and if I would be an "expert", I would have an answer to your question.

Not sure it would be harmful, as the m80's and 180 can play very low frequencies. However, a subwoofer with a 12" or bigger woofer can move more air in those lower frequencies. When you set the crossover to say 80hz, frequencies below that point are redirected to the subwoofer. Also, some think they are just cutoff, when in fact there is a slope or blending handoff.

after doing the calibration on my Onkyo 5507 pre-pro it set my front 3 (a pair of M80's & a VP180 all V3) to 40hz and i love the sound they all put out. all voices sound perfect and all spoken words make perfect sense to me. if that's where your speakers were set after your calibration program and if you like the way it sounds leave it. i did and i don't intend to move mine. mind you it's not going to be for or be accepted by everyone. good luck! and keep us posted on whatever you have chosen to do and why.

Running them full-range won't hurt anything. All that matters is what pleases your ears.

Lots of people get really hung up on letting the sub do all the heavy lifting. I'm a little less convinced for a number of reasons. First, you've got amp headroom in spades so you don't need to worry about how much power it will take to produce low frequencies on the M80's. Second, there can certainly be room nulls in the 40-80Hz range so having multiple sources for those frequencies (both the sub and the mains) at different locations can be of meaningful help in evening the overall bass response of the system. Third, the M80's have very useful output down to about 40Hz so you're not asking them to do anything they weren't designed for. Finally, my experience in my room is that I prefer to run my M60's with a crossover lower than 80Hz.

Experiment, find what you like, and enjoy yourself.

And - if you're not 100% satisfied - I think you should call Axiom and give them the opportunity to make it right.

Actually, my findings Tom are that for your second point the opposite is true. Adding the multiple sources as you describe actually negatively affect the peaks/nulls. Multiple sources placed correctly using the same drivers will do as you mention.

Like you I also run my m80's below 80hz and use 60hz crossover.

Tom, the point Randy makes is a valid one. Simply having multiple sources playing bass frequencies in no way guarantees smoother response. The contrary is the result when the sources are separated by about a half-wavelength, resulting in a null, or about a quarter-wavelength, resulting in a peak. The bass smoothing effect discussed by Dr. Toole, among others, and in the Harman papers requires placement of multiple subs at specific locations(not practical for the speakers)to obtain the desired benefit.

It sounds like your are happy with the lower crossover now the Audyssey EQ is in place but I’m curious if you have the chance if you would try two experiments.

First deselect the center channel in your receiver so that the center is played through your M80s, turn Audyssey off and set the crossover back down to 40Hz. Then sitting in the sweet spot see how the dialogue sounds just coming from the M80s.

Another thing to try is to turn Audyssey off and set the VP180 to 40Hz and place it vertically on the ground rather than horizontally on the stand. See how you think that compares to when it’s placed horizontally both in the sweet spot and off axis.

Not that any of this will really help you but I’ve been curious for some time how a VP180 would stack up to an M80 center like I’m using. No worries if this is to much trouble.

Like Tom said sometimes having multiple bass sources helps even things out. I ran all my front 3 M80s at 40Hz until I picked up a SVS AS-EQ1 to equalize my subwoofer correcting for room modes. Before the EQ multiple bass sourced sounded better plus I could get more midbass punch out of my M80s than my EP500 because I have a huge midbass dip and a huge very low bass peak which meant that trying to get good midbass out of my EP500 created way to much low bass. The EQ system took care of that (at least for the sweet spot) so now I mostly run them with an 80Hz crossover.

Cheers,
Dean

You didn't mean to offend and you didn't. All I meant by "push back" is merely the fact that you've questioned my experience, which I value as very helpful in my process of becoming more acquainted with this new system. I'll try again: Thanks for the push back helpful replies, expert experienced one! How is that?

Update: We watched a Blu-Ray movie tonight with the calibrated settings. Also I tried out a new placement for the EP500. The movie experience was perfect. Dialogue was clear, not muddled. Maybe I chose the wrong content to have my first impressions, or maybe the calibration really set things right, but whatever the case I had a great night with the VP180. Tonight it was the center channel I was hoping for.

Excellent, glad you are now liking the VP180 even more.