Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions QS8: Question about mounting

Hello All!
Recently I placed an ordered for M60ti/VP150/QS8 ....and I cant wait to get it! However, I am having a small dilema with how I am going to mount the QS8's on the wall. I am going to try to explain my situation the best I can.

My room is sorta shaped like an 'L'. My home theater is going to be located on the horizontal part of the 'L'. Unfortunately, because how the couch is going to be positioned, I am going to have a mounting problem for my QS8's. I am going to be able to mount the right-side QS8 on the wall; however, the left-side QS8 is going to be in the vertical part of the 'L'.

Exactly what should I do? Can I mount the QS8 from the ceiling? Is the QS8 designed to be mounted on a wall for sound reflection, etc? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

This is a common problem that I also faced. Initially I was going to ceiling mount the QS8s on a rear "knee wall", about 5 ft behind the listening area at about 135 degrees from straight ahead. At least they'd be symmetrical with respect to the room center line.

However I did some listening tests with the QS8s on ladders and compared it to approx 90 degree locations. To my ear I liked the 90 degree location a lot better.

I used QSS stands holding QS8s at about 90 degrees L/R from the lisening position. One is against the wall and the other is out in the room. Fortunately I was re-carpeting at the time so got special flat speaker cable and ran it under the carpet pad. The visible speaker wire is covered with Radio Shack flexible black conduit. It's secured to the QSS base, so if kicked the wire won't pull over the QSS tower. It's a darkly decorated, dedicated HT room, so it doesn't look bad. There's enough slack to reposition the QS8 to a better location if children are about, etc.

In general the QS8s are tolerant of positioning. My advice is try them out temporarily on ladders, have two friends hold them, etc. It's possible having one on the wall and the other on the ceiling would be just fine for you.

Thanks for the reply!
When you say 90 degress from the listening position, what exactly do you mean?

Also, how did you mount your qs8 from the ceiling? did you use the FMB? Using a FMB on the ceiling, exactly how far will the speaker be from the ceiling?

By 90 degrees, I mean directly left or right of the listening position. Say you're facing the front speakers, with 0 degrees straight ahead. Hold you arms out sideways -- that's 90 degrees. Directly behind you is 180 degrees.

Re ceiling mount of QS8s, I never actually did this, but planned on using the standard brackets, not FMB. Axiom said the standard bracket is safe for this, altough I have my doubts. Mine would have been mounted at a 45 degree knee wall (kind of a cross between ceiling and wall), so maybe that would have been OK.

For me it's a moot point since I ultimately used the QSS stands.

Ahh! Thanks for the clarification!

So does anyone know if you can use the FMB to mount a QS8 from the ceiling? If so, how far the ceiling would the speaker be?

Judging from this picture:



the QS8 would be about 2 inches from the ceiling if you kept it parallel (as pictured).

As stated, it's roughly 2 inches from the wall (or ceiling), or maybe slightly more.

Re whether you can mount a QS8 from the ceiling with FMB, I think yes. I mounted a VP150 on a 45 degree knee wall with FMB, and a QS8 is much lighter than that.

From a safety standpoint, it's probably important to hit a wall or ceiling stud (which I did). In theory there are some dry wall anchors that would hold a QS8 or even a VP150, but screwing into the underlying wooden stud is more secure.

It's also important to carefully tighten the allen screws on the FMB. You don't want a QS8 falling on someone's head!

Also don't take our word for it; check with Axiom about your intended mounting technique.

Having purchased the QS8 and FMB I too have thought about ceiling mounting the speaker. I would suggest that the FMB be used perpendicular to the ceiling and you can still use the original mounting screw in the speaker. This would leave the speaker approximately 2" from the ceiling. And as others have stated I would definately find a stud to put the FMB mounting screws into. I ended up not using the FMB in the ceiling. As was also stated by others, I liked the sound with the speaker 90deg. from my listening area. On the plus side it fills the rest of my room up with sound. Having the QS8 is almost like having 2 M2Ti's in one speaker position pointing at 45 deg angles to each other.

Thanks for all the replies! I guess my last question is: Would it actually sound better if I mounted them on the ceiling in comparison to using the QS Stands?