Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater bookshelf vs floorstanding

There's no doubt an appeal of a truly active crossover with multiple, separate amps, one connected directly to each driver. But the cost alone is a deterrent. Then the ability to design a crossover curve to exactly meet the passive network built by the speaker's designer is pretty daunting. The network is not simply a point and a slope. Care is put into controlling resonance, and other non-linearities of each driver and the cabinet.

One, good, single amp channel per full speaker inclosure is really enough for the home environment, for people using already complete speakers.

Thanks for all the detailed answers, guys. Correct me if I am wrong: since VP180 is passive biamped and most receivers are not capable of sending different frequencies through the two biamp channels, it is no big difference whether VP180 is biamped or not, right?

I have another question which may sound silly. If the HT setup is 7.1, the resource is 5.1 lossless sound (DTSHD MA/DolbyHD/LPCM) and the reciever is able to decode this sound, then the two remaining speakers are mute? Or receivers (like Onkyo 808, Yamaha RXA1000) can mix the sound and transmit to these two speakers without downgrading the sound quality?

right, don't worry about biamping, as that is not true biamping and you will be accomplishing little.

Julian, the VP180 isn't bi-amped in any way. Paying $40 extra for two sets of terminals would simplify the process of having to re-wire the speaker to by-pass its internal crossover. The second set of terminals has no active function otherwise. No receiver has an actual bi-amp capability; what some of them term a bi-amp option is meaningless, as previously discussed.

If a mode such as DPLIIx is applied to 5-channel material, then portions of the content in the 4th and 5th side surround channels(the front channels aren't affected in any way)which should be imaged in back are extracted from those side surround channels and directed to the back surrounds. The effect can be quite worthwhile if there're at least a few feet behind the listening position for a rear sound field to form.

Thanks for the clarifications, sirquack and JohnK.

By the way, I had two auditions from 2 nice Axiom owners today and was really impressed by how the system sounded. Both owners have towers (M60 and 80) rather than shelves and their living rooms both "seem" more suitable for shelves. However, after the auditions, I changed my mind and began to consider towers although I haven't auditioned M22 yet

In addition, one owner has VP180 and I think VP180 is wonderful even if it is non-biamped.