Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions what's with the low axiom numbers?

Seriously, do we need to do this again?

Again?

Truculent thread title from the get go.....

Somebody's been doing his "Word a Day" calendar!

Glad it was you. I was gonna say something, but I value the socialist freedoms I have and don't want them taken away.

I didn't say anything about whether or not the discussion should be open, Sir Bob.

Although it may not have been international, I just find the thread title to be immediately inflammatory and inciting.

Give the guy a break. Not everyone reads every thread, or every post, every day.

Try this next time - assume positive intent.

And again......

Cam, I was joking only about your choice of the word "truculent," (just as a vocabulary word) and trying to tie it into your sig, also as a joke. There was absolutley no intent to comment on your comment and it had nothing to do with the thread topic (big surprise), nor your feelings about it.

Chill, kiddie boy pal o' mine, you'll give yourself a psych disorder. Don't make me doubt your ability to translate emoticon-free speech. It's a short list, so please don't fall off, or I'll strap you back in myself!

My bad, buddy Bob.

How can they post test results for only certain subwoofers for certain tests. Seems like they are picking-and-choosing their subjects and tests again.

Of course, there is the known Audioholics hatred of Axiom too.

Nobody even mentioned Axiom in that thread. Other than some numbers for ep400, 500, 600 in a spreadsheet.

Right. The spreadsheet info is lacking full test results.

If you could just sneak the phrase "rat's ass" in there somewhere, I think you'd just about have my considered opinion on all things Audioholics.

The OP has 3 Axiom subwoofers. OP seems to be a good Axiom customer.

I have to agree, I don't think the OP meant any harm with his question.

I think it is fairly well known Axiom's subs do not appear to test well with ground plane tests, at least any of the ones I have read about, but none the less they sure sound good good to me and that should be the real deciding factor how one sounds to the listener.

It seems to me that in these tests too much emphasis is placed on high output, more specifically, max output playback, something that virtually never happens.

i just found it so strange that something that sounds so good to my ears measure so bad. and as you see in my sig, i have tried others. i still haven't heard another sub with the same warmth and texture, save for probably fathoms.

And you have had some very good subs; those eD's and the Velo always get great reviews.

i've seen lotsa sealed eD A7s-450 reviews, but sadly none of my ported eD A7-450. The Velo is a great benchmark sub.

OK. Off topic. obsi, what's all in the picture that you are using for your avatar?

To clarify my post, I simply meant that we've had two Axiom v. Audioholics threads in the last month, and I'm just plain tired of the vitriol. I don't think the OP was trying to start anything, flame, troll, whatever.

There were no frogs to dissect, and the EP500 was just standing there soooo.....

Yes i apparently missed the thread on this discussion too but just saw the Audioholics pdf today.

I was actually impressed by the Axiom numbers. Their subs have one of the lowest Hz ranges measured, one of the tightest dB range across its tested frequency spectrum, and is half the price (or even less) than the massive Velodynes at a whopping four grand!
The SVS Ultra certainly performs well but hey, larger internal volume, bigger driver, bigger amp, what else would you expect?

There are a few anomalies in the list though.

Post a bigger picture somewhere?

This thread is so inspiring I'm gonna start a new movement: truculent socialism that doesn't give a rats ass. The Canadian version will come with extra more donut holes.

Thanks!

Whats with the speaker pron. are there no rules here

very few, very few

obsi,

Coming up with a suite of measurements that can give you a hard answer to a product’s performance is not an easy task; near impossible I would hazard to say. And I think you are witnessing this first hand. There are just too many factors in play. Added to this you have the desired goal of boiling it down to as few measurements as possible to make it something a large number of people can quickly evaluate. One number would be best for that goal, a sort of “this one measured 8.3 and that one measured 8.9 therefore the 8.9 will sound better than the 8.3”. Given this conflict you can see what a monumental task it is for reviewers to come up with a useful measurement set for their reviews and the importance of balancing their objective findings with their subjective ones.

I don’t want to get into too much detail in this post since I sense a larger future newsletter piece is more appropriate, but for an example of one such complication of boiled-down measurements let’s look at the distortion level commonly used. The norm is to use a grab number of 10% THD (Total Harmonic Distortion). It creates a benchmark, but does it at the same time skew the real world performance of the results? I would say the answer is a resounding yes. For example the maximum real world output of a subwoofer is the point at which at any frequency it makes some sort of objectionable noise. The fact that the subwoofer may have MUCH higher output at other frequencies is not really relevant in your living room because you cannot exceed the level of the objectionable noise occurring at some single frequency. It should be noted that objectionable noises occur at very low percentages of distortion at much higher frequencies and would not even be picked up in the 10% THD number.

On top of this is the simplicity of 10% THD. At what frequency and which harmonic are we talking about here? If the frequency is very low and it is the 2nd harmonic then it would not become an audible distortion until you were many times above the 10% level. If we are talking about the upper end range of frequencies from your subwoofer and higher harmonics, like any above the 4th, then 10% would be much too high a percentage to use.

In our DSP subs the design parameters include that the subwoofer must never make any audible distortions at any frequency at any level you choose to set the volume, and that the subwoofer needs to be very linear in a 4pi environment. We feel this gives our customers a much higher usable overall output in their living room compared to chasing down a few spot frequencies. The linearity gives our subwoofers what is commonly termed a “very musical” sound; though I would prefer to call it realistic.

On a related and quite exciting note, it looks like Gene and I are going to collaborate on putting together a larger piece on this subject.

Oh excellent! Glad to hear of a detente.

Agreed. That is good news!

Yes Sir it is.

Good news. Moving forward is always good.

When the hell is there going to be a ::Like:: button on these forums?

I "lick" Mark.





Wait, what kind of button was it?

yikes the EP400 and EP500 have similar output at 20Hz. These are V1 though so I wonder how much better V3's are now???

Dude, that's the OTHER forum!

*still wiping tongue with paper towel*

Sean, is it true that Mark oozes Olive Garden through his pores?

Yes. Now I know what bearded ravioli tastes like.

Thank God you didn't go for the easy "breadstick" joke.

Has this thread been derailed enough?

Am very glad to hear that Audioholics and Axiom will be rebuilding a great relationship Ian, I will be eagerly awaiting those articles and newsletters. I have always wondered why the EP500 has a particular sonic signature which is very pleasing to my ears, a warmth and texture that I don't hear on other subs I've heard.

Mark and I were very excited at your post, but then we realized that we had misread it as "al dente" and that there was, in fact, no pasta.

There are some that attribute terms like "dry" or "warmth" to distortion. Some don't prefer the sound of low distortion subwoofers as they feel they are "dry" sounding.

Ian, glad to hear you and Gene are on better terms again.

I like Ian. He is a nice, smart man.

Throws a mean party, too.

Though without pasta.

Itsa pasta da time to make up, so dey maka nice!

I seem to recall there was a pasta side dish at the catered lunch on the day of the factory tour.

Does it count if there's no meat or sauce?

No. No it doesn't.

Ian,

I think that a simple plot like this is a really good start. This tells you how the subwoofer behaves with varying SPLs (this particular sub stays very linear) and you can see what its limit is, when it starts to compress the signal. This particular sub stays very linear and starts to hit its limit at slightly over 100dB. It also gives you a good idea of how large of a room the sub will play well in.

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speak...view_fullscreen

Yes it is only a small part of the story, but many manufacturers only choose a plot a reference level, or some other randomly chosen level, so you don't get that extra information that the above graph in the link gives. Then again many manufacturers don't even given a frequency response plot at all, and we have very little to go on.

Except for those counted things that count.

You can count on anything Tom says.

Well done, well done! lol

According to Dr. Google, he is at least accredited with it, however with further investigation, William Bruce Cameron wrote that quote in a book of his in 1963 and has been quoted and cited by others, who in turn give credit to Cameron's book. So on and so forth.

The "original" image is fake either way. Albert Einstein wrote a lot larger than that...

That's a famous photo (to old people like me). The orig has a 4 letter equation on the board, R-something = O-something. It's likely from the early years after his permanent move to the US in 1933.

If Cameron gets the credit, his 1963 book is 8 years after Einy's death, so who was there to agrue?

WhyTH am I being serious?

But it's a better story with Einstein. Whatever. Truth no matter who coined it.

Truly, Tom, everything is better with Einstein.

And Bacon.

Buy Einstein Brand Bacon! It's fully cooked and you've already eaten it!

Mmmm, bacon wrapped Einstein spam. No need to feed your deer cabbage any more.

It is good to hear the boys are kissing and making up.

I almost inserted another comment here, but thought i would stop there.