Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater M22 Good for HT???

I've been test driving speakers for about 2 months now and I just don't know what to buy. I was high on floorstandings but now am looking at the M22's! Will they satisfy my HT sounds? Most people talk about Axioms as great for music, but I'm probably 70-30, movies to music!
My room currently is 12' x 14' and am currently using a Pannisonic HTIB 100/wpc 5.1 setup that I want to upgrade! With the subwoofer I have, will the M22 be good for my HT?
Thanks

If you're talking about using the sub from the Panasonic setup, you're going to want to get a new sub asap. The M22s are great for HT, but frankly, I doubt that the Panny sub is really going to cut it. If it's the one I've seen before, it's about a foot square x 6 inches or so, with a single 8" woofer and a port.

it's actually about 17" talland 13" deep, but retangular shaped and sounds pretty good. About 6 years ago I bought this HTIB for $1000, so it's a decent system!

Keep in mind that a 1000 dollar HT setup 6 years ago could probably be bought nowadays for a few hundred brand new. I believe that the M22's if used for mostly HT would work out great, if as mentioned, were supported by a good sub. The only real differences between say the M60's and M22's would be the ability to play a little louder without sounding compressed and would have a little lower FR to allow a slight better blending with a sub. The M22's are missing the midrange but in HT I don't feel that is very critical. If you were a music connesuir the midrange would be important but otherwise you probably aren't going to miss it. Back to the sub issue. If you are looking to spend the money to upgrade your mains you owe it to yourself to look into a good sub. It really completes the HT experience. If I had my choice between floorstanders and a HTIB sub or Sat's and a HSU or SVS sub I would take the sub anyday. Both of these companies make some very inexpensive subs that would blow your old one away. JMTC

I agree! I was never intending to keep my sub from my HTIB, but it will do for now. Do you know much about Velodyne subs? I have looked at SVS and HSU and I know I will definately upgrade my sub!

Velodyne definitely makes some good subs. I was all set on purchasing one until I stumbled across SVS. I think that for Vel to compete you have to spend 1500 or more though. For HT I believe the best bang for the buck is the PB21SD. For 899 it is an unbelievable value. And seeing as we are on the Axiom board don't rule out their subs. They have a smaller footprint and come in some great finishes for the WAF if it applies. While they won't extend as low as SVS they will still blow your old sub away and if buying them as part of a system you can save a few additional bucks on it to boot.

A good friend of mine bought a Sony HTIB for $800 about a year and a half ago. He also thought it couldn't be any different than other units out there and was pretty impressed by its 'surround' capability. In never hearing a surround system other than at the movie theatres, sure, it is impressive.
However, after hearing my Onkyo/Axiom setup, he decided that he was looking for more oomph in his own home HT experience. We started by getting him a newer, used Denon 3802 and powered the remaining parts of his Sony HTIB with that until he could afford to continue adding newer speakers and other parts. The very day he hooked up the Sony satellites to the Denon receiver in place of the Sony HTIB receiver his jaw did drop. I've heard the expression used many times but usually it is thought of as being an exaggerated idea of surprise. This time it really did happen. His mouth fell open.
I remember b/c it was so funny. He had a beer pouring into his mouth at the time that i started laughing as the liquid dribbled off his chin onto his shirt and new Denon remote.
He could actually turn up the volume now and get volume from his satellite speakers. Turning up the volume on the Sony receiver did basically nothing.

My experience so far with those HTIB sets is that they are horribly underpowered. The satellites are really limited in their sound reproduction capability (some sound downright tinny) and are often hooked up with 18ga cable or smaller for quite lengthy runs (to the surrounds anyway). The subwoofer, often a smallish and not so sturdy unit, is setup to play the full 20Hz to 200Hz range of bass (or maybe even beyond).
There is a point at which the low cost HTIB setup is so low cost that it affects sound quality.
I should note that i have not heard a Panasonic HTIB setup so i cannot comment on your unit and how well it performs. My 10 year old Technics bookshelf system that cost me $1500 in 1992 was replaced with an Axiom and Onkyo system though and i am still stunned to hear the difference in sound quality compared to the Technics. If only i had known about Axiom way back in the early university days.

"The M22's are missing the midrange..."

You meant missing bass, right?

No, I meant missing the midrange. I don't mean they don't have any midrange but the M60's have a dedicated 5-1/4" (I don't know the exact size off the top of my head) midrange driver where the M22's have 2 5-1/4" woofers. Sure woofers will play midrange but not nearly as well as a dedicated driver will. It's the same theory as in the upper end car stereo systems. In my 300zx I had a custom install with a 5-1/2" woofer, 4" mid, and a 1" tweeter running off a x over to send each frequency to the dedicated driver. It makes everything sound better by not requiring drivers to reproduce frequencies that they aren't designed for.

Not having a midrange driver does not mean the speaker is not going have good midrange. IMO, the M22 does have a good midrange.

OK.....pet peeve of mine "Is the speaker good for HT?" If a speaker is good for music, it is good for HT.