Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater My axioms are too bright

I have had my M60s for 7 months and have been back and forth on whether I like them for 7 months. My final conclusion is that they are very accurate and unnaceptably bright. The brightness is an issue at moderately loud levels and renders some songs unlistenable. Some songs sound great when played loudly, while other songs are harsh and painfull to listen to.


On a positive note, I do like the Qs8s and the vp 100 seems to be good as well. Also, the m60s do have a great soundstage and are pretty accurate.

This has been a hard reality to accept since I did spend 1600$ on my axioms. I bought into the hype(literally) and I regret not auditioning before buying. I had always assumed the brightness of the m60 would not affect me, but my ears are not the same as others.

Thanks for reading

i find it somewhat surprising that they seem as bright as you say, with the two tweeters in my m80's i have never once found them to be too bright and certainly never made any songs un listenable.

Perhaps you can have axiom send you those tweeter resistors to try to tone down their high freq output.

Alhough most people enjoy their speakers some dont, you can always sell them and buy something with a more mellow sound like PSB or rockets

Yes. I think that is the next step. The brightness affects me on most hip hop songs when I crank it up. The high pitched noise produced by mixing boards with the underlying bass hurts my ears at around -18db on my HK 525.

As of right now my options are open-keeping them, modding them and even selling them are all possibilities

Hawk, if you read your post isn't it clear to you that the problem is with the poor recording quality of some of the songs, and not your speakers? Bad CDs have to sound bad on accurate speakers; turning down the treble on the bad ones helps a bit.

I would contact Axiom to see if they can offer any solutions. I have an old pair of Klipsch KG 4.2's and I thought they where too "bright". I found when I moved from my previous house that had hardwood floors and lots of windows to a home with carpet and an odd shaped room seemed to "tame" the brightness.

I hope it works out for you. I know it can be disappointing spending money on something that doesn't fit your personal tastes.

Good luck.

Tom

I agree. The recordings may also be of low quality.

I find with the M80's that a bad recording sounds absoluty terrible.I didn't know how bad some disc's were till I got my Axiom's.Most of my disc's do sound really good though.

Do what I did, go with the 50's. Trust me on that one. I went down this same road except I had the 80's and decided that instead of looking somewhere else I would try something else in the Axiom line. I have zero complaints with the 50's other then they only run one set of terminals on the back. (No bi-wire, bi-amp etc)

They offer a lot of what the 80's do well and I'm guessing the 60's also but do it a little more laid back.

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Some songs sound great when played loudly, while other songs are harsh and painfull

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Hawk, Have you taken an inventory? I have 4 CDs in my entire collection that sound waaaay too bright. The rest are fantastic. I'm just curious. I love my M60s. In particular I love how they perfectly reproduce cymbals, chimes, and jet engines The tweets are only spitting out what they are being fed. Why not get an EQ? Just run it in bypass until you need it. EQ the upper end down a little. How about the treble control? Just bump it back a bit.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think the folks that record and mix Hip Hop music are looking for the most accurate reproducion of each of the individual instruments on stage. With all that over emphasized bass, they surely have to boost the high end to allow it to be heard even just a litte. Read the sub forums. Too much sub can drown out the mids and highs. Proper playback fidelity requires a good balance between them all.

My theory: You don't have enough sub, or you need to calibrate the one you have better. You are cranking the hip hop really loud to get the "thump". Your M60s are doing a better job with the high end than whatever you are using for bass. Get the bass up higher, and you can you lower the mains to get the sound you are looking for. Also, the calibration of the sub drastically affects the way the rest of the speakers sound. If the sub is out of phase, cancellation can take frequencies away from what you hear, leaving only the "bright" stuff.

Something's got to be wrong.

It sounds like the CD's where mastered a little on the "hot" side. I've noticed this with some of my older stuff. It's like the day of the cassette deck when we would record something with rec level above 0 db. The end result would be recorded distortion (saturation) that tends to make speakers sound bright and less detailed.

Just a thought..