Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo M2i or M22ti?

Welcome to the slippery slope. Sounds like the M2s were the right choice over M3s for you, as they were for me.

The worst description I have heard of the M2i's is "painfully accurate", ie if your recordings suck you will know about it. I find them to be VERY neutral -- it's just that many speakers are not so neutral so going to the M2s (or any similar speaker) is a bit of a shock.

I had been debating about whether or not to move up to bigger speakers in my room and decided last night to stay with the M2s. My reasoning was that with the new cabling* there is a big gap between the volume levels I normally play at and the level where the speakers start to sound strained.

If I felt that I was going to be on the edge of pushing the speakers too hard I would move up to something larger, M22s at minimum. Sounds like you also have enough headroom between normal listening volumes and the limits of the speakers.

If you think the M2i's sound good now, wait until you add a sub. It's hard to describe the difference -- it's much more than just getting some more low notes, the whole soundscape seems to solidify a bit and the last traces of "boxiness" go away.

Enjoy !!

* Just to be clear, by "new cabling" I mean cabling the pre-out/main-in through the crossover in the sub so that the M2i's are actively rolled off at 80hz -- not some exotic new wonder cable that gives me 6db more sound and tighter bass

hey Bridgman, you're right, our receiver do not have any built in xover network, you might want to check out this xover site: http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/cross.asp

I do not know how good were the xover from those subs, but the 1st order setup is pretty much just a capacitor so i'll look for some high quality stuff. I' might cross them at 90hz to roll off a bit sooner.

Thanks for the link. I was just starting to wonder about how good the crossover in the sub really was.

When I bought the receiver I had never even heard of crossovers in a receiver, let alone thought about whether I needed one. This whole Home Theater thing pretty much happened without me knowing about it, I figured there would have been a memo or something...

Just finished reading through the sub manual again. The high level out crossover is 6db/octave passive, ie just a capacitor as you said. The line level out crossover is active, 12db/octave, but seems to be fixed cutoff (80 Hz)and does NOT vary with the low-pass filter feeding the sub's amp. Interesting, didn't know that. The low-pass filter is also 24 db/octave vs. 12 db/octave for the high-pass going back to the line-out jacks.

More reading. Hmpph... this never ends.

did you get to try the first(6dB/octave) and second order(12dB/octave) high pass xover from your sub? how does it sound? :-) From my observation the M2i roll off rather quickly at around 70hz, I think 12dB/octave is a bit too steep for these puppies, 1st order high pass at 80 or 90hz might be ideal the M2i and more than likely would blend better with the sub. Play around with it whenever you have a chance, try to low pass your sub at around 70 to 90 hz and see how it sounds.

By the way, I suspect your M2i sound strained at high volume is more than likely due to underpower, if that is the case then upgrading your M2i to M3/M22 will not help because when you crank it up again it will still sound strained, your receiver is the bottle-neck...not the speaker. :-) perhaps you might want to try getting a higher power receiver or integrated amp, your current HK3270 can be use as a preamp to save some money. Is there anyway you can borrow a higher power receiver or amp from someone and try it out on your M2i?

I'm still taking my time to shop for the right sub, but I wonder what the M22ti sounds like in my living room....hehe.

>>By the way, I suspect your M2i sound strained at high volume is more than likely due to underpower, if that is the case then upgrading your M2i to M3/M22 will not help because when you crank it up again it will still sound strained, your receiver is the bottle-neck...not the speaker. :-)

Good point. I'll see if I can borrow some extra power. I was thinking that the M22's higher sensitivity (95db vs 92db a 1w/1m) would give roughly the same perceived sound level as doubling the amp power, but I always wonder how that can work. If doubling up the woofers gives 3db extra SPL, where does the extra sound level come from above the crossover freq, ie why doesn't the M22 sound duller than the M2 ? I never played much with multiple drivers in my speaker building days so this area of the technology is a bit of a black hole for me.

I will play with the x-over wiring a bit more. Thanks for the ideas. My first thought was that a 12db rolloff from the sub's active crossover plus the M2i's natural rolloff would approximate the 24db/octave rolloff in the sub's lowpass filter but no idea if that is actually a good thing.

One change I clearly noticed after rewiring was that the mid-bass seemed to be more in line with the rest of the frequs. Not sure if there was phase cancellation between mains & sub before or if I just didn't push the sub back into exactly the same position against the wall as before.

I'm going to be down in the US for the week so no experiments until next weekend. Will post back with the results.

Thanks,
JB

I keep hearing that the M2ti and M22ti are extremely accurate and that's why they make some recordings sound bright and harsh. I agree that the frequency response curves measured in an anechoic chamber are very flat, but it's the in-room response that's important.

I have recently auditioned the M2ti, M22ti and M3ti in my small (12' by 13') listening room. This room has many book shelves. It was no surprise that the M2ti and M22ti sounded a bit "tizzy" and harsh on some recordings compared to the M3ti. The M2ti and M22ti did seem to have a little more detail, but it seemed to be a little exaggerated (similar to Grado headphones). I measured the frequency response of each speaker and found that the M3ti was very flat, but the M2ti and M22ti had a 4 db boost from 4KHz to 8KHz. I think this explains what I was hearing. Maybe in a larger room the results would be different.

I'm keeping the M3ti and returning the M2ti and M22ti.

Hello Phaze267,

Hope you are well. This is interesting since the 4 to 8kHz range is being produced by the same tweeter in all 3 models. Did you have the speakers in the same position when you did your frequency sweep?

Later,

TonyM

Yep, tweeters at ear level. I think if you look at the measured frequency response curves, you'll see that the higher frequencies for the M3ti are shelved down while the higher frequencies for the M2ti are shelved up and the the M22ti has a peak at 4KHz. This may explain my results.

I really tried to like the M22ti because I know they are supposed to be better speakers, but whenever I switched back to the M3ti it was a welcome relief from the "analytical" sound of the other speakers.

My point is that you have to consider the listening room when choosing speakers. The M2ti and M22ti may not be the best choice for smaller rooms.

Thanks for the report. I have M3s and ordered M22s - I will have to compare and send back the lesser ones.

Some people say the M22s get less harsh after 40-60 hours of playing them. There seems to be a little somewhat scientific evidence for both sides (and plenty of adherents to both sides) of the "Is speaker burn in real" argument. I won't go there - it is on other threads in this board. Just saying some people thought their speakers or their brains adjusted (perhaps both) and then they liked the M22s better than when first listening to them.

I believe in speaker burn-in. I burned in all three speakers for 48 hours with a burn-in CD before listening. I also agree that your brain can get used to a particular type of sound to some degree. I've listened to the M22ti off and on for almost 30 days now and I still prefer the sound of the M3ti in my listening room. I suggest getting both the M3ti and the M22ti and listen for yourself. It's not very expensive to return them.