Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Axioms/Halos Ready For Auditions (pics)

Peter and Ken were here for over 4 hours andI really enjoyed thier company, was great meeting them, and they tweaked a few things. I will let them post thier opinions of the system, but it is ready for anyone that is interested in an audition. Took a few pictures of them and they are below. I want to thank them again for thier time and knowledge, it is greatly appreciated and hope they take my offer of returning again with wives and family for a BBQ.

Peter [left] & Ken comtemplating how to get all of the Halos into Peters Car


Looking Innocent


The Escape


Progress Of The CD Cabinet

re: the CD cabinet...

Holy ^%$^%... you don't do anything half way, do you. Does it come with an elevator or just one of those rolling ladders ?

Very cool. Wow, that is a ton of equipment.

Man, you'll need a set up like this to get at all your CD's.

Wine Fairy

Where do I begin, and how can I do it without resorting to colorful expletives? Screw it.

Holy f***ing s***!

After a small amount of tweaking, most of which was with the EP600, I can honestly say that the system Dennis has assembled is the best I've ever heard in a home, possibly even better than any system I've heard anywhere, including demo rooms at high-end shops. (It's been a while since I heard those Revel Salons....) I have to admit I was a bit worried that the room would be too reverberant, given that it is tiled in marble and is flanked by a kitchen to the left and a glass patio behind. Despite the size of the space and the hardness of its surfaces, I noticed no echo or undue brightness that you'd expect from 14 (14!!) titanium tweeters firing all around you.

One negative impression Ken and I both did share when we first arrived was that the sub was obviously not dialed in properly. As we all know at this point, Dennis had other priorities (i.e. the gorgeous CD shelf, and various areas of flooring throughout the house). After listening to a few tracks on the untweaked system, Ken and I explored the C2 processor's menus and got it dialied in to where we thought it sounded best. To those interested, we set the front 3 M80s to large, the surrounds (2 QS8s and 2 M80s) to small, and set the EP600 to fill in at 60Hz and below. By default, the C2 doesn't divert bass to the sub if your mains are set to large, so we needed to enable "enhanced bass" mode. Believe me, even though the M80s produce great bass, the absence of the EP600 was immediately apparent. I also poked around on the EP600's rear panel and noticed that its boost setting was at full. After consulting the manual, we determined the recommended setting for the room size was flat. We corrected the setting and immediately noticed the resonse became much smoother. All boom literally disappeared. The EP600 is the best sub I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. Period. End of story, and it's not even being driven by a Halo.

With the system calibrated and level-matched, we threw disc after disc after disc into the Denon 2900 and were continually impressed. We discovered halfway through our listening session that the Denon hadn't been calibrated for multichannel discs yet, so we put the SPL meter to use and remedied that quickly. With SACDs, the QS8s were able to throw a wide image to either side of us and well behind us, even though they are positioned just a hair forward of the listening couch. In DTS:Neo6 mode, we noted that the front imaging remained true to the Stereo source, but just gave it an extra oomph of ambiance that we very much preferred over plain stereo. We also founf that Neo6 was clearly better than DPLIIx on most material. DPLIIx would push imaging out toward the peripheries and seemed to veil the midrange a bit.

The discs we threw in ran the gamut of genres from bluegrass to metal, classical to classic rock, and more. Everything we put in seemed to give us a new revelation. "Wow! I've never heard that before!" was a common utterance. Notice how I have exclamation points in that comment. Very rarely did the SPLs in the room dip below 80. The more we listened, the louder we could take it. Ken held up the meter at one point and it was reading around 100db. And the speakers and amps were ao nonchalant about it. If they could talk, they'd complain about their ununsed potential and beg for more. (Perhaps that's what Jimmy was alluding to when he thought it was a waste of money?) But you WANT unused potential. You want power in reserve. You want to KNOW that your system is capable of more than you'd ever ask of it. I'd better shut up before I talk myself into upgrading my perfectly functional Onkyo....

Last but not least, the host review. Dennis is a kind a gracious host who needed no calibrating whatsoever. He made us feel welcome and immediately at ease in his home. He must also be very trusting because he gave us complete control of his system for the entire time we were there -- even after his bad luck with a former visitor. I am also convinced that had we stayed any longer he would have invited us to crash for the night. As good guests, we would naturally have refused politely (after thinking on it a bit ). We departed with earfuls of fantastic sound and bellies full of food -- yeah, he fed us too.

Friends, this man spent his money well.

Great review, Peter. I'd be scared to listen to a set up like that. To be truthful, the potential damage to my wallet is the frightening part. Wow, to play around with so much good stuff--you guys are lucky. Dennis sounds like a great guy and a gracious host. Makes me wish I lived closer to Oakland! Nothing a short (9 hour) drive can't fix. . .

Dennis, your set-up looks spectacular, and I bet it sounds just as good. Congratulations!

Capacity will be 840 discs, as soon as I finish this, I will be making a companion DVD cabinet, not as wide, but they will be attached together in a " L"' patttern, and will live in the only vacant corner of the HT area. Hope to have both finished up this week, will se how many interruptions I have. LOL

Well we do have a guest room, and a nine hour drive is short to the dives I made regularly from coast to coast. LOL So if you have a reason to be in the area, please let us know, been many years since being in you neighborhood.

I have had a few comments about allowing people to play with the system. All creidt for doing this with ease goes to Axiom/Parasound. The M80s are tested for 100 hrs at 1,000 watts, and only rated at 400 watts, the Halos are capable of more than the 400 watt rating, but no where near enoguh to damage the 80s. In the past weeks, I have put the Halos through some very strong testing to see what they can take, they have run at what most consider high volumes for a continous 36 hours. So other than the EP600 making the house complain a bit, there is not much chance of damage being done to the Axioms/Halos by playing with the settings or volume control.

Now that Peter and Ken have done their tweaking, I have made a list of settings, so if a roomie or a visitor tweaks to his preference, its easy to reset. Also I have 5 preset speaker tweaks, which when I have time, can be set for differance media, or listening preferences.

After having the guys here tonight, at least now I can safley take a request for an audition and not need to worry, I still have many projests to work on before I will have time to read manuals, do some setups, program the MX-700 and a few other things. Really need to order the hardware and start work the jukebox, as I don't want to be changing discs all day long.

Peter, thanks so much for the kind words, it was more than my pleasure to have you and Ken here, and please, feel free to visit anytime, especially if you have any CD/DVD that you want to play on the system. When you return, at least the new cabinets will be in place, and not just have piles of CDs, all the DVDs are in another room in a few piles. LOL Was in a hurry to get the mega changers shipped out, so just dumped stuff where ever it found a home.

Well its late, going to crash for a few, and then back to work, take care, and thanks again.

I LOVED the thumbs down photo! LOL! I haven't laughed as much at any pic since Peter photoshopped Ray and I into Grumpy Old Men.

Dennis, I'd say that would qualify as complete vindication. Great review Peter! Of course all of us here on the forum are aware of your mercenary bent, and I strongly suspect that Dennis paid you off. (for any newbie that might be reading this, few things could be less likely. Peter, as much as anyone I know on the forum, would tactfully call a spade a spade).

We can only speculate what motivated Jimmy, but it's beginning to appear as though he had a basic case of audio envy. I know I do!

Dennis, one question. How DO you intend to reach the CDs on the top shelves of that rack? if you have any problems with the MX-700, just call on Ray.

Well you notice we haven't seen a pic of Dennis yet.It seems everything is his house is of a grand scale.I'm begining to think he is about 7 foot tall and can't stand anything being small.Maybe he will just reach up and grab any cd he wants

Peter,that was a great review.It was such a good thing for you and Ken to give a helping hand tp a fellow Axiomite.