Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Speaker advice needed for very "bright" rooms

I'll be ordering Axioms for two rooms, both of which are quite "bright," with hardwood floors, low ceilings, no rugs, no drapes, very little upholstered furniture.

I've read here that some find the more accurate Axioms, e.g. M22 and M60, to be on the "bright" side, while others don't experience this problem. I also know that resistors are available to moderate any perceived brightness.

Would I better off in these very hard-surfaced rooms to stick to M3's or M40's or something of that nature? Would the resistors likely solve any brightness problem if I went with M22's or M60's? Two-channel music at moderate listening levels is the main concern.

Thanks for any advice.

To be honest, I'd probably look at different speakers if I were in your position.

Any reason you can't add a rug and some drapes to the room?

Although I do not (yet) own an Axiom, but personally, I would imagin that very few high-quality speakers behave well in a room that "bright." I do not think trying to compensate for room acoustics by choosing an intentionally "laid-back" speaker is such a good idea, either. I agree that one should try to do something to the room first to reduce the level of acoustic reflections.

In fact, this reminded me a related question... I understand that, during the design process, Axiom speakers are intensively tested in a standardized listening room(s), which is furnished to represent "average" living rooms in modern North American homes. Could Alan or somebody give us a bit more detailed description for the testing room? (or is it a trade secret?) Things that I am curious to know include the size of the room(s); the surface materials used for the floor/wall/ceiling; approximate percentage of the floor/wall areas that are covered by fabric; furnitures in the room and thier upholstering etc...

Thanks!

That's a good idea Sushi.
Maybe Alan, Ian or Amie could post a picture of the Axiom 'standard' living room.
My guess is that it will look NOTHING like my own (papers all over the floor, dog hair, crazy wall paint, etc. etc. )

I'd be pretty interested to hear about it too.

Here's a couple of sites to take a look at..
www.foambymail.com
www.tubetrap.com
Both offer all sorts of sound absorbing products.. Both for high end and low end freq's, as well as everything in between..

It seems I inadvertently gave the wrong impression! This is not a booming racquetball court. There are many plants, books, dog and cat beds, etc. In fact, when these rooms were recently emptied for hardwood floor refinishing, I was struck by all the echoes and the great increase in loudness. These are simply rooms that, due to lack of carpeting and drapes, are relatively bright.

Rugs are not an option: companion animal illnesses lead to frequent accidents. Drapes are a possibility, but not my preference.

I have an old Mirage OM-1 speaker in one of the rooms which sounds quite nice (unfortunately the woofer surround on the other one rotted away), so it's possible to have good sound in here. I'm just wondering if "bright" spaces like this would get along with "bright" speakers.

More generally, I'd love to hear Alan's or Ian's thoughts on how room characteristics might reasonably affect speaker choice. The room—the "forgotten component"—clearly affects the perceived sound significantly. And many rooms simply don't conform to the "average" room used in loudspeaker tests. So it seems useful to ask how, if at all, one might want to adjust speaker choices to one's real-world environment.

On the other hand, Ian's posts seem to suggest that the differences between Axiom's "bright" and not so "bright" speakers are fairly subtle. So perhaps none of this matters much except to confirmed audiophiles.

Thanks again for any thoughts.

I certainly think you would be able to hear the character brightness of the Axioms over another type of more laid back speaker in your newly refurnished room ('audiophile' or not) and i definitely believe that the room you are portraying may not be very flattering for the Axiom speaker.

A friend of mine recently brought by a pair of Kefs which we put up against the M60s for comparison. I liked the Kefs (for sound, not looks) and the upper frequencies were definitely not as bright as the M60s. However i know that my present basement is not the permanent location for our system and that a larger, more filled out, better sonically designed room will eventually be the final resting place once we move.
Now i do consider my M60s bright and the room in which i have my system is not nearly as reflective as your own (judging by your description).
We have a thin carpet with concrete underneath (no subfloor). The walls are studded, drywall again with concrete behind. There are no curtains, but there is a drop ceiling making the ceiling height about 7 foot) and is covered by the insulated paneling.
In comparison with your room, i would say you will have alot more reflections.

Maybe this weekend, i will bring my system upstairs for trials in our living room. Only one couch, hardwood laminate flooring, no curtains, more wide open room, taller ceiling, regular stucco. Then perhaps i can try to estimate just how much different a room with more reflections would affect how i hear sound from the M60s. I'm curious to see if i find the Axiom speaker more bright than before or if its sonic character reflecting off the walls in that room would have made me choose a different speaker for our system had our tv been upstairs instead of the basement.

Hmm, now you've started me down another path of furniture moving and equipment lugging. My wife will be thrilled.


Alan did mention in a post not too long ago that the reference living room setup they use at Axiom seems to make the speaker sound smooth and balanced (or to me i interpret that as ' less bright than most people have reported'). This of course only goes to show, as you pointed out, how the mere furnishings, or any interior aspect of a room can actually make or break your decision on a speaker brand. Hopefully Alan will toss in some more comments or perhaps Amie can post a picture of this room so we can all take a look.

Hi all,

The listening room at the National Research Council in Ottawa isn't a trade secret. In fact, it's a standard IEC (International Electro-Technical Commission) listening room--and it's really boring to look at.

I'll get back to you on the exact dimensions (I have to go into my archives to find the dimensions) but it's rectangular, about 20 x 13 x 8 feet, and has a carpeted floor, draperies on tracks that can be moved around the shorter wall to simulate a set of window draperies (the room doesn't have windows). There are individual upholstered chairs for the listening panel, and bookcases along one section of a side wall and along the rear wall behind the listening area.

There are also large, ugly bass absorber baffles on a couple of the walls, which make the room less susceptible to standing waves and tend to even out bass response so that changing listening chairs doesn't result in "holes" in the bass that would unfairly bias listeners during speaker evaluations. (The panel members change listening chairs for each round of listening tests to average out room effects for the different chair locations.)

Regards,

Chesseroo, thanks for the input. I'd be very curious to hear how you like your M60's in your living room, which seems similar to my own and brighter than your basement room. Just tell your wife it's for me and she'll understand :-).

Alan didn't weigh in on my question, but judging from the earlier post of his that you referenced I gather he's an advocate of adjusting the room rather than the speaker. I see his point. But I do object to the notion that we should all somehow create "average" listening rooms if we want nice sound. I, for one, have no desire to live like an average American, with wall-to-wall carpeting, upholstered furniture, etc. Others will make different choices. But wouldn't it be nice if loudspeakers could somehow adjust to us instead of requiring us to adjust our living spaces to their design assumptions? Not an easy task, to be sure, but I would still like to know more about how room characteristics might reasonably affect speaker choices—e.g. M3 vs. M22 or M40 vs. M60.

Thanks again.