Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Improving M80's bass response

well, today is my first day trying to get the M80's properly settled into my new apartment. But the bass response is thin. I need some suggestions!

here is the current situation:

the room is 18 by 12, about 11 feet ceilings
the m80's on a 12 foot wall
they are 1 foot from the side wall, 1 foot from the back wall
they are 10 feet apart
i sit about 10 feet back
bass seems weak in most spots in the room except in the rear corners

any ideas? PLEASE?!

My first guess (and it's truly a guess) would be to toe them in a bit more.

Also...

It's the bass that pulls all the juice. You already mentioned the idea of upgrading your little 1602...more power would likely help as well.

Ravi, what strikes me from the numbers you give is that possibly the distances of the M80 woofer cones from the three closest room surfaces(back wall, side wall, floor)are too nearly equal to each other and may be causing a dip in the upper bass area around 100-150Hz. The floor distance is pretty much set, but experiment with small changes in the distances to the walls. Keep in mind that the best location for the low bass is right in the corner, often the best location for a single sub, but that placement would cause frequency variations higher up for full-range speakers and isn't a good idea. This is why you hear better bass when you're in the corners, while it's weaker at your usual 10' position, which is close to the null position for both the front to back and side to side room modes. No easy solution, but experiment with both speaker position and your listening position.

I can only tell you what works for my M80s.I have mine 18 inches from the back wall,2 feet from the side walls.8 feet apart and toed in just slightly.My M80s have a real strong bass response postioned like this.Putting some serious power to them doesn't hurt either

From my expieriance, more power = more bass with the 80s, when I run mine at 90db depending on they music is being played, it sounds as if there is a sub in the front area. YMMV

Maks sure the straps between woofer and mid/tweeter are tight

I think John had it nailed though... you're sitting in a null for at least two dimensions (depth and height) because you're "half a room" away from the speakers depth-wise and "half a room" away from the woofers height-wise. The easy fix would probably be to put the M80s on the long wall, which would fix the "half a room" depth problem *and* eliminate having the same distance from both back and side walls.

If rotating the room isn't an easy option, then try :

- moving the speakers a couple of feet closer together

- raise the M80s a bit to get the woofers and ports away from the ground; alternatively, shuffle the furniture around to put something relatively low in the main listening position

I won't even joke about getting a sub, but this is one of those cases where you don't want the bass driver to be located in the place you happen to want to put your mains.

biwire them with some monster cable!!!

In reply to:

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biwire them with some monster cable!!!

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Thanks, now hand me a rag so I can clean the Pepsi off my monitor.

Bren R.

thanks for all your suggestions

so far i have moved them back toward the wall, now they're about 8 inches from the wall, and i moved them a bit closer together, but not by much.

bass response is much better but still not what it used to be.

i know it's not my amp because where i used to live the room was a tad smaller but the bass ouput was much higher.

i'll keep trying moving htem around

thanks again

ravi