I was wondering if anyone has ever tried their M80's outside. Like on a back deck and really put some juice to them.

With all the talk on this board lately of the M80s sounding bright, wouldn't this be a good way do judge if its the speaker or the room?

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on how they sounded outside.

paul

I remember seeing pictures of M80's outside on Ian's deck.

I thought I could hear something coming from cottage country a while back (3hrs away)

Hi,

A few summers ago, for an Axiom dock party, there were either three or four M80s strapped together and hoisted up in Ian's boathouse, which is open to the dock on two sides. The M80 array faced the open part of the dock, where everyone gathered. A local band played live, through the M80s, which were driven by two Yamaha professional digital amplifiers of 600 watts each, bridged, so I think there was either 1200 or 2400 watts into the four M80s. They sounded very clean and did not sound bright or aggressive.

The reason you have to use so much power to get really loud sound is two-fold: the M80s are not horn-loaded (which would make them sound aggressive and edgy, a la Klipsch) and outside there are no room gain and reinforcement effects going on. So it's almost like an anechoic chamber.

That's why outdoor rock concerts all use big horn-loaded speakers, because they can produce very high SPL levels and not require thousands of watts to do it.

The only famous rock band to actually try using domestic speakers for their outdoor concerts were The Grateful Dead, back in the late 1960s/early '70s. The Dead used multiple stacks of Acoustic Research AR-3a's (already a very insensitive speaker) powered by tens of thousands of watts. I was never a Deadhead, so I never got to hear the system, which they abandoned after a few trials because it was too cumbersome for touring and the power demands were unmanageable. It was likely a great sounding system because it didn't use horns, which really compromise fidelity.

Cheers,

Alan

Open and airy I would imagine.

Hey Alan. If you crank those M80s enough do they scare the skeeters away?

The skeeters stayed away because they were playing Beatle songs.

This is interesting Alan.

Because as an audiofile I have always strived to reproduce the live experience in my living / HT room. But it seems there is some question as to what "live" actually means.

I guess what I am trying to say is, you need to have a reference point. If you have never heard a real grand piano live, how can you evaluate an audio system playing a grand piano? But what if the only grand piano you have ever heard was through a PA system. Now, am I truly hearing a "live" grand piano the way it was meant to be heard? Or am I hearing a grand piano that has been coloured due to the PA system. So now I take "that" experience to my living room and try to reproduce it based on a flawed reference.

So is it save to say that unless you played in, or conducted an orchestra, or spent a lot of time listening going to orchestra concerts, are any of us really qualified to judge an audio system when playing classical music? The same can be said for jazz, pop, rock, or any other types of music.

paul

Exactly. I think Axiom's philosophy of striving for uncolored and neutral sound reproduction is the most logical one. "Live" recordings are always colored by the equipment, but even more, they are colored by the venue in which the live event took place. If you're trying to reproduce live, then it behooves you to also capture the 'flavor' of the venue in your reproduction. Speakers that do not emphasize any particular frequency range have the best chance of doing this.

Very well put Peter.


I don't know that being a musician is any better of a qualification. I have run into several musicians and studio engineers that thought the M80 was harsh and unatural.

Maybe they just had crappy rooms. You would think a sound engineer would be able to separate the room from the speakers though.

To me the bottom line is that if you measure just the speaker, the M80 is very linear across its entire frequency; much less than +-3db for most of the range. It also has excellent off axis linearity. Physics has no opinion. Either the speaker is linear or it isn't.

Even the rolled off high end response that most people seem to prefer is coloured sound.


In the end, the only speaker system anyone is qualified to judge is their own. Everywhere else, the best we can do is offer qualified opinion.

[quote=fredk]


Fred, I agree 100% with you. I just find it interesting that since I have never heard, lets say, Stevie Nicks sing live, but when I put in her CD and listen through the M80's it sounds great, I mean really great. But if I were to compare her voice through the M80's vs any other speaker brand, I can only use my own judgment as to which speaker I prefer. It would be ignorant and arrogant for me to say that one speaker sounds more like Stevie than the other, because I don't have a true reference point. Let’s add to that that “audio memory” in humans isn’t very good, I would probably have to hear Stevie sing many times over and over again to make any claims on an audio systems performance.

Does this make sense?

paul

Some interesting points have been brought up here as to 'what' is the 'correct' sound, this is probably why it's hard for people to audition speakers because they are not necessarily sure what to compare them to, except other speakers. Using Stevie Nicks as an example once again, are we wanting to reproduce her "live" performance as if she were playing in a properly setup concert hall or are we looking for the type of sound as if she were singing, standing in front of you with no amplification/electronics?

That's why I find the debate about which speaker is better to be far off target in most cases. Low level listening does not inform the debate, yet spurs it on. At high levels, most speakers or amps start to add something that is not there at lower levels. Speakers that don't do that, or not as much as the A/B test subject, are better. At easy listening levels with good equipment it is almost impossible to say one is more accurate than another to the original source.

But when Stevie's voice starts to sound shrill at 105db on system A, while on system B the tonal quality of her voice stays consistent (even if not, in actually, more accurate to the original) while gaining volume, then you know B is a better system.

Well, it sort of makes sense. But...

Having played a good quality acoustic guitar for years, I know what acoustic giutar is supposed to sound like. There are qualities that all acoustics share that are immediately identifyable on good speakers. I think the same applies to the human voice.