My M80s are on a FedEx truck somewhere.

The email from Noreen said "Post tales of the agony of waiting on our Message Boards". Lame, I thought at first. But it's true, it is very agonizing. My biggest worry is the horrible things that FedEx might do to my new babies.

You'll need to inspect the port holes when they arrive...

Thanks for soothing my paranoia. Not!

I have no idea what to look for when inspecting the ports.

I've heard stories of FedEx employees flogging the speakers with chains, kicking them around and dragging them behind the trucks.

It always gets me right ::here:: when I picture the speakers hiding in the corner of the truck...crying.

That helps. I will now be happy if they deliver something that is not a crumpled ball of sawdust.

I heard something about a new episode of "Will it blend?" being filmed in Manchester, I think.

You need not worry, FedEx is the best in the business. They treat all packages with expert care.

Mmm.. Forklifts...

They have arrived. Unscathed, as far as I can tell.
Agony turned into frustration due to lack of speaker wire.

Henry, local sources such as Home Depot or Lowes can certainly relieve your frustration. Enjoy.

Even Walmart has 14 Gauge speaker wire.

Yea and it has a tag that states "Made in the USA" written in Chinese.

But it was attached with glue made in India, by a guy from Viet Nam.

My speaker wire is still on a UPS truck.
The tracker says it will be here tomorrow.

Have we told you about the ways those guys abuse speaker wire?

My .sig has been updated.

And? How does it sound?

I ran the M80s off my Pioneer receiver because I don't have the power amp mounted up yet. I was worried that the Pioneer would struggle since it is rated only down to 6 ohms. But I cranked it up to 0dB and could not hear any problems at all. On the contrary, it sounds freakin' awesome! Mostly thanks to the speakers, no doubt.

My room is big (4400 cu.ft.) and I could do with a few dB than what the Pioneer maxes out at. So this weekend I will put that Behringer online and see how it sounds.

Axiom Speakers: They sound freakin' awesome. (tm)



Great, Henry. Please do report back about any differences you perceive after adding the Behringer to the mix.

Looking forward to your thoughts Henry.

All right, I have done some listening to the Behringer.

Unfortunately I do not yet have everything set up to place the Behringer in the room behind the TV, so I have it on the component shelf for now. This means that I can hear the fan, and it is a distraction until I crank up the volume a bit.

Anyway, my first step was to set the gain dials. The Behringer goes up to 32 dB of gain, and I think it could blow the M80s at that level. I went up to 28 before getting nervous, then dialed it back to 26. I hope my babies didn't get hurt, because they sure shook the house for a couple of seconds!

This is far from an A:B comparison since I did not level-match and it takes time to move the speaker cables. There is no easily discernible difference between the Pioneer and the Behringer, but at higher volumes the upper mid-range sounded better and the lower ranges sounded tighter with the Behringer. At these volumes the Pioneer is close to max (plus it is only rated down to 6 ohms) while the Behringer is barely ticking over, so my guess is the Pioneer was starting to lose control.

My room is big and still somewhat bare, and I know it is causing some harshness. Interestingly, the Behringer seemed to sound less harsh. So far the Behringer is looking good, except for the fan noise. Not bad for $250.

Thanks for the update.

Henry, what kind of spl do you reckon will drown out the fan noise (approx), to give us some idea. Presumably from your post, it will be much quieter when rack mounted....

Adrian, it's hard to say, but louder than "casual background music" level. The biggest problem is that you hear the fan during quiet passages in the music. So for me it has to go somewhere where it can't be heard at all.

There was another thread on here with a link to a video showing that some Behringer amps with variable gain suffered a huge amount of distortion when at about 64%. That would be 20 dB on that dial. It was over a range of only a couple dB, but the amp performed really poorly there.

I don't remember the model, but it is something to be aware of, when adjusting the gain back from full.

Yes, I was aware of that video even before I bought my Behringer. The video concerns a different (older) model completely, but it did make me hesitate before buying.

In my listening I could not hear any distortion. If anything, I would characterize the Behringer + M80 combo as "effortless" in producing very high SPLs. Also, after setting the gain at 26 I powered it off, unplugged it, and moved some cables around before plugging it in again and doing some sit-down listening. The volume was then controlled at the source and I do not intend to adjust the gain again, ever.

That was the "A500", Chris.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that distortion happened only when the gain was being turned up or down through 2/3rds gain approx....would this mean that if you left it at, say 50%/75%/100% and used the master volume on your preamp, you wouldn't have said distortion?

I understood it as: You would get that distortion anytime the volume control (gain) was at that setting...i.e., 75% or 80% or whatever it was.

If you left the gain on the amp at 100% (all the way up), you would be fine in controlling your actual output level by using a preamp while inputting...and controlling your volume with that.

That's more-a-less how I understood it as well, Mark. Don't most people turn the gain up to max/near max on the separate and use the preamp volume?

I've never had a separate so I'm curious as to what people do in this instance.

The distortion was actually due to the 0-cross, push/pull of the class AB design. It occurred when the gain was set near 2/π (63.66%). It's actually a pretty common design flaw in variable gain AB amps.

Yes, here is the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWj5CUl7rio

The only way I would be able to tell for sure if I have "higher than spec" distortion is to measure it with equipment like that.

Oh, most separates don't offer continuously variable gain. Some have no gain selection at all, and always run 100%. Other's have different amounts of gain depending on whether they are run single-ended or differential (RCA or XLR). Other's have selector switches for a discrete number of gain settings.

So setting the gain at 100% would solve the problem(on A500)?

Yeah, it would.

Tks, Chris.

Geez, Adrian, just buy an amp for crying out loud.

Then you can cry out louder.

The EPQ1200 is rated 425 Watts RMS, 600 Watts peak, into 4 ohms.

The Axiom M80 specs say, "Max Amp Power: 400 Watts". Is that RMS or Peak?

Trying to decide if I should set max gain and be careful with the source volume. With the source at 100% the gain at 28 was scary loud -- I don't want to experience 32.

Don't stress on that. Axiom tests those puppies with >kilowatt amps--and you're unlikely to get anywhere close to 400W output without your head melting.

Axiom tests the M80s at northwards of 700watts if I recall, and Ian ran 8 x M80s with 4 A-1400's (live band)at the recent Axiom get together.

Tom! you'll be the first to know if I buy an amp(s)....I trust I'll be the first to know when you buy some hardwood flooring?

::: snicker :::

::runs away procrastinating::

Commenting on this point again, the "gain" control doesn't control gain, even when as in this case it's labeled as such. Audio amplifiers have fixed gain(the gain on a balanced input should be 6dB lower to compensate for the doubled voltage, i.e., 6dB more, on a balanced preamp and cable setup), typically about 25-30dB, which increases the voltage coming in from the preamp stage of the receiver a bit less than 30 times. What the control knob does is to change the portion of the incoming voltage which is let through to be amplified from nearly zero to nearly 100%. This is a variable resistor more correctly labeled a "level" or "volume" control.

There generally isn't a good reason not to set this control all the way up so that the maximum amount of the incoming voltage can be used. The amount of the incoming voltage, and the overall sound level being used, would then be controlled by the level control on the receiver. This would especially be the case where the amplifier level control apparently has a design problem at some lower setting.

My wife wants me to take the M80 shipping cartons to the dump. I guess this is her way of saying that the speakers are good enough to stay.

How long do you guys hang on to your cardboard mega-boxes?

I still have speaker and audio component boxes from the early 80's!!

Personally I'd try to hold on to them to protect your speakers in case of a move in the future. At the very least, break the taped seams on the boxes, fold them up and put them somewhere out of the way.

I have an attic full of boxes for all my equipment. I only get rid of them when a piece is sold or otherwise.... But I'm fortunate to have a big, walk up attic so it's not inconvenient.

How do you like the squeezebox touch? Can it do anything that an ipod touch can't? I assume you can control it with the squeezebox duet controller, is there also an ipod/ipad app for it?

My M80 boxes went into recycling the day after I received them I do still have my box for the Denon 3808, just depends on the size and storage requirements. The M80 boxes were too long to fit into the storage room I kept this stuff in.

The Squeezebox Touch is not a portable device -- it runs off a power supply plugged into the mains. It has RCA analog outs, as well as coax and optical digital outs. It can play up to 24-bit 96 kHz files and support many file formats, most notably FLAC. It can play the files from an external or internal server. External servers can run on PCs, NAS boxes, custom-built boxes, etc. The internal server requires that you connect a USB drive or insert an SD flash card. It can also stream Internet Radio and supports last.fm and Pandora, plus a lot of other geeky stuff via more plug-ins than you can shake a stick at.

It comes with its own remote which does not have a display like the Duet controller. Instead you rely on the Touch's display for visual feedback. The display is also touch controllable (hence the name) but that requires that you go up to it and poke it with your finger.

I have an Android phone with an app called SqueezeCommander that brings the Squeezebox display (with enhancements) to my phone and allows me to control it from there. Very nice and by far the best way to use the Squeezebox. There is a similar app for the iPhone/Pod/Pad called iPeng, I believe.

I chose this path because I do not like Apple products. However, a good friend of mine is an Apple fanboy and he does much the same kind of thing with iTunes on his Mac and iPhone, and an AirPort Express connected to his receiver.