Hey all, I've been trolling the forums for a long while debating which Axioms to get. I'm moving into a new apartment with my wife for a year or two until we buy a house. The walls are concrete and the ceiling is that really rough stucco type material.

Anyway, I have been thinking I will get the VP100 (or maybe the 150 if a case can be made, but it's a pretty small place so i don't know that I would NEED it), two M22s, two QS4/8's (that too is up to debate based on the size of the room). I have an old Sony sub that I think I will stick with for the time being. Based on the reactions, I don't think my neighbors would appreciate an EP500 being in the building!

anyway my main question is whether anyone on here has any experience with hanging the surrounds in those types of material, or whether i'd be better off doing something else with the surrounds until we are in our house?

Also I'll be powering them with the Onkyo 605. Thanks all!

Does your lease allow you to put holes in the walls or ceiling?

If so you could use any of the Axiom mounting brackets to hang your speakers. The QS speakers come with a flat wall mounting bracket or if you need more flexibility in positioning you could use one of the Full Metal Brackets. Concrete anchors would hold them to the walls or wood screws to the ceiling joists both of which are pretty simple if you have a power drill/screwdriver.

My lease doesn’t allow me to put holes in anything so I chose the FMS QS stands after trying various temporary locations with homemade floor to ceiling stands.

I won’t try to steer you toward any specific speakers but unless you want to be upgrading later when you move to a house then, if you can afford it now, get the speakers you will want for then. Nothing says you have to play them loud now.

The lease allows I believe 12 holes per room or something like that. The better question may be will they allow holes in the concrete or not which would limit me to a stand or ceiling mount. I don't listen to a lot of music, and my budget is closer to 1000 so a) that rules out getting any M50, 60 or 80, and b) the consensus seems to be that the M22s are great for movie watching.

The M22s are indeed very good for HT, I certainly enjoy mine.

I have that exact setup you are describing in my 18' x 12' x 9' ceilings. M22's, VP100, and Qs4's. It is awesome! A very enveloping sound field. I have the Qs4's which I am very happy with now that I have them placed correctly. If I could do it again, I would have bought the qs8's for $100 more, and spared myself the trouble of upgrading when we move into a bigger place. Everything is mounted with full metal brackets. Keeping the floor space open. I'll patch and paint before I move. I also purchased the smallest of the Outlaw Audio subs LFM-2. Which is extremely dynamic, musical, and powerful for an 8', and goes down to 28hz ( it shook the room and pounded my chest during the Master in Commader DTS battle scene). The neighbors have not complained yet. You may want to consider something like this as I am willing to bet your Sony creates mono-tone bloated bass. Since you have concrete walls you should not disturb the neighbors too much as long as you play it at the right times. Since you have concrete all around you will probably end up buying the special stands, unless you feel you can patch holes in concrete. I know they represent more $ but they look to be perfect for fine tuning placement.

Good Luck!

This is somewhat beside the point, but I'm not going to dig up an old thread. I have to rescind some of my criticism of the QS4s. Given my poor placement (ahead of the listening position), I've been generally disappointed with surround effects. However... most of my listening is with DTS:Neo6 and the like, from stereo sources (especially from TV programs). I just watched the Simpsons movie last Tuesday night (at lowish volume, since The Boy was sleeping in the adjacent room), and the surround effects were phenomenal (and this was without a sub, so everything below 120Hz was going to the M80s!) I couldn't tell that the surrounds were that far above me or so forward placed. It was great.

Unfortunately, my watching patterns are unlikely to change much--I like my sci-fi serials, and although the Battlestar DVDs are in DD, their surround effects aren't nearly as good as movies, in my experience.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled thread.

@thefwam


Just a thought, you could even save a little money by getting an additional M22 center if you have room to fit it above/below your screen. That will also give you the ideal situation of having identical speakers across the front. Otherwise the VP100 should do fine unless you want to buy for the future if you plan to have a much bigger room then you might want to consider the VP150, but it looks like cptnjosh has a good size room and doesn’t need it.

@ kcarlile

I’m also very fond of sci-fi serials and with my setup most of the 2.0 sounds much better to me in multi-channel stereo rather than DTS:Neo6 or Dolby PLIIx. There still aren’t really any directional cues but then I wasn’t hearing much of that with Neo6 or PLIIx either. What I do get more of is the ambient sound like the droning of the ships engines in Star Trek TNG when their aboard the ship.

I’ve notice that many of the Anime series now being dubbed to English are having their audio tracks upgraded to DD5.1 to pretty good effect. Not sure if you like Anime but it sure broadens what’s available sci-fi wise.

I've never managed to get into anime (I'm not fond of the animation style or chibi), but I'll have to give all channel stereo a shot. That and actually calibrate the Logic7 (maybe?) and take a swing at that. Once the 350 comes..

I don't think that my setup would be going in a much bigger room than cptnjosh was saying. That's about exactly how big my room is now and I can't imagine wanting a bigger room than that for theater ( I like a slightly more intimate size, at least as intimate as 12x20' is ) so I think I may just go with the VP100 since the savings to get the M22 are only approx. 10 or 20 dollars. The sub i do have is kinda junky, but I bought it a while ago before I knew what i was doing, when I was just trying to get all the pieces for 5.1 without spending a lot of money (yeah right). Anyway, it does the job ok, and the WAF won't allow the EP 350v3 or EP500 in our apartment, so for now I'm just going to hold onto the sony.