Much difference between the two in way of performance for surround in general, and say the Qs8s vs M50?

The way my rear walls are, I would need stands for the Qs8s, the M50s would eliminate the need for stands which ups the price to use the Qs8.

My first post here so a little about my setup. My M80s and vp150 be here next week Currently using Klipsch RC 62 center, RF 62 fronts, and RF 52 rears using a B&K AVR307. my sub is a SVS PB12Plus 2.

My amp question. I am thinking of getting a 2 ch amp to drive the m80s, could I use my B&K as the processor and still use it for my center and surrounds? Thanks

Most AVR's have preouts for each channel, so if you decide you need an extra amp for the m80's, you would use the preouts for the left/right channel to the amp, then hook the 80's to the amp. The other speakers can be driven by the AVR, many of us do it this way.

If your talking about a 5.1 setup, you would not have "rears", but actually "side" surrounds. The Qs8's would be to the "side" of the seating area. "Rear" speakers come into play for a 7.1 setup. A lot depends on where your ditting in relationship to the depth of the room.

Can't you mount the Q's on the ceiling or higher up the wall, that is ideal.

Tim, welcome. A little more detail about your room would be helpful. The QSs are really outstanding surround speakers and should be positioned on the side walls maybe 2' farther back than the listening position, or if the the back wall is close, they can be placed there and spread widely, almost to the side walls. In most rooms one of these positions is possible.

The 307 should be entirely sufficient to drive the M80s to safe listening levels and a separate amplifier shouldn't be necessary. Don't assume a problem before you've tried out your setup.

I'd bet the 307 will run the M80s without ever needing more. While I am firmly on the side of more power pays dividends, the B&K line is not the typical Sony or Pioneer we have this debate over. I have heard a B&K AVR (not sure which #) run a pair of the largest electrostatics Martin Logan Summits (91db 4 ohm)...never heard a peep that was not supposed to be there.

Use that money to nail your surround setup, your bang for the buck is tenfold compared to beefing up the B&K path. I would go for QS8s, period. The image improvement over direct radiating design is dramatic - at least in my small HT. Perhaps in a huge room you could achieve the same with M50, but I doubt it.

The Qs are the best audio values I have found.

I was considering another amp because its a good buy. Im gonna get the Qs8s if Im happy with the 80s makes sense Zimm.. Thanks for advice guys.

looks like my Axiom order be here Friday now! I never told wife..wish me luck on a divorce...lol

THe divorce will be the easy part, if she wants the Axioms, you'll be in for a fight

Zask - I have the 307 too and it's all you will need. No problem at all.

The whole 'difuse vs direct radiating' subject has me a bit confused as well. I'm perfectly happy with my QS8's, and feel they work magic. But isn't the difuse design a bit of a trade-off?

They don't use difuse speakers in movie theaters, and the pictures of both Dolby's main testing chamber and DTS's lab, both had direct radiating speakers in the side & back surround locations. It seems to me they do this for a reason.

I don't know what that reason is, but if difuse was superior to direct radiating, then shouldn't they be using different surround speakers? I'm not going to trade my QS8's in any time soon, still there must be a time and place for direct radiating surround speakers. Does anyone know what that might be?

The movie theaters often have 8 or 10 of them....so, in the end, they do have speakers with a diffused sound...

Hi Micah,

Mark is correct. If you had a huge ballroom-size home theater, you could set up 4 direct-radiating surrounds on each side wall and a couple at the back to duplicate the surround-speaker arrays in movie theaters.

The whole point of Axiom's quad-polar QS8 surrounds is to mimic the effect of rows of direct-radiating surrounds in cinemas, and to do it far more conveniently and less expensively.

The 10 direct-radiating surrounds in movie theaters create a big wash of direct and reverberant sounds. The QS8s, by virtue of their design, acoustically imitate the same wash of direct and reverberant sound.

By the way, in much smaller mixing and demo theaters, Dolby does in fact use multi-polar surrounds (M&K in the small theater in Manhattan). In the Criterion remastering studio here on Park Avenue, they use QS8s--in fact, an entire Axiom Epic 80/500 system is in place.

Regards,
Alan

Diffuse sound is also why newer/higher end(?) avr's have 2 side surround channels to help spread out the sound when used with direct radiators in slightly larger than average rooms where you can actually get 2 or more sets of side surround speakers installed. With the QS series you can get by with just the one set of side surrounds till the room gets quite large and you have multiple seating arrangments, but even then one pair of QS's seem to work quite well on their own unlike direct radiating speakers.

Anyone here using the Emoitiva UPA-2 or any Emo amp? Whats your experience?

Hit and miss with Emotiva and M80s any other speaker appears to play well with Emotiva products, I have never heard Axiom's and Emotiva so beyond my 2 cents as earlier stated I will defer to others to answer

Did you actually mean 2 distinct sets of side surround channels, in addition to the rear/back surrounds? Just curious if you or anyone else knows which receiver(s) has it?

I would imagine that in a BIG enough room, two sets of QS8's for side surrounds could sound amazing, as long as they are far enough apart from each other.

I see I say. So in a big enough room 8 M50's would do a smashing job as surrounds eh?

Yes they would.

My 3808 has 2 sets of surrounds run off the main side signals, they are not distinct as they run off the same amp, but the second/third zones can be configured for side or rear channels as well as seperate zones, IIRC.

Yes. Several of us.



My experience with my LPA-1 (precursor to the UPA series) and M80's (and VP150 and QS8's) has been great. No problems at all. Three years later, and I'm still very happy with the purchase.

However, my attitude is not shared by every Axiom owner. Some here have had well-publicized problems with Emotiva's amps. Many months ago there was a bit of a spat between Emotiva and Axiom owners, with each side blaming the other for the problems*.

Strangely, it seems that the problems mainly involve{d} Emotiva's higher-end amps. Somewhat counter-intuitive, I agree. We have several here that had problems with the old and discontinued MPS series. I've read of a few people having problems with M80's and the current X-series amps. However, I haven't ever heard of M80 complaints with the LPA/UPA series. YMMV, of course.


*Emotiva-ists claimed that the M80's crossover design was faulty and caused super-low impedance dips. Axiom-ites claimed that the problem was Emotiva exaggerating their specs as far as being able to handle 4-ohm speakers. It was a bit of a mess, between here, Emotiva's forums, and the wonderful word of AVS.

AVS is always a mess

Can someone point me to the VP150 thread please? Search does not seem to work for me, for anything

Hi Zask. Try the Custom Axiom Forum Search or feel free to ask away, the guys will help you out.

Thanks Adrian,

The bass from the M80s is amazing. The 150 sounds good sitting in front of it about 11 ft away, but if I sit 5ft left of center, the voices become hollow. Sounds as if the voices are coming from back of TV.

The 150 sits just below tv on shelf about 3ft from wall no back on shelf. I took a listen on hands and knees behind center speaker sounds as if there is a hole in back of speaker. I did not have this problem with my other center.. Any thoughts on this?

If you haven’t already check the speaker to make sure all the drivers are working. If you have some room to move it around a bit try pulling it out in front of the TV some. Nearby surfaces can sometimes impact the sound quality. Also, I’ve found that having the seating near the walls seems to cause this effect to be more pronounced.

On the other hand, what you are experiencing (sound like it’s hollow and coming from through a tunnel) I also experience with the VP150 in my present room. IMO that can be the nature of the VP150’s sound in some room/seating arrangements. Though in two other rooms I used it in this didn’t happen. I switched long ago to using an M22 and later and M80 as a center because I just don‘t like the sound quality of the VP150. If you tweak the VP150’s positioning to get it sounding right I would try trading it in for a M22 if you can fit one below your screen or a VP100 which from what I‘ve read should have this problem.

Cheers,
Dean

I cant move it much, I did move it out a bit and also put a small blanket double wrapped along the back of speaker didn't help enough..

I guess using a total different brand center is a no?

Some people have luck using different brand centers. I think it all depends on which brands you mix and match and how sensitive you are to tonal differences. If you already have another center laying around it wouldn’t hurt to try, but I wouldn’t go out and buy another brand center w/o the option to return it if it doesn’t work.

Is it going to be impossible for you to use a M22 speaker as a center? The reason I ask is when crossed over with a subwoofer it is a very close match for the M80s. As close as your going to get w/o using another M80. To get an idea of how this will sound set your center speaker to “none” in the receiver allowing you to use a “phantom” center with the 2 M80 mains. If you like the sound of this I think you’ll like the sound of the M22 as a center speaker. Fredk even uses two M2 speakers one above and one below his screen to good effect.

Also, as I mentioned the VP100 shouldn’t from what I’ve read (don’t have one myself) exhibit the effect your hearing.

I’m pretty sure that if you trade in a speaker within the 30 day demo period for another speaker Axiom foots the shipping for the return. I’m not 100% sure if that applies to trading in for a lesser price speaker but someone else can probably confirm it or not.

Grunt, I hooked my other center up and right off the voices are more upfront and the tunnel sound went away. As far as how matches m80s Im gonna watch a few movies and see.

Is what I like about the m80s is I can run them on large. I was considering another sub but the M80s solves that and sound pretty good so I hope the center wont be such an issue I have to trade brands. What do you mean by the M22 will cross with sub? run it on 'large'?

I do have room for the m22, wish the tweeter was in the middle of the cabinet. Also dont care for looks of it as a center.. arrg

By the M22 I’m talking about using the M22 bookshelf speaker standing up vertically under or over your screen depending on how high the screen is. You will need to run the M22 small crossed over around 80Hz but you could try lower. This will blend very well with the M80s especially in the midrange. I’ve done this before and it sounds about 90-95% like using an M80 speaker as a center speaker.

If I was you I would call Axiom and ask to trade in the VP150 for a M22 and a VP100. Try both of them out as a center speaker and if you like one keep it and pay the $15-$20 to send the other one back.

OTOH if your old center sounds good with the M80s then you’re problem is solved. I’d hate to see you give up on the M80s because of the VP150. I think the M80s sound great especially the bass which I hear a lot of listening to GOA Trance and other types of EBM.

The VP100 should cure the problem of the lobing you are getting and the difference in SQ is very minimal, the VP150 is a little pickier for placement.

You could also try aiming the VP150 at different levels, higher or lower than seated listening point, to see if one spot helps eliminate the hollow effect. I have mine angled slightly upward and it actually points past my seated hearing position and sounds pretty good to me.

I tried the few positions I had available Jake, didn't work for me.

I took Grunts advice and have the 22 on the way. Axiom customer service is fantastic..

I did some searching last night and read Grunts experiences and experiments and think the 22 will be good in my situation.

Thanks a lot Grunt for sharing your experience and knowledge!

I also really like the M22 as a center, I was still under the impression the vertical center wasn't going to work for you.

Axiom has always footed the bill for any and all shipping charges too and from their factory... even when I've offered to pay it myself.

As far as the other center speaker, I'm the sort of guy who likes one brand name on all my speakers smply so that the all have the same badge on them... I'm anal like that. However if it doesn't bother you any and you prefer the sound of your other center then don't let any theoretical or otherwise issues with tonal differences convince you that it's somehow inadequate. Just trust your ear, if it sounds ok to you then damn conventional wisdom... call it 'custom'!

But I think Grunt is suggesting you trade you're VP150 in on something different since you already have that money spent as of right now, so might as well try out something else to see if it might possibly blow your hair back even more!

You could return it for a refund, but with the 30-day return policy, why not have a little fun trying something else out eh?

Micah, he has the M22 on it's way.

Supah sweet!

Since it can be used vertically as a center Im going to give it a try.. I thought a center had to be a center and lay horizontal lol

Listening to my other center with the 80s is an improvement over what I was getting with the 150. Seems I lost some panning affect though. If the 22 doesnt suit me I will keep the center I have now.

Seems tones change from speaker to speaker anyway. For example if a car is driving by and it starts at left speaker and goes right, sound lower lower in left, louder in center as car is in middle screen, and fades in sound in right speaker as car gets on down the road. make sense?

That’s a very common misconception because of the way HT sound systems are marketed. Here’s a good discussion of HT sound systems and why looking for alternative options can pay off:

http://www.soundstage.com/surrounded/surrounded200307.htm

When unconstrained by norms lots of options are available:

http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthre...true#Post219121

For a tonal difference there's not much you can do except try a different speaker but it sounds like you might have to much boost in the centre too, have you tried lowering the centre by a couple of db's just to be sure?

I second that motion. Either turn the center down a tad, or turn the L/R mains up until they seem to match a little better.

What you describe sounds more like leveling issues than tonal changes, unless we're mistaking your meaning?

Sorry I didn't explain that well. I have the speakers calibrated. I meant the tone and volume changes in the sound track it self from speaker to speaker most times.

A car passing by on the tv from left to to right speaker, the tones and volumes differ, right? A car passing and it fades in right speaker is louder then when it was in the middle of the screen. Also the tone changes because the car was close now its far.. The canter I have now I cant really tell a big diff and its a Klipsch because of this. But I have no audio philly ear either

Actually you will get tonal differences between identical speakers because of placement differences in almost every situation. The reason identical speakers are recommended for up front for HT (all around for music) when possible is to help minimize this by not adding difference between the speakers to the mix which in turn gets amplified by the room.

That’s not to say there are ever differences between channels on the soundtrack but those mastering the sound tracks usually try to prevent that.

I use it 99% for watching movies,Judge Judy, and Golf lol.. The Klipsch sounds pretty good with the 80s to me. I am surprised because of the difference in design.

Im still gonna give the 22 a shot, if I dont like it im satisfied with the center im using

Judge Judy??!! no wonder the tone is off!

Not having a matching center that worked for me was one my decisions to send M80s back. The 150 sounded like it was in a tunnel.

I also found for me the 80s distorted around 93db- 96db 11ft away and never use to notice lights dimming on AVR at higher levels (or the room lights). The bass in the M80s is great, the detail almost same as my Klipsch, little less.

For the price they are a good speakers, just wasn't a $1,700 difference in sound going from my low end Klipsch which retail about same price as Axioms.

That law of diminishing returns strikes again. If you have a system you like, it will be hard to beat for any price.