I've been doing my homework in prep for purchasing a Music/HT setup for the room below. So naturally, I'm looking at Axioms as my speaker of choice. I've also been browsing around, soaking up the collective wisdom that is in such abundance on this forum and am hoping to tap into same.



The picture shows my current thinking as to speakers and placement (it also has a lot of other info that will probably lead to a number of other questions I'll be asking advice on, but those for another day ). It's a basement room approx. 28' by 13' with a 7' dropped ceiling (older fiberboard type ceiling tiles).

What I'm concerned about is that I may be trying to cram the M60s into this setup. My usage will be approx 60/40 Music/HT, with my strong preference to optimize music listening. There is absolutely no possibility of moving any of the furniture/tv, etc. nor would I want to. I think we're pretty much maximizing the space potential as it's set up.

Realistically, there will only be about 4-6 inches from the back wall behind the left speaker and only 2-3 inches on one side of it. However, the other side is open and the back wall opens up almost immediately to an open doorway. The right speaker will be tight b/w the tv and a wall, but with the angle of the tv and speaker there's several inches on both sides and up to 2 feet to back wall, though I'm looking to fit an HSU STF-2 in the corner as well.

I've read some concerns re: bass coloration. Does anyone have experience with a similar layout? or feel that I would indeed have troubles.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

You really ought to get some expert advice for the great folks at Axiom - give them a call and find out what customer service really is.

My impression is that M60's might be pushing it a bit. Have you considered the M22s? With your HSU, they should do the job nicely for you.

You could probably get away with the M60's in that setup, but I'd personally recommend the M22ti's for that space.

Thanks guys. I definitely intend to take advantage of the customer service I've heard such good things about. But thought I'd get some pre-call insight.

I've thought of the M22s, but they'd have to fit in the same spaces on stands I guess. Hanging them from the walls would probably have a lower WAF than the floorstanders.

And I'm used to floorstanders from my previous life (i.e. when I previously listened to music semi-seriously - anyone remember the Design Acoustics brand from the 70's?).

Are the concerns that I could do with a smaller speaker or that the M22s would actually produce better sound in the environment they'd be in?

While we're at it, any thoughts on the other HT items? VP150 or is VP100 more than enough?

QS8s or are QS4s more than enough? Or with the proximity to the back wall, should I look to in-ceiling speakers such as Klipsch/Niles/Infinity, etc?

As always, thanks a bunch

I would go with that as well. Really tight space, stick with the M22s and a sub.
You can wall mount them if necessary.

Thanks chesseroo. You may be right but boy, I feel like the child whose parents are trying to talk him out of something he really, really wants!

I thought there might be issues wall mounting due to the bass port on the back?

I added a few pics below to give a better sense of the space perhaps - pardon the mess in the store room in first pic.

I could perhaps open up a little more room on the right of the tv but thought with the space behind being open i'd possibly be ok. Are we talking about the lack of back/side space or the room dimensions as a whole?

Well jaatea, i would say there could be issues with both angles and the room size.
At present, i own the M60s and we sit about 8 feet away with a max. width of 6 feet for the speakers in front.
The soundstage is hard to get right, very narrow and collapses easy from left to right within 2-3 feet on our couch.
The larger speakers really need more room to get positioned correctly.
With M22s mounted on the wallls with the Full Metal Brackets, you could tweak the angles until the cows came home. With the M60s, your floor space is limited and you still want to crunch a sizeable subwoofer in there as well no?
Worst case scenario, you change your M22s for M60s sometime in the future (Axiom has a swap plan for this) or perhaps even before the 30d trial period expires.

In reply to:

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I thought there might be issues wall mounting due to the bass port on the back?

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Not really. Axiom designed the Full Metal Bracket so that it sits the speaker a couple of inches out away from the wall. For the smaller speakers, this is not as much of a problem as it would be for floorstandings.

I noticed that in your drawing one of the speakers is something like 2 feet back further than the other, im no expert but id think that would really mess with your soundstage and everything. Have you thought about just re arranging the room to something different?

You know, I read your first post yesterday and wanted to mull it a while before responding.

I know you said that rearranging the furniture is out of the question, but I really want to talk you into it anyway.

You have a big, beautiful TV. You want to invest in really nice speakers to have a great HT experience. And you're trying to wedge the whole thing into a corner of a pretty big room.

While it is a big room, you've got a HT, a Piano, traffic patterns, a pool table and a computer. Whew! Not easy.

But honestly, if you just put the TV on the end wall and orient the speakers the long way, I think you're going to be MUCH happier whatever activity you are enjoying in that room.

If you want the M60's, get them. It is a bit harder to get them to image in a smallish space like that, but it sounds like you won't be "satisfied" unless you get them. I had them in a similar space initially, and it was wonderful. BUT I recently re-oriented everything in a different room where the seating position did not have a wall directly behind it - holy cow, what a difference!

Plus, if you put the TV and M60's on that short end wall, you'll be able to see/listen very well from the pool table area.

If you go with the TV on the end wall, I'd be surprised if you even needed the M3's that you have listed (as zone 2?). You'd certainly get much better surround from either 5.1 or 6.1 that way.

The only solution to a good HT experience in that room is to rearrange the furniture. Anything else would be too much of a compromise, IMO.

I completely agree with Tom. Rearranging the room -- as much as you may hate thinking about it now -- will lead to the best results.

Ditto. The tunes supplied from M60s on that back wall would be very nice around the pool table , as well as on the short end of the sectional. Your surrounds would also then be symmetrically mounted on the sides.

I would never presume to tell someone how to arrange their furniture, but if you do so, then i agree that the M60s would become more feasible in this room.
"Dammit Jim, I'm a scientist, not an interior decorator."
My opinion in this limited.

Yep, yep, yep...

Rearrange as Tom suggested and the M60's will be pretty good. As you have it in the corner, I highly suggest the M22's.

Well folks, I do certainly appreciate the opinions/suggestions. And no offense taken at room rearrangement comments, Haoleb, Tom, et al. The problem is it won't work. I think if you looked hard at the orig diagram you'd see my point, but I've included another diag. below to illustrate. In this setup I've got a lot fewer good viewing angles/seats, all of which are closer to the screen, and the right speaker is being blocked quite a bit by the couch. (The couch is a joined unit and there's really no way to reposition although I've moved it down a foot in this case.) Plus, the spread b/w the speakers is almost a foot less. If I move the tv more to the left, people are now going to be cranking their necks a bit. Not to mention (although I'm about to aren't I?) that in order to move the couch to open up for the speaker I need to move the pool table - that's a hundred or to to have done right.



I guess it comes down to the fact that the room needs to function well for several diff activities. Compromises need to be made in order to have proper traffic lanes, room to shoot pool, etc. Really, I'm not craving the ultimate HT experience. Good stereo music listening is much more important to me. Although I realize there may be difficulties in getting that optimized, I may just give the M60s a try and see how it goes. I'm very concerned about catching the "whatifitis" bug that I'm very susceptible to.

Is the general consensus that the M22s would be able to satisfy and that the M60s would not add much value to the music listening experience?

Tom, you wrote:

"I had them in a similar space initially, and it was wonderful."

If you hadn't been able to move them to a better locale, would you have preferred to have had M22s in that original spot instead of the M60s?

I have a similar situation to yours, as far as having a couch partially blocking one of the speakers, as you can see from this:



Evident in the photo is my solution. I built some stands that lift the left M60 high enough that all drivers and the port are above the arm of the couch. Doing that puts the tweeter higher than the the recommended height (ear level), and higher than I would like. But, I don't notice any loss of response. I do think that imaging suffers some, but I'm still very pleased with how well this has worked. I'm hoping to move next year, and will be choosing a place that will allow me better placement.

In the real world, compromise is almost always required when it comes to speaker placement, due to room limitations, furniture, or the WAF. Don't agonize too much over it. Just do what you think is best.

My HSU STF-2 is in the corner next to the left M60.

Nicely done Jack, thanks for the thought. Actually our couch arms may be a bit taller, approx 27 inches, but the color is damned near the same - will that help? No, probably not, but it does show you to be a man of good taste I also like your lamps a lot.

No, I'm not gonna get my shorts too tied up worrying; actually, the wife spotted me tweaking the smartdraw diagram for my previous posting and, of course, expressed her firm feelings as to how "we're not rearranging furniture!"

Can't blame her - as I mentioned, I think there's other significant downsides to rearranging.

Haven't gotten any strong opinions to make me think I could avoid "whatifitis" if I did go with the M22s vs M60s.

As an M60 owner, I can tell you for sure that placement can make a huge difference in how they sound. Axioms have been described as "accurate" repeatedly on this forum. Another aspect of accuracy (other than the accurate sound) is that they seem to produce a very focused sound pattern. If you turn one of them a couple of degrees and then stand back about 15 feet, you can really tell how the sound field coming from that speaker has moved. I think this has to do with the fact that the aluminum drivers aren't as susceptible to warping, twisting, or unusual flexing when they move like cones made out of less rigid materials might be. Hence, they always "shoot straight". In order to get a good stereo image, the speakers need to be in the "correct" postion relative to where you sit. This is so that they can get all of the sound waves to hit your ears at the right time from the right direction.

You certainly do not have a lot of room to play around with speaker position in your current room setup. The M22s might be a better choice. They, in combination with a sub will do the job just fine. They will also give you more placement options due to their smaller size.

If you rarely sit in the same listening position, then go for the 60s. They will sound great. Speakers will only "image" correctly for a relatively small area. Once you move out of it, you lose the image. If you are playing pool, or sitting off center in the HT you won't be near where the image is. It wouldn't matter which ones you have.

Bottom line, if you want good sound AND a better chance at proper stereo imaging, get the M22s.

If you just want good sound, either will work.

Yeah, my arms are only 24" (on the couch, NOT my torso)

Don't know if it'll make any difference, but I initially purchased 22s. With the excessive amount of furniture in my room, you can see why. Wasn't satisfied, so I "upgraded" to M60s, and am extremely glad I did, even though I've had to accept less than ideal placement.

It sounds as thought the wife has spoken. Case closed

"Do what you think is best" sounds like pretty good advice! I have to confess to being a bit of a know-it-all a*****e.

So... how about moving the piano down into the corner where you have the HSU planned (in your second schematic)? Then put a large, comfortable leather chair + ottoman in the space previously occupied by the piano. You would then have 3-4 very good viewing positions.

Lovely.

Necessity is the mother of invention (or so they say).

Not a half bad idea Mark, thanks. See the fruits of your inspiration below.



But you forget one thing, my friend; the WAF, e.g.: "OK for you to just roll the piano in a corner - you don't play now do you?"

Not to mention swinging the speakers/receiver past the WAF given several other 'toys' I've picked up recently, now throw in a new chair 'necessitated' in order to utilize said speakers. Ouch. I'll need to do some heavy strategizing before going down this road!

You know, in all this rigamarole (yes, I did need to look up that spelling ) and options explored, there's still no friggin good place to put a media rack. Note in my first diag I've got it laying low in front of the tv.

Also, any thoughts on whether I would need a VP150 or whether VP100 would be more than enough? Same for QS8 vs QS4?

thanks a bunch guys for your patience and perseverance.

Well now this is really neat.
Ppl give him ideas and he comes back with a new drawing each time and added pictures to boot.
Fantastic.

Considering the new configuration, perhaps you could lose the small table in the far right corner atop the couch, put the sub in there instead (usually a good location up front with the main speakers...often works well) then put the media rack where the Hsu is presently. That way when you are playing pool, your media rack is right handy and if you are on the couch, all you need to do is swing your arm lovingly over your wife like you were snuggling, but really you are just turning up the volume.

Hey, she will at least get a new chair and ottoman to pick out no?

Fabulous drawings. I envy.

To answer your question directly, I wanted floorstanders. No amount of rationalizing was going to get me any way "happy" or "satisfied" by buying even wonderful bookshelves like the M22. I was also thinking in terms of long-term flexibility. You may not always have the couch, piano, pool table, etc. in that room. You obviously want the M60's. I'm not going to try to talk you out of them. I had them in a 13' deep room with the couch on one side and the speakers and a big RPTV on the other. Small imaging sweet-spot, but full, rich, fabulous sound. Get 'em and don't look back.

The QS4's now have the same tweeter as the 8's. If you are not pursuing SACD or DVDA, I'm sure they will provide wonderful surround for you, especially if your receiver has good bass management that would allow you to vary the sub crossover point for each speaker.

Both the VP100 and 150 seem universally loved. It is a difficult question because that is a big room, but you are not really using much of it for the HT.

I still really like the most recent scenario the best by a wide margin, especially with Jack's idea about mitigating the couch somewhat.

When can you come draw my house? My wife LIKES to rearrange furniture.

How would it look if you rotated the couch so that the longer end is facing the TV? And then the chair on the right side of the couch? Does that leave you enough room to get by? If so, I think that is what I would do. But I would have to see a nice CAD drawing of it first.

TV

|
|______ XX
(Couch) (Chair)

What about this?



You'd have to move the piano bench to play pool, and the walkway behind the couch is a bit narrow, but otherwise it looks feasible to me.

This is what I was thinking actually, although with some subtle changes.

1) I don't think the recliner is needed anymore.

2) The sub can go in the corner behind the couch and your entertainment rack can go where it is.

3) the piano can maybe get "flipped" (mirror-style) from it's original position over to the right wall next to the m60 (where the table is now).

That is what I was thinking. Although I was thinking about the TV on the top wall and the couch facing it like you have in the picture. I think that was it gives you more space to be further back from the M60's. Someone who has them could tell you better about how far apart they should be and how far to sit from them. Plus, then the M60's are facing the pool table which would be cool too.

Isn't your wife aware of the fact that pianos sound MUCH better in a garage?

Michael, if I suggest that, I'm going to end up in the garage - with a pillow!!

Wow, Denver, you da man!! (I'm curious though how you managed to so nicely manipulate my Smartdraw file - hopefully not too much effort needed?) And thanks also to refinements by ringmir. This is a layout I can work with (read: pitch to the wife with some hope of success) There are definitely some advantages to making this move. Huffer, I don't think going with the tv on the top wall works as the piano gets no viable home and the couch closes off the room too much. I've run some additional tweaks below:



Here are some of the pluses from our current setup:

1 Well, obviously I get a much better music listening experience. HT much better as well. I'm back to a 6.1 config.

2. I've got a place to put components instead of stuck in a rack in front of the tv.

3. I can pitch the benefits of the long table I've put behind the couch as a solution for putting drinks, etc. vs. a tray on the couch

4. Yes, the store room doorway is blocked but what the heck, we don't frequently go in/out, we hate looking at it and now we're facing away, we can still get at it and get things out. If we need to do signif. box moving etc. I can move part of the couch

5. This solution doesn't require moving the pool table which is a hassle and an expense. I've moved it back to where it is now in the above diagram.

6. The piano actually seems less like an afterthought there as it is faced by the couch; i.e. I can sit relax and listen to my wife play (I'm doing my own rehearsal here, can you tell?)

7. I can still reasonably re-angle the tv to be watchable from the pool table area when the boys come over to shoot some pool, catch a game and dring some brews (not necessarily in that order mind you).

8. Overall, the arrangement may make the space seem larger, more open, although the way it is now there is a nice feel of a cozy viewing area - it's just too damned hard to get the sound waves to cooperate as it is now.

Whew, give me some more time and I'm sure I can fabricate, ahem, identify more advantages to increase the WAF.

Admittedly, while the diagrams help, it won't be till I actually move the stuff that I'll have a good feel. That won't happen till the time when my wife is out and my son (18 and tall like his dad) is home.

Thanks again to all who pitched in. Boy, typing all this is not just a good way to get my case in shape for the boss, it's like a bloody cathartic experience. I want my nice tunes!!!

I will be sure to keep you posted and you can be sure I'll have more questions. There's still a receiver to buy and the other half of the room to discuss - "Zone 2" (I gotta have close tunes while shooting pool don't I???)

Also, I saw a post elswhere re: digital music. I'm researching best ways to get my extensive mp3s accessible.

Again, my thanks and kindest regards to all.

I still think the sub should go under the table in the corner. It will make the closet more accessible. I have m60s in an awkward room by a corner aligned tv and it is far from ideal. (Thus my trying to convince you to rearrange.) I would care more about my arrangement if I weren't moving soon. I do my room design in Visio every time I move so I put things in the "right" place first.

Edit:
I wanted to mention that this would keep you from having to look into that cluttered storage room but thought maybe I shouldn't comment on anyone elses clutter while I have so much of my own. The piano comment is a very good observation and might earn some useful points. As for the room being more open, I think it will end up being much more comfortable. There should be a better flow around the table while playing pool, playing the piano won't cramp the passage to the seating area, and if there are more guests it will be easier to bring a few folding chairs down to set by the pool table for additional movie watching seats.

Some excellent additional points ringmir, thanks, I will add them to my WAF list.

Your right re the sub. I moved it due to the table but should definitely look to get it under the table instead. You can bet though that any diagrams I use to support my case with the boss will not have any speakers showing! Just going to stick with good points such as you've raised.

Well, it's late here but think I'll go shoot a rack then listen to some music b4 closing down. Good luck with your upcoming move.

Thanks, good luck with the boss, and I seriously envy the pool table. One of these days I'll have a basement like that, only minus the piano and maybe plus a frogger arcade

jaatea, it was a cut, paste, and rotate job in photoshop. If the walkway behind the couch is really only 18" wide, though, I hope you have a slimmer physique than I do! Don't drink too many beers when the boys come over for pool and a game, or you might get stuck on the way to or from the storage room (I suggest you keep the remotes within reach so you can entertain yourself until you slim down enough to escape).

denver, you're obviously proficient w/ PS, but it must still have been an effort - for that and the great idea, I am thankful.

Re the 18" space, I'm 6'5" so I've got a good deal of legs to keep my arse above things; hopefully that will be enough cause I'm no slimjim - I'll keep the remotes nearby just in case.