I read here somewhere that if you crank up the volume the speakers will disappear... I've had my system set up for a couple of weeks now and really never got to the point where I couldn't "see" the speakers. Well, I got home the other day from work and found an empty house - Whoo Hooo!! So I grabbed the first CD I could get my hands on; a Dixie Chicks offering. After playing with large and small settings and X-over points I finally settled on Large, grabbed my sound meter and slowly started taking it up. Somewhere in the middle of "I can love you better" I hit 104dB (at 13' w/ the EMO showing -23.5dB) and the stage went completely invisible. What an amazing thing! Clean, clear, not even a hint of being out of room for more. Thirty seconds later the family came home... so much for my first disappearing act.

Can't wait for the next show. Thanks Axiom.

Scott

Awesome! Your speaker cables finally broke-in! I'd venture to guess that most of us are in this hobby for those 'oh wow!' moments. Kinda like golf, or home espresso. You have that one good shot and then spend all your time and $$$ trying to get that shot again.

<Opinion Alert>
IMHO, volume level shouldn't have much to do with transparency. A disapearing soundstage is a function of having good audio equipment that's set up and calibrated correctly, quality speakers that are positioned properly, room acoustics, and the recording itself.
</Opinion Alert>

I bolded the speaker setup line, because thanks to many tips from other members here, I have found that to be absolutely critical. To get that, 'where'd the speakers go' feeling, your speaker layout has to be just spot on. I have found that properly toe-ing in your mains and playing with seating position and distance is critical to getting that feeling.

Regarding hardware, you will find opinions that amps and speaker wire makes a difference too. Many claim that expensive wires make all the difference, others claim hogwash. Still others say the amp makes a difference, and I'm being dragged behind that wagon. Others will vehemently disagree with me, but I feel that my M80's vanish more readily when powered by my LPA-1 rather than the AVR. You've got an MPS (lucky dog!), and so you might be a believer too!

A good friend has an uber-buck system in which he's spent more on cables and speaker wire than I have on my whole system. From the 'sweet spot' chair, it's mind-blowing: no speakers, no room, no nothing - just you and waves of music. Depth, spaciousness, and precise instrument positioning. It almost borders on too real, as your senses disagree with each other nearly to the point of confusion. Feels very much like your sitting in the perfect seats in a large concert hall. Instruments seemingly being played from somewhere out in the yard, or from the next room - but your eyes clearly tell you that you're sitting in a smaller space. However, as you move away from that sweet spot, the position of the speakers becomes more discernable and the system goes back to just 'amazing'. But the point is, his system sounds like that during both loud *and* soft passages; it's all a function of room layout, speaker positions, the recording, and equipment.

Quote:

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Awesome! Your speaker cables finally broke-in! ROTFL
<Opinion Alert>
IMHO, volume level shouldn't have much to do with transparency. A disapearing soundstage is a function of having good audio equipment that's set up and calibrated correctly, quality speakers that are positioned properly, room acoustics, and the recording itself.
</Opinion Alert>

I bolded the speaker setup line, because thanks to many tips from other members here, I have found that to be absolutely critical. To get that, 'where'd the speakers go' feeling, your speaker layout has to be just spot on. I have found that properly toe-ing in your mains and playing with seating position and distance is critical to getting that feeling.

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I've still got some tweaking to do on speaker position, but entering new territory like this sent chills up my spine. Can't wait to get there again.

Speaking of speaker wire, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Axiom uses their own stuff for post to speaker connection inside the cabinets (at least my EP500 is that way).

Scott