Man, I have had a heck of a time trying to get my speakers to sound like they are worth the money I spent on them. They did sound better than my old set, which is not saying much, when I first installed them. But since then I have been less than blown away. I have the VP150 and M60's run by Onkyo 805. I still have a terrible sub and surrounds. I thought it would be okay to slowly upgrade piece by piece, but now I am thinking it was a mistake. Apparently Audyssey "dumbed down" the Axioms to match the crappy Yamaha sub and surrounds, so they have not been impressive. Tonight while watching Ironman I decided to try turning the EQ off, and it made a huge difference. Everything sounded better. Still not up to blow my mind levels like I had hoped though. Do you all think once I get a better sub and the QS8's Audyssey will calibrate everything the right way? I still get a little distortion when I turn up the volume, but the thing is I still want it louder. The loudest I have had the Onkyo is about -4.0, and there was some distortion on very dynamic sounds, explosions, etc. Will proper calibration of Audyssey take care of this? I have had a very frustrating time with all this DIY home theater stuff, as my last experience was with HTIB. I know my newer pieces are much more capable than the boxed set, but man was it easier to set up and so much less stressful. Didn't spend hours pulling my hair out wondering what the heck is wrong with my system.

What are you expecting for a blow your mind sound? Just really loud? you will need much more amplification to do that. A -4.0 setting on the Onkyo, I suspect, is pushing the limits of the receiver and the distortion you are hearing is being generated by the amp.

A better sub will certainly help as it will give you more headroom for the explosions, etc. and take some the burden away from the M60s and the receiver. A good will really help fill the room with good LFE and this is where a lot of extra SPL is made.

Just curious what are you using for your surround speakers right now? Are these from a HTiB? If so then yes the QS8's will be a large improvement over them.

I agree with Jason. It seems to me that you are over-taxing the Onkyo. That, coupled with most likely not only a "crappy" sub, but one that isn't in the optimum place in your room, and you are getting all sorts of horrible sound. The surrounds, while they may be cheap, aren't going to be the *biggest* source of poor sound for you as the sub and amp are throwing more noise into the room from the mains and the sub, unless of course your surrounds are turned up too much and then they are going to be adding to the terrible sound.

There are lots of suggestions you can be given, but some will require more money, or at least a bit of work to get things tuned to your room better. I have M60 fronts with the VP150 center (and QS8 surrounds) and I can actually hit positive numbers on my receiver (Pioneer Elite) and it sounds nice... VERY loud, but not distorted. Note: I've only done this a couple of times as a test of the quality of the Axioms when I first got them. I usually watch movies around -15 to -18 when it is just me watching, and about -18 to -22 when it is with my wife as she doesn't like it "so loud." Sounds great in my room, and I know if I could get off my butt and tame the room a bit with bass traps, etc, it would be AMAZING!

Hang in there. We'll help you out. Just keep in mind that you DID buy better speakers than a HTIB system, and while I would say that this is far from DIY, I understand your frustration and again, we'll help you out.

What sub and surround speakers do you have?

I will echo the sentiments already expressed here. I would try turning off the sub entirely and setting the speakers to large, at least until you can get the better sub. Also, definitely leave the EQ off, or at least check it for sanity. It's not always a foolproof thing, as you've discovered.

With everyone's combined knowledge here, I'm sure we can all help get you set up optimally before too long. Hang in there!

As an owner of An 805 I do not think that you are overtaxing your reciever at -4, I typiclly watch movies at that setting which corrosponds to about 80db with my setup M22s, VP150,QS8s.

MCL,

How are the settings in the receiver for the speakers, small or large, and what crossover setting?

I can't say enough about the detail, clarity and wonderment from my M60a when I play a really good piece of source material. It blows me away in a relaxed sort of way. My Guests are constantly speechless as well.

However, if you are looking for a holy ____! Jaw Dropping, Blow You Away experience.... You need an outstanding sub.

My usual two quick demos.
"Eagles Hell Freezes Over" concert DVD
It starts with just a few instruments and I watch people sit in amazed anticipation. By the time the hand drums kick in, thier jaw has dropped and they are wide eyed but silent.

After a bit of music, I put in a movie. Master and Commander to start. I watch them look around the room and the ceiling trying to figure out where the sound is coming from. Finally when the canon fire moves in on them and the walls are exploding, you hear various versions of "HOLY _____". If they want the room to shake, I'll pop in the tripod scene from War of the Worlds. I've seen people dig their nails into the arm of my couch during that one.

After the experiencing the musical clarity of really good main speakers, nothing quiet blows you away like a really good sub.

Hi MCL,

I'm delighted to hear that you turned off the Audyssey EQ. I'd suggest that you leave it permanently turned off. As you've discovered, Audyssey EQ--marketed as some kind of sonic panacea--has the ability to make really neutral, transparent-sounding speakers like the Axiom M60s sound bad. Audyssey is a flawed EQ system that often results in calls or emails to Axiom like yours from new speaker buyers who are disappointed in the sound they're getting.

As everyone has noted, a really good subwoofer and QS8 surrounds will greatly improve things. How large is your room--length, width, height--and how far back are you from the M60s? If you like really loud, clean levels of the sort that some of my Axiom colleagues prefer, you may want to consider an outboard power amplifier of, say, 200 watts per channel for the M60s (you'd use the Onkyo's left and right pre-outs to the power amp).

However, you're ahead of the game already by turning off the Audyssey EQ.

Regards,

Alan, you know, I've been feeling like I'm missing something when I watch movies, and I bet it's due to the Audyssey EQ. I'll try switching it off this weekend to see if I notice an improvement.

I know I liked the sound of my epic 80-500 and denon 3808 combo much better without audyssey

Yeah. not only did I recognize it, but my neighbor, who is a drummer and has his own studio, instantly recognized how much more full, and smooth the dialogue and overall sound was. My surrounds are Yamaha NS-AP4400S and my sub is YST-SW015. I know they are bringing the Axioms and probably the receiver down as well. Way down. My room is 13Wx21Lx11H. The ceiling is cathedral with 11ft. being the point. The m60's are 10 ft. for the left channel and 11.5ft. for the right channel from the listening area. I was going to get the sub next, might be sooner than later as I can't stand not having my HT sound as good as it looks. Alan, do you suggest I try to manually adjust my EQ or just leave it off? What db level should I start with when adjusting my speakers with SPL meter? Should they all be calibrated around 0db? Really, really appreciate all of your help everyone!

There was an instructional video from Ian on using multiple subs wherein he cautions on using room EQ programs to flatten FR and minimize ringing. It should probably be a last resort, but Audyssey and similar room EQ programs seem to have evolved into being a first order of business in setting up a receiver or processor.

My m60s are set to full band right now as the sub is not capable at all of matching up with them. Sounds like thunder coming from the sub when watching BluRays! It's almost funny hearing it try to produce deep LFE. I imagine that when I get the new sub and can set the 60's to 80hz they will not have to produce lower sounds and can instead be more efficient in their proper regions-will be able to produce cleaner, even louder sound. Is this correct thinking?

Hi MCL,

Yes, that is correct thinking. When you set the M60s to Small and the crossover to 80 Hz, your M60s will still produce some bass, but as frequencies get lower below 80 Hz, the suwoofer will gradually take over the low bass duties that it's better equipped to handle. Given the size of the room, I'd suggest the Axiom EP350 which will deliver really deep powerful high-impact bass in that size of room. If you're not budget-restricted, the EP500 goes a bit deeper and plays even louder, but the differences between the two are not dramatic.

You can experiment with the crossover frequency for the sub--try 60 Hz as well--as well as the Small or Large setting for the mains. Some listeners like the "double-bass" effect of setting the fronts to Large and routing bass to the sub as well. In my room, I get too much bass using that setting.

Regards,

Hi MCL,

Leave the EQ off for all the initial calibration.

Use about 80 dB SPL (use the "C" weighting scale on the sound level meter) at your listening seat to manually calibrate all the speakers, if that's a comfortable level of loudness. Some use 75 dB SPL; others 85 dB, which is quite loud.

And yes, adjust the individual speaker levels to 0 dB, then you can make minor adjustments once everything is set. I run my center channel about +4 dB for better dialog clarity and I adjust the subwoofer upwards or downwards depending on the content of the program. You'll find deep bass content varies quite a lot on Dolby Digital TV soundtracks, movie soundtracks and especially from one recording to another.

If you seem to have a pronounced hump in the bass at a couple of frequencies, where the bass seems too boomy, you can use the manual EQ to reduce the bass level in that frequency region. But trying to boost bass with EQ where there is a cancellation happening in the room never works.

Regards,

Wow, thanks a lot Alan! Really fantastic to have so much input from someone so knowledgeable as yourself. Can't thank you enough.

Matt, the fact that you specifically mentioned explosions and similar dynamic sounds as causing a problem would lead me to propose that the poor sub is the most likely suspect, far more likely than the 805, which has a quite powerful amplifier. As has been suggested, you might at least temporarily set the sub to "No" so that the M60s would run full-range and would be handling the LFE plus redirected low bass from center and surrounds. Putting all of this burden on the M60s wouldn't be ideal, but you might at least try and see if the absence of the sub would lead to a net improvement.

As to your concern whether the Audyssey equalization is being affected by the poor HTIB speakers and resulting in a poorer adjustment for the M60s to try to compensate, you might try setting Audyssey so that it doesn't affect the front speakers, but equalizes the surrounds to more closely match them. With adequate setup and experimentation the majority of users indicate satisfaction with the improvements that have resulted with Audyssey.

As usual John nice catch. I forgot you can do that with Audyssey.

Thanks John, I just learned something new.

I must say that my system is sounding MUCH better now. I still have Audyssey off and finally used a sound meter to set the speakers to 80dbs. I thought surely my receiver wasn't the culprit, at least I hoped so, as it is pretty powerful. I will try that with Audyssey, good suggestion.

It is amazing what a properly calibrated system can sound like, even with lesser speakers.