Installed 2 new M80's yesterday, to replace Energy 22 Ref which went to the back for surround duty.


First impressions after listening for about 1 hour:

Better detail in the mid and high frequencies; voices, both male and female are truer than through the Energy's, in fact they're very impressive.
Ambience is better defined too and sounds more convincing.
Treble is rendered with very high fidelity, is very smooth and detailed (i need to listen to triangles...)

That's it for now, i might give more in-depth comments later on as i get more familiar with the sound.

My brain's break-in was done and finished in just a few seconds, minutes at most; i adopted the sound right away and got a big smile on my face too.

Thanks to all who gave their comments on those speakers; they helped me make a good decision.

Great to hear, JB! congrats on your new Axioms.

Awesome - enjoy the new gear. I am jealous as I need to find a way to fit M80's into my house somewhere!

Welcome to the forum. Thanks for the quick write up, looking forward to some more of your thoughts about the M80s.

Welcome,

Thanks for taking the time to write your first impressions. How long have you owned the Energy ?

J.B, welcome and congrats! Your affinity will continue to expand. I'm marveled every time I listen to my Axioms.

I'd lose the Energy and go with QS8's.

QS8,
I'm always highly impressed with their sound qualty and performance when listening to multi-channels music recordings (SACD - DVD-A - Bluray). Has someone listen to Bluray recording from the Norwegian company 2L ? Totally spectacular ! ! !
http://www.2l.no/

i bought the Energy around 1985.
they're still in excellent condition sound wise, but the foam surrounds are starting to show a bit of wear (rot).

Very cool, Jc; thanks for the link!

85 a good year to get the hell out of high school.

Especially if you were 23 in 1985!

Or 8.

Crap, I remember when Wid was my age, egads I'm getting up there. Hot Tub Time Machine baaaby back to the 80s, lol.

If you got outta HS in 1985 (and you weren't 23), then you're not "getting up there." Not yet. You can still make it a goal, though.

I did beat the grandfather clause and was able to drink legally since 19, most of my frieds had to wait until 21 in college.

I am born in 84...

That's not good LOL.

Congrats on you new M80's. I too was impressed when I listened to mine for the first time.

I'll bet those 2 xtra years really gave you a leg up.
And I sure don't get that "legally" thing.

But then, I've never had any frieds.

I can't believe nobody told you this yet. When you see your M80s for the first time, you're supposed to put on an eye patch and say "Ahoy, M80s!"

I'm never going to talk to you again.

J.B., welcome. Glad to read how you're enjoying your Axioms.

Peter and Ken, I perceive that there's a story here that we'd enjoy hearing about in detail?

I just got M80s, too, and I like the sound a lot --- especially the bass. I did already have some subwoofers, but the bass is better, which I guess is due to the mid-bass the M80s are giving me. However, I do have an amplifier problem driving the M80s, since occasionally they drive my Onkyo 3008 into protection mode. The Onkyo 3008 is supposed to drive 4 ohm speakers, and I don't listen at high levels, so this was a surprise to me. And a couple weeks from now, I'm going to replace my VP150 with a VP180, so I suppose the amplifier problem will get worse. Do you think adding an Emotiva XPA-3 to drive the M80s and VP180 will fix this?

I love it. I'll never see "M80s" again without thinking of this....

No, it's just that that pun was too horrible to go unpunished.

What is the ohm setting in the receiver menu?

Ken's the one who introduced me to the art of puncraft. "Always go for subtlety," he would say. "The best puns slip under the radar of those who aren't playing close attention." He was a good teacher, but a little proud. He hasn't been the same since I sure passed his abilities.

Ah, the smell of jealousy.


Wait, no. . .

I forgot to turn the fan on in the bathroom.

BRB

Who says we're not paying close attention

Greg, it appears that something's wrong which isn't directly due to the 3008(unless your unit is defective), since it should be able to easily drive M80s to beyond safe listening levels(as the numbers indicate, and other users have reported). The most common thing when something like this is present is an intermittent short in the connecting wires(or possibly internally in one of the speakers). Re-connect all the wires very carefully even if they appear to be good now. Try using only one M80 at a time to see if possibly an internal short is present in one of them.

D'oh. The first was a typo.

4 ohms, as the manual specifies. I've seen the advice to leave it on the 6 ohm setting.

I'm quite skeptical about this short theory, but I certainly would test it if I could. The problem is that I don't know how to reproduce the fault, yet.

Absolutely you should leave it on the 6 ohm setting. The other setting will simply limit current and therefore cause it to go into protect much more quickly.

The manual has to say that for the product to get a UL rating. But for performance you should leave it at 6 Ohm.

I wish I had known before I went to Game Stop and asked if they had it in stock!

Kind of figured so, put it back to the highest setting which is 6 ohm on an Onkyo and see how it does then.

Just so you know what the others are talking about regarding the impedance switch read this excellent article. It will explain it all in detail.

http://www.audioholics.com/education/amplifier-technology/impedance-selector-switch-1

Also, if you have the M80's set to large in the bass management settings, change it to small and use a higher crossover point. That will definitely help take some load off the AVR as well.

Thanks, all of you, for the information about the impedance switch. That being in the low setting, and having my fronts -- the M80s -- set to large, may very well be what has sent my Onkyo 3008 into protection mode. Also, I'm using the setting that sends LFE to the large speakers, as well as the subwoofers, so that could also be a factor.

In the discussion thread at Audioholics, there is some dissent from user kaiser_soze that the high impedance setting really is best. I'm looking forward to seeing some test results for this specific receiver about its behavior with 4 ohm speakers at the two impedance settings.

I have my fronts set to large, because my EP500 is using its high level inputs connected the receivers front outputs. The reason for that, in turn, is that the EP500 line-level inputs don't work. (It's obvious that there is a possibility of getting this repaired, so you needn't point it out to me.)

I'm still interested in the answer to the question I asked, if any of you has relevant experience: Would the XPA-3 used for the M80s (and VP180) fix the protection mode problem? I know there might be other remedies, but would the XPA-3 work?

Yes, that would work. I would change the setting first, though. A lot cheaper.

Changing the settings should work. Then with the money saved from not buying an amp you can get the EP500 fixed.

Using any external amp will take a huge load off the receiver and would stop the shut downs, as you are no longer using the internal amps and reducing the load created by them. The early XPA series in the past, didn't play overly well with the M80s, but that appears to have been resolved with the latest offerings.

The XPA-3 would definitely drive your front speakers much easier than the Onkyo receiver. M80s are a hard load for many receivers to drive, get the Emotiva!

as i said in my first post, i will write some updates, once in a while, about the M80 sound.

i just listened to a CD which i had not played for quite a bit of time and which, if one wants good uncompressed reproduction from it, one better have speakers that can take lots of power and a good amp because the last minutes of the piece are a real blast, hitting you with everything the orchestra has.

the piece is Ravel's Bolero, with the MSO, Charles Dutoît, on Decca, a digital recording.

the sound was crystal clear from beginning to end, with no audible distortion and/or compression anytime during the whole piece, even though the end was overpowering in it's effect. (played at "live" levels)

when i had listened to it on my Energy 22 Ref., i could hear a bit of compression near the end, and so a bit of distortion too; the Energy's were pushed to the limit of their capacity.

i used to have an oscilloscope to check what was happening on my sound system; extrapolating from my notes re. playing this piece on the Energy speakers, i can estimate that the amp was now giving about 475-500 peak Watts to the M80s, maybe less, but not my much.
had my amp not been able to produce that much power, the peaks would have been clipped and there would have been some distortion.

i was so impressed by the quality of the reproduction with the M80s that many times during the audition i had tears in my eyes.

very impressive indeed!

Odd! I have only ever shut down my Onkyo 3007 once when I first bought it to test how well it could handle my 3 M80s up front and QS8 surround and rears. I played GOA Trance music with a very intense bass beat in all channel stereo for 30 minutes at 100dB and then switched to 2ch stereo for another hour and a half at 100 dB and everything was fine. To test it’s limits I finally bumped it up to 105 dB and it shut down about 5 minutes later. Since then I’ve never had any shutdowns of my 3007 at any sane listening levels.

FYI all SPL measurements were 12 feet from the M80s.

JB, I also have the Dutoit Ravel performances, and certainly agree that the Bolero can give your speakers a good workout in certain passages. Now, although you hadn't played it and presumably the other Ravel works "for quite a bit of time", you can enjoy this wonderful music more often with your M80s.

Greg, a couple more points. Since we don't know the cause of the "protection mode problem" yet, there's no purpose in discussing spending more money on a guess.

You say that the EP500 line-level inputs "don't work", but do you mean that the external input jack is broken? If so, the output jack works just as well to input the voltage, since it's connected to an internal "Y" arrangement which leads into the sub amp.

The closest approach to your request for comparative results using the lower impedance setting would be in the December S&V test results for the 1008 . Although your 3008 has a bit stronger amplifier section and should handle the M80s with even greater ease when properly set up, the effects of using the 4ohm setting are clearly shown, and would be similar in your case. Note that in one and two channel tests the 4ohm results of 272 and 229 watts were reduced to 65 and 45 watts at the 4 ohm setting. This may not be the only cause for the problem, but voluntarily cutting the voltage output capability certainly doesn't help, and this setting should never be used.

I don't know what specifically is broken. Back when I bought the EP500, I posted here about the problem, and was told about plugging into the line-level output jack. So I did try that.

I don't understand what these tests of clipping have to do with whether the impedance setting causes the receiver to go into protection mode.