I had the same feeling with my M-80s when they arrived. Bass was powerfull... a tad too much. Mid-range weak, almost abscent... Tried placement... Still there... Then I remembered a phenemenon that I had nicknamed the "live performance syndrome". To remove all amps and speakers from the picture (because they can be tempered with), I will stick to a string quartet performance. At some point, I went to a concert of a quartet that I listened often (on a system with no good bass). The cello in the live performance was just too loud. I stayed the entire time, but was unhappy because, for some reason, the cello was playing too loud. Performer or room?

Then it happened a second time (different room) and a third... And then I talked to people I know frequently going to concerts. The ones going to rock concerts were adamant that the sound engineers were boosting the bass, while the ones frequenting classical concerts were in two segments: a) those saying it was an unfortunate consequence of walls (sic) b) those saying that this was the correct sound and it was not captured on CD.

Well... with that in mind (and knowing that my ears had to adjust to different sounding speakers anyway), I kept listening and then realized (especially after a few DVD-Audio on those M-80s) that the "extra bass" (now for me a.k.a "the correct bass") in the live concert IS indeed captured on CDs. It is just never heard unless you have very deep speakers or a very musical subwoofer (like the EP-500, which is absolutely superb with music).

If you think this story case applies to you, believe you me, once your ears have adjusted properly (it took me about 10-20 hours), you will never want to loose those bass, especially if you have once heard them in a live performance. And, like me, you might then re-listen to everything you own to re-learn how it was supposed to have sounded in the first place!

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