Ok, so I have had about a month or so to listen to my axioms now.
All technical details aside, here is a quick review of the first month with my axioms.
For those who don't know I got the m80's, vp150, QS8's and ep500. I also just got a denon 3808. I upgraded from a $400 JVC boombox so of course I was expecting a HUGE improvement.
Well, let's just say the improvement was slightly bigger than I expected.
I calibrated everything with the audessey eq auto setup with my denon. I wasn't completely satisfied with the results so I purchased an spl meter and began tweaking. After I moved the furniture around a bit and spread out the m80's some, I re-ran the audessey set up. The results were much better. I fine tuned things a bit with my newly acquired SPL meter, and am very happy with how things sound. I have my m80's 11.4 feet apart, and I sit 11.4 feet away from each one (when sitting in the middle of the couch).
My right surround is next to my brick fireplace, while my left surround is next to my opening to my kitchen. I was concerned that things may sound funny since one surround was close to a corner with the brick while the other was next to the opening to my kitchen (as seen in the photos.) I am pleased to say that I have not noticed any abnormal surround effects due to my placement and can confirm the 'ease of placement' statement regarding the QS8's. The audessey eq did create different eq curves for the left and right surrounds during setup, so it may be evening things out a bit.
I have really been listening to A LOT more music then I EVER used to. I was about 5 minutes late to work everyday in the morning and after lunch for the first week I had my speakers because I wanted to get in 'just one song' or do a 'small amount of tweaking' on my break.
The m80's really do sound as great as everyone says they do. To be honest, I think they sound even better in my house than when I auditioned them. This is of course due to the fact that I was able to calibrate/position/ and tweak things to my liking.
Some music cd's that I have listened to and been really impressed with are:
* Dave Matthews Band and Time reynolds: live at luther college
This cd sounds incredible on the m80's. It sounds like someone is literally playing a guitar in my loving room.
* Pink Floyd: Pulse
The live version of the dark side of the moon is incredible. track number 2 was simply amazing. I swear I heard all kinds of noises coming from my left, right, and behind me. I even got up to check that my center and surrounds were not on.... I was surprised when it was just the m80's creating such a "3-dimensional soundstage". Out of all of the listening that I have done, this cd is the only one that has given my denon a slight problem. I think this cd has a very wide dynamic range, because listening at loud levels the denon breifly 'cut out' and then sound resumed on two occasions. This only happened at 'above normal' listening levels while I was test driving my system.
An audio HD-DVD I listened to was:
* The Eagles Live from melbourne farewell tour I
All I can say is WOW. The sound was crsip, clean and clear. I was able to drive my 5.1 setup to 100 db without the denon giving me a single problem.
Some movies I watched were:
*Hot Fuzz, HD DVD
The last 30 minutes had my living room shaking with all of the gunshots and explosions
*Harry Potter, order of the Phoenix, DVD
There was a particular part of the movie where the proffessor said "I will not go quietly" and a bird came flying out from behind him at the blink of an eye. He clapped his hands and vanished after a loud explosion. I could swear I felt the pressure in my room change from the ep-500, and the explosion went from my fronts to my surrounds in one seamless transition. Between the pressure change and the use of the surrounds, I felt like I was getting blown back onto my couch. I replayed this short segment about 3 times to relive the experience
I also downloaded an LFE demo disk from AVS forum. I watched some scenes from the haunting, finding nemo and others. The ep-500 seemed to do a great job with all the LFE I threw at it. The only problem I have is a slight rattle from the 500 which I have mentioned before. A new amp in en route via DHL as we speak courtesy of axiom's wonderful customer support. Hopefully the new amp will resolve my rattle issue.
Here are some pictures of my setup: Note that we have not hung any pictures up around the living room yet
All wires hidden with the exception of one hdmi cable. I had a 6footer... Need to buy a 12 footer to hide along the baseboard
Please ignore the green floral wallpaper
I will be stripping and painting this if my landlord decides to pay me for the task.
Pic of the back of my 3808. Notice the labels on the bananna plugs. I realized that labeling was a good idea since there is no way to trace the speaker cables easily because they are all zip-tied together
Notice the 20+ zip ties used to hide my wires. Also note the ground isolator at the back of my cable box that I purchased from axiom. This product elimnated my subwoofer hum 100%. I was reimbursed $48 by my cable company for it
