Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo my audio system is running, but...

Finally I got my receiver and held my breath to try out my first audio system with M60. The first song that I tried was "once upon a dream" by Linda eder in "jekyii & hyde". Unfortunately, the sound is not as good as I expected. I saw at some forum that people found a second life of their CD collection when they set up their new system. I do not feel the same way. especially when I used very low volume, I did not find any amazing improvement of the sound as compared to my JVC mini bookself steoro. My feeling is that the sound is flat at low volume.

I know there are a lot of happy M60 owners here. I am thinking I should have learned more from you guys. What I should do first is to figure out what is the weakest point of my system. Here are the components:

Speakers: Axiom M60 (a pair, only two channel)

Receiver: Denon AVR-2105 (7.1 A/V receiver, 90 watts per channel at 8 ohms, 20 Hz-20 kHz, <.08%THD), SRP $649, bought at $408 through Internet dealer

Soundsource: Denon DVD-1920 (univesal player, can play DVD, CD, SACD, Mp3, etc..Burr-Brown DSD-1608, 24 bit, 192 kHz Audio DACs with discrete decoding of PCM and DSD audio signals), SRP $349, bought at the same price

Audio interconnect: Acoustic Research RCA interconnect (from CD play to receiver), gold-plated, 3 ft, $24. (I am using the DAC circuit in the DVD-player instead of the receiver since I thought the Burr-Brown DAC is supposed to be better)

Speaker cable: Axiom, 9 ft for each channel, bare wire on speaker side, Axiom banana connector on receiver side.

Another major weak point may be my CDs and MP3's most of which do not have audiophile quality.

The only other system that I have audited is a pair of $700 paradiam speakers (cheaper than Axiom M60) with $3000 B&W seperate amps and a $300 NAD pure CD-player. At the time of audition, I thought the system was not good, expecially the speakers. But compared with my own system now, I am thinking that Paradiam system is even better. I tend to believe it is caused by the difference of amps. I am not sure if it is the AVR -2105 receiver to blame. One last major reason for all this may be that I have had such a high expectation on the audio system. With a $2000 system, maybe that is it.

Do you have the speakers set to large and no sub ?

I'm thinking the factory default on the 1920 should have the speakers set to large. I *think*!

It sounds to me like a setup problem somewhere.There's is no way a JVC mini system will sound better at any volume than his current set up.Something is wrong somewhere.

In reply to:

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I am using the DAC circuit in the DVD-player instead of the receiver since I thought the Burr-Brown DAC is supposed to be better)

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Check the settings in the player.Also check the settings in the receiver.

I don't think there are any obvious weak links in your equipment... my first thought is also configuration or room characteristics.

A couple of questions, some obvious but...

1. Have you had a system in that room which you felt DID sound really good ? Some combinations of room dimensions can result in fairly uneven response unless you really work on speaker placement.

2. Are you 100% sure the M60s are wired in phase ? The most common cause I have found of "these speakers suck especially at low volume" is being wired out of phase. Please don't be offended but some really knowledgeable people get the wires mixed up occasionally

3. Can you tell us a bit about the room, particularly dimensions, floor covering, and what is on the walls beside the speakers and behind your ears ?

John

Could be "charact-ear-istics.

Controversial but not unheard of.

True. There are also the other contentious little issues like break-in (which I believe it but which still seems to be worthy of a good tarring and feathering whenever I mention it ).

I just find that in my own house there is such a huge difference in how all my speakers sound depending on the room. Up in the master bedroom (good dimensions, no openings other than conventional doors) the bass is great even with M3s and the imaging is astounding. Down in the basement (double-square dimensions, big openings for bar and hallways) the imaging is lackluster and the bass response is horrible even with the big honkin' SVS subwoofer.

If I wasn't moving to a new house soon I would do something about the basement acoustics but I have sworn off fiddling with audio systems until I get this house cleaned up and listed for sale.

Back to the original post :

One thing worth mentioning... I do find the M60s sound relatively crappy with a lot of the modern radio stations which heavily compress the audio to sound good on car radios. It was enough of a problem to really bother me until I found that *some* late night music broadcasts run with much less compression because the target audience is at home with good speakers or headphones... THOSE programs sound fantastic on the Axioms so I stopped worrying.

I would be careful with the MP3s -- I'm not set up to play them through the HT system but they might not be good for evaluating the speakers.

"One thing worth mentioning... I do find the M60s sound relatively crappy with a lot of the modern radio stations which heavily compress the audio to sound good on car radios. It was enough of a problem to really bother me until I found that *some* late night music broadcasts run with much less compression because the target audience is at home with good speakers or headphones... THOSE programs sound fantastic on the Axioms so I stopped worrying."

John, just curious if you have considered either XM or Sirius satellite radio with your system. I know XM has a quality tuner for the home system, I don't know about Sirius.

Don't mean to hijack the thread by any means.

Good question. I haven't really looked into it but probably should...

There is some kind of intense political wrangling going on up here in Canada about satellite radio, haven't really been able to grasp what the issues are although I suspect Canadian Content is at the heart of it somewhere. I don't *think* companies are allowed to sell satellite radio receivers up here yet but not 100% sure.

Another thing to check-are the straps between the binding posts in place? If they're not you may just be running the woofers or the mids/tweeters.