Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo interesting results w/ loss of vocals

ok. i have been saying that the vocals in my music while listening to 2.1 channel stereo (with sub) i noticed the vocals being quite a bit quieter than the music. almost as if the singer was behind the stage. well i spent a couple hours today at a hifi shop the owner of which is someone i greatly respect. he asked me manyquestions...then said "you don't have LOUD on by any chance do you?"

yes, i asnwered, as i always want things louder....he of course laughed and explained that "LOUD" really just makes more bass and treble, while ignoring the midrange all together pretty much. well, i go home, and turn the "LOUD" off, and what do ya know? there's the vocals returning...now they are still not perfect, but it might be the recording, my front end (i'm using a 100.00 pioneer dvd player, crap i know) or my room. but funny how the vocals and music got a lot better, and a LOT less sibilant and bright with LOUD turned OFF....much much more pleasant to listen to.

if anyone comes here and says they find the axioms too bright, my first suggestion would be to turn off LOUD on the receiver...i think it might be the culpit of many of my troubles thus far.

just thought i'd share. i'll continue to play with it, and yes, i found the EQ settings on the 1015tx...they are kinda hard to get to, but i will play with them now that i found them.

Nice. I'm glad the store owner was able to troubleshoot your issue so accurately. There have been a few threads about that LOUD feature here before, and we are all in agreement that it is very bad with accurate speakers. It was really created to make crappy speakers sound better.

i wish i had known sooner. just that little change made the vocals come out that much more. sounds better now.

I personally never use tone controls of any kind.

You don't play with your knobs Rick? Heck, I can't keep my hands off mine... my girlfreind too!!

Nope, no knob playing here, never

Wid is correct, usually you do not want to have your tone controls on anything but ZERO also. Also, for receivers that have the auto setup, Alan at Axiom has stated many times to turn of the EQ part of this calibration. I have done this on my 2805 and it sounds tons better. I still use the Auto Setup to help with Delay, dB levels of each speaker, and verify polarity. However, when I had the built in Room EQ turned on it mad my Axiom's sound to mid-rangey. Like Peter said, some things can make good speakers sound like $hit.

Glad you found it.

Geez, with all the smart people on this board you'd think ONE of us would have suggested checking the loudness button ;(