Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo m50 to m80 upgrade questions

hello all,

Purchased my m50's about a year ago and am still very happy with them. Just so happens though that my parents are looking for speakers and the m50's may be perfect for them. They owe me some cash so i figure maybe give them my 50's and put the extra towards getting me some m80's.
I am currently powering them with an h/k avr430 and they are just fine but the last couple house parties i've had i wished i could crank them up a little bit more but seemed to run out of room. Would m80's help here or would the sound just be a little fuller? Is the avr430 not going to cut it at loud levels? I've read that the h/k's should take the 4ohm load no problem and give me a little more wattage as well. Room size varies as for each party i seem to set up the house a little differently.

Thanks for the info.

-adrian

Adrian, although I've never heard the 50's, I have owned th 60's and the 80's, I'm guessing since the 80's will play louder and fuller than the 60's, you would probably see quite a bit of difference bettween the 80's and the 50's in terms of volume and filling the room.

It depends on whether the speakers or the amplifier is the limiting factor right now. It's kinda hard to describe the difference in sound and swapping in borrowed equipment is usually the best way to tell.

EDIT -- also, you don't want to be running the system at the limits and trying to figure out what kind of distortion you are hearing -- that's how you damage stuff

If the speakers are hitting their limits first, ie they are starting to sound "compressed" and not getting much louder as you turn up the volume, the M80s will make a huge difference.

If the receiver is the limit (sound starts noticeably distorting at high volumes) then you should see a "noticeable" improvement in headroom with M80s but not "night and day".

There are two factors which will make a difference if the receiver is the limit :

Sensitivity -- 91 dB vs. 89 dB anechoic (borderline noticeable)

Impedence -- the M80s are 4 ohm (vs. 8 ohm for M50s) so will, if everyone will pardon the simplification, "suck more power out of the receiver" for a given volume control setting and internal power supply voltage. This should be good for another 2-3 dB, also borderline noticeable on its own

Combined, you should get about a 4-5 dB difference which is roughly "another twist of the volume control". Again, this assumes that the receiver is the limiting factor, not the speakers.

Also, if the receiver is the limit and you are not running a subwoofer now that is another option to consider. Adding a sub and running the M50s/80s in "small" would strip off the lowest (and most power hungry) frequencies, typically letting you play the remaining frequencies at noticeably higher volumes.

EDIT -- but M80s are really cool;)

I would be leaning towards the 80s in your situation, assuming the 50s will fit in their new home. I'm running a 630 with M60s and I don't think the per-channel power difference between HK 430 and 630 is significant.

If you are hitting the limits with your current system then you probably play pretty loud and are going to eventually add a power amp AND upgrade the speakers. Amplifiers seem to get better and cheaper every year, but speaker prices seem to be stable or trending up slightly...

You could get an amp/receiver that goes to 11. that would give you the extra you need.

I agree with Wid. Really loud means M80s and amplification, but you'd be suprised how little power it takes to drive the 80s.

Adrian I don't know your particular setup as far as surrounds and center but another possibility is if you are considering the M80s you may want to also consider a two-channel amp connected with the current receiver to drive the 80s and use the AVR 430 for the rest of your system.

thanks for the help guys. I actually only have the 2 m50's for now. I do have m22's but not part of that system. ( not sure if they would work anywhere, another thread later . I'm thinking i will go for the m80's to just make sure that the only thing i'll need in the future is more power. I bought the m50's when i really did want the 60's/80's but couldn't justify the extra $ at the time. now's a good chance to fix that.

Also a sub will come later but for some reason i tend to like the sound from full range speakers for the type of music i listen to (electronic).

adrian

I'm actually considering a pair of M50s. I think they would be nice down in my studio for XM, etc...

As I've said here many times in the past, I've wanted to try M3s to see how they would handle "less than stellar" recordings and sources, but I've found myself thinking that if it was music only (no HT) and very deep bass wasn't needed, the M50s would probably do very nicely instead of M3s...