Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Questions Regarding Axioms

Hi, I've read SO many great things about Axiom speakers recently so I decided to do some additional research on them.

I noticed that you use a rather light vinyl veneer for the speaker casing. I know this saves a LOT of money on production costs, but doesn't a vinyl veneer generally degrade the sound?

Also, I read that you don't use dampening materials within the speaker but rather you cut the speaker asymetrically. How does this improve the sound quality?

Next, I see where you use titanium and aluminum as the tweeter and woofer materials. Isn't it true that these materials generally create highs that can be almost piercing sounding? How do you control the highs so that they're not too harsh without degrading the sound? Thanks so much for your help!!
Bob

The use of vinyl veneer for the casement is by far the most common material in the industry. There is no sound difference between various veneer finishes, vinyl or otherwise. The trick to loudspeaker enclosure design is to not have the cabinet creating any sound of its own. This is accomplished by core material thickness selection and bracing that compliments the maximum energy created by the driver. Axiom is extremely experienced at proper cabinet design and hence the great performance.

The use of damping in the Axiom products works in conjunction with the cabinet shape. The damping placement inside Axiom speakers is directly behind the woofers. This placement is very favourable from the point of view that the sound waves inside the cabinet are travelling at their fastest speed in this location. Further to the damping the asymmetrical cabinet shape also aids in reducing the internal sound waves, in fact more so than the damping itself.

The use of metal for cone bodies is definitely "tricky business". Axiom has been experimenting with, and using, metal cone driver technology since 1985 in order to extract the enormous benefits of this material and avoid any of the issues you were asking about. We completely avoid any resonant problems with metal drivers through the design of the drivers themselves.