Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater I am just not TOTALLY impressed....

What did these replace?

I am assuming you meant what home theatre setup did I have before?

I have not had any home theatre setup for approximately the last 3 yrs. Before that, I had owned all JBL SVA model setup for probably 4-5 yrs....amazing set of speakers at their price, hard to track down anymore.
Sub was an infinity poo-banging sub....i did not care for it much, but it did the job.
Everything was hooked up to a Sony ES receiver

I Have two 2 channel setups in that same period as well. I had a pair of Energy Connoisseur C-5's with a NAD c340 amp, and was lucky enough to own a pair of magnepan 1.6r for a short time until the cats moved in....damn cats!

Interesting....it was recommended to me when I first set things up to keep all of the speaker levels as close to 0 as possible and to use the volume knob to makes things louder. I wonder why this improved sound for you.

The sound was very laid back with levels at 0 db even with increased volume. Since both me and my wife like the Martin Logan and Paradigm Studio type of sound very much,this was very disappointing. I do not know the science behind it, but after increasing the levels, the sound became much more detailed, almost indistinguishable from Paradigm.

By the way, is there any harm in turning up the levels? I mean am I damaging any equipment?

http://members.cox.net/axiomaudio/

There are a few quick low quality pics of my setup as it is now. Forgive the mess, I just moved into my new place 3 days ago.

There shouldn't be any harm in it. I'd be curious to hear from some of the people that recommended close to 0 for all levels for me though to see if they can explain this. I'd have to dig through old forum messages to find out who it was...hopefully you know who you are.

If your front speakers are not properly calibrated in terms of sound levels, then there is no way you will get an accurate impression. I would actually try listening to some good 2-channel CDs to get a feeling for the M22s alone.

With the lower impedance of the surrounds, I believe they will draw more current and create a lot more sound at the same voltage level, so you may drop the rears in level a bit and keep the fronts a bit above 0.

The M22s have quite good imaging, especially at low volumes, so I would say your receiver is not well-calibrated or you need to play with room placement. I find that I have to spend many hours listening to a wide variety of CDs before I get a firm, stable impression of audio equipment.

Additionally, I wouldn't be surprised if the M22's get improved bass response after you've really broken them in. I believe mine are still breaking in after ~15 hours of hard use, though I have not yet noticed a change in the bass frequencies. The bottom line is to get comfortable with the speakers and either properly calibrate your surround sound or do your critical listening in 2-channel mode.

-Cooper

cblake,

Thats what is bothering me...for 2 channel audio, i really dig the audio. My sub is not wanting to play nicely with them though, as soon as I get that worked out, it will be great im sure.

For home theatre though, I still dont feel like "im there" I feel like i am just watching the movie, listening on a set of speakers. Hard to explain other than just that. It just seems real flat and no real depth.

I'm having a little trouble understanding the reason behind turning speaker trims up 10db. All this does is turn the volume up on a particular channel. Can you explain the effect this is having for you?

curtis

I, too, am confused. Setting channel levels higher should have no effect other than to boost the signal. How does it make it sound better than just turning up the volume?

I believe some more blind tests are in order.