Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater M80s to bright for prolonged music listening?

I have read in many discussion forums that people find the M80s to be fairly bright. Considering that 80% of my home theater is used to listen to music for prolonged periods of time, could be M80S be too bright? I realize everyone's hearing is different and the whole experience is subjective. I don't want to have a headache after a short period of time. I currently have Monitor 9's which I consider to be fairly bright. I don't know if anyone has any experience with both speakers for comparison or find the M80s slightly bright for music.

Thanks

My room dimensions are 24 x 20 x 7. It is virtually identical looking to Mojo's (if you continue the back wall straight across where the ping-pong table is). Stairs are in the same place, and support beam. I don't know if this is relevant to adding or lowering brightness in a room, but my walls are just recently insulated to R30. Also I have a very thick commercial carpet (for my wheelchair) with a under pad.

Oh yes, a good reason not to become handicapped is that you'll have to dish out a fortune for carpet because companies don't warranty a residential carpet for wheelchair use. Over $2000 in carpeting just for that room.

This is amazing how often this comes up, the search tool will bring up countless threads on this topic on Axiom speakers being bright, NOT.

Back in the day, being bright was a good thing as it meant your speakers were true to the original source. If you have cd's that were recorded with crappy recording techniques, those flaws will be brought out with Axioms. This is not the fault of Axiom design, which is neutral not bright.

High quality recordings will make you cry they sound so good, your jaw will hit the floor.

For me I want to hear the music as it was intended. If you want to hide what your listening to then get a laid back or muffled speakers.

"...Axiom design, which is neutral not bright.

High quality recordings will make you cry they sound so good, your jaw will hit the floor."

I cannot agree more. I have listened to various recordings with the M80s and found them to be very neutral (can bring tears to your eyes indeed); no editorilazing whatsoever. They can be unforgiving of poor recordings, which can sound bright, but this is cosnistent with them being true to the original source.

John

I agree with the other posters. I keep reading about this "brightness" and does not experience it at all with my M80s. Music sounds just georgous on those babies for as long as you want. Some people like speakers with exagerated bass (it's their right!) and I think this brightness reputation comes from there.

You can see fairly comprehensive frequency response curves here for the M80s at various listening positions. There is no boost in high frequencies.

Also, I think when you hear someone comment about a piece of equipment, you should ask if they ever owned it and if the opinion is their own or someone else's. When you read forums, it is very common to see people pass judgement on equipment that they never heard or used themselves. It is also common to take one person's word on an equipment as the absolute truth. You may want to consider auditioning the M80s and making your own determination on how they fit in to your system, room, and tastes. If there is no audition available locally, you can buy them since you only need to ship them to Michigan within 30 days if you are not satisfied. I think the odds of you returning them will be quite small. Good luck and please let us know of your thoughts if you try them out.

John

Wheelz,

I'd say you got a great deal on carpet for that room. I'm embarassed to say how much mine cost. I had no choice as it was the only pattern my wife and I liked.

R30 won't make a bit of difference because brightness refers to high frequencies and high frequencies will reflect right off your wall surface or be absorbed or diffused by whatever you may have on your wall. Lows however will penetrate right through your wall surface and be attenuated by the insulation.

Onto brightness. You're right in that different people have different ears. Fortunately, I am one who has had my ears tested and if you've been reading my posts, you know that I have mutant-like ears. The audiologist didn't have the requisite equipment to test how high and low my ears can really go. So I can tell you, as someone with exceptionally excellent hearing, that the M80s are NOT bright. I can (and do) listen to them for hours at a time without fatiguing.

They are however extremely clear and revealing as others here have mentioned. I wouldn't have it any other way. You will definitely enjoy these speakers. Just make sure you can sit at least 8 feet away from them.

wheelz,
I have always contended that the Axioms are a bright speaker, since the first day i reviewed them until today.

The graphs do show changes and swings in the upper frequencies though many continue to say they don't exist, i'm not sure why.
Between 1.5kHz and 3kHz on the first graph, there is a difference of approx. 3dB though it is an older graph. The newer graph of the M80 that Ian posted has trimmed this difference to about 2dB. The 3kHz to the 5kHz range sits almost 2dB above most of the midrange. This could easily account for what some people hear as the 'bright' part of the Axiom speaker, even though the frequency response is still very good (at least until you hit that slight crazyness at the 200Hz mark).
I personally own the M60s which you can see in the 3rd graph. I look at that graph and think the midrange of the M60 is more flat on average compared to the M80 but it also has a slight elevation in dB in that 3-5kHz range. I run my M60s with a resistor on the tweeter and i am very happy with the results.

Anyone who says Axioms are ruler flat are blind, though they will contend they still have good ears.





I have heard other brands, good quality and bad. I own other brands and i still own Axioms. In fact, our whole media room is setup for a 7.1 system which 5.1 of it is all Axiom (2 speakers left to fill in at some point and we're thinking about swapping the EP350 for the EP500). I'm not giving up my Axioms, over my cold, dead, sweaty hands....etc.

The bottom line is this:
what sounds good to you?
what sounds good in your room?

Personally, with a hard room, i would probably go looking for a more recessed speaker because i know the room will have hard reflections (as Mojo mentioned). The sound dampening in our media room is great and the Axioms have never sounded better.

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at least until you hit that slight crazyness at the 200Hz mark

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Ians quote on the subject.

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In reference to the little dip and rise at 150 Hz in the M80 compared to the M60; it is just the microphone positioning being up right under the tweeter and only 2 meters back in the anechoic chamber giving it an increased angle of attack on the very tall M80s.

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