Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Impressions of my axioms... with PICS

Ok, so I have had about a month or so to listen to my axioms now.

All technical details aside, here is a quick review of the first month with my axioms.

For those who don't know I got the m80's, vp150, QS8's and ep500. I also just got a denon 3808. I upgraded from a $400 JVC boombox so of course I was expecting a HUGE improvement.
Well, let's just say the improvement was slightly bigger than I expected.

I calibrated everything with the audessey eq auto setup with my denon. I wasn't completely satisfied with the results so I purchased an spl meter and began tweaking. After I moved the furniture around a bit and spread out the m80's some, I re-ran the audessey set up. The results were much better. I fine tuned things a bit with my newly acquired SPL meter, and am very happy with how things sound. I have my m80's 11.4 feet apart, and I sit 11.4 feet away from each one (when sitting in the middle of the couch).

My right surround is next to my brick fireplace, while my left surround is next to my opening to my kitchen. I was concerned that things may sound funny since one surround was close to a corner with the brick while the other was next to the opening to my kitchen (as seen in the photos.) I am pleased to say that I have not noticed any abnormal surround effects due to my placement and can confirm the 'ease of placement' statement regarding the QS8's. The audessey eq did create different eq curves for the left and right surrounds during setup, so it may be evening things out a bit.

I have really been listening to A LOT more music then I EVER used to. I was about 5 minutes late to work everyday in the morning and after lunch for the first week I had my speakers because I wanted to get in 'just one song' or do a 'small amount of tweaking' on my break.

The m80's really do sound as great as everyone says they do. To be honest, I think they sound even better in my house than when I auditioned them. This is of course due to the fact that I was able to calibrate/position/ and tweak things to my liking.

Some music cd's that I have listened to and been really impressed with are:

* Dave Matthews Band and Time reynolds: live at luther college
This cd sounds incredible on the m80's. It sounds like someone is literally playing a guitar in my loving room.

* Pink Floyd: Pulse
The live version of the dark side of the moon is incredible. track number 2 was simply amazing. I swear I heard all kinds of noises coming from my left, right, and behind me. I even got up to check that my center and surrounds were not on.... I was surprised when it was just the m80's creating such a "3-dimensional soundstage". Out of all of the listening that I have done, this cd is the only one that has given my denon a slight problem. I think this cd has a very wide dynamic range, because listening at loud levels the denon breifly 'cut out' and then sound resumed on two occasions. This only happened at 'above normal' listening levels while I was test driving my system.


An audio HD-DVD I listened to was:
* The Eagles Live from melbourne farewell tour I
All I can say is WOW. The sound was crsip, clean and clear. I was able to drive my 5.1 setup to 100 db without the denon giving me a single problem.

Some movies I watched were:

*Hot Fuzz, HD DVD
The last 30 minutes had my living room shaking with all of the gunshots and explosions

*Harry Potter, order of the Phoenix, DVD
There was a particular part of the movie where the proffessor said "I will not go quietly" and a bird came flying out from behind him at the blink of an eye. He clapped his hands and vanished after a loud explosion. I could swear I felt the pressure in my room change from the ep-500, and the explosion went from my fronts to my surrounds in one seamless transition. Between the pressure change and the use of the surrounds, I felt like I was getting blown back onto my couch. I replayed this short segment about 3 times to relive the experience

I also downloaded an LFE demo disk from AVS forum. I watched some scenes from the haunting, finding nemo and others. The ep-500 seemed to do a great job with all the LFE I threw at it. The only problem I have is a slight rattle from the 500 which I have mentioned before. A new amp in en route via DHL as we speak courtesy of axiom's wonderful customer support. Hopefully the new amp will resolve my rattle issue.

Here are some pictures of my setup: Note that we have not hung any pictures up around the living room yet





All wires hidden with the exception of one hdmi cable. I had a 6footer... Need to buy a 12 footer to hide along the baseboard











Please ignore the green floral wallpaper I will be stripping and painting this if my landlord decides to pay me for the task.



Pic of the back of my 3808. Notice the labels on the bananna plugs. I realized that labeling was a good idea since there is no way to trace the speaker cables easily because they are all zip-tied together


Notice the 20+ zip ties used to hide my wires. Also note the ground isolator at the back of my cable box that I purchased from axiom. This product elimnated my subwoofer hum 100%. I was reimbursed $48 by my cable company for it

Moderately nice, T(a reduction in rating had to be made because of the wallpaper). It's good to hear that the cable company did come through with the reimbursement for the ground loop isolator. Enjoy your new sounds.

Welcome to the club! The pleasure will only continue if not increase!

First-off, is that guitar from GH2 or GH3? I have aced the first version and will be picking up number 3 soon. I already played #2 (borrowed from a friend)

Sounds like you are enjoying it. Do you find yourself listening to more 5.1 music or just 2.1? or just 2.0?

I prefer the 2.1 setup over the 5.1. It sounds more natural to me but this is a personal preference thing and most of my CDs are not recorded in surround.

Nice! I would experiment with toeing in the M80's and moving them a bit further from the wall and see how that sounds. Optimally, it's best to have the mains a little more close to you and for the speakers all to be pointing to a point in the middle of a circle.

hammer, that is for guitar hero III, but I think it is the same guitar that they have for GH II. I will be trying to find a wireless guitar possibly in the future.

dan, The m80's are about 7" from the wall or so, lined up with the TV and center channel. I had them toed in a bit more before, and now I am experimenting with a very slight toe in, if any at all.

I will probably experiment with the placement/ toe in some more in the future.

Nice write up and I liked the pics(even with the wall paper).

I just spent most of this afternoon and this evening setting up my new 3808 and I love it.

The Wii has very strong audio signals and I always had to drop the volume on my old Denon 1804 by 10db on the dial, not any more with the ability to set the input signal on the 3808. I just finished equalizing all my input signals. I won't even go into the EQ curves I have, they are just huge roller coasters.

Nice set-up, Enjoy.

That is a very good looking set up.

Nice, terzaghi! I agree with JohnK, points off for the floral wallpaper.

That's a clean and sleek looking set up. I, too, labeled the analog connections--what a help.

Nice setup tersaghi!. You mentioned you had a small "rattle" in your sub. I just bought two EP500s and one had a major "rattle" from the get go. The other lasted 2 days before it too started to "rattle". I pulled both woofers out and noticed that the voice coils had pulled (come unglued or whatever) apart from the woofer (cone?). It may be that somewhere in China a bad run of Woofers made it through. As I type, both of my new woofers are on the way. Should be on my doorstep tomorrow. If the new amplifier doesn't help your situtation, then look at the woofer itself. I can keep you posted on my situation if you'd like.

Note, both times I called customer service, they were extremely helpful and I actually talked to the same person the second time I had to call. The serial numbers on both of my EP500s were one number apart. Maybe that will help the Axiom folks determine the source of the bad woofers? Or at least how many may have made it out of their factory.

Nice job terzaghi, simple and clean and what's this I'm hearing about labeling your cables?? That's cheating!

Your place looks very nice, you ought to be very proud indeed.

Merry X-mas . Your love for the 80s will only increase with time.

Very nice looking set-up. The M-80's are a great looking and more importantly sounding speaker, wise choice. A small "U-channel" to hide the rear surrounds wire wouild tie it all in. Looks great, and I am sure it sounds even better.

I have 2 'cable raceways' I purchased from lowes. The speaker wire is actually inside of those conduits running up the wall.

I may paint them the color of the wall, but my girlfriend likes them white.....

It is a rent house so I am not going to run the wire through the wall or anything.

Never mind it?
I...can't....stop....staring....

I just got a peek at it and noticed it...it really is a lovely shade of puke green.

ok, so I moved my sub into the corner.

Here are some pics showing my new sub placement: sorry they are blurry I took them in a hurry.






I feel the LFE from explosions/ect. during movies a lot better now.

I had to turn the sub down 2 db from the denon to keep music from sounding too 'boomy'. I will leave the sub like this for a while and see what I think.

I think I like it better this way so far. Is it bad to have a sub in the corner of your room?

No, it's not bad if it sounds good .

What's the cross-over in your receiver and the 500?

crossover on my receiver is at 80 for movies and 60 for music.

The crossover on the sub is set to bypass. The volume knob on the sub is at 7 o'clock.

I was playing music with the sub at -12 db and it sounded great.

I turned the sub up to -10 db (which is what audessey set it at initially) for the movie clips I watched when comparing between the two locations.

I thought about adjusting the gain on the 500 so that I would not have to set the sub so low on the denon... but it is already at 7 o'clock and I don't see how that would change anything.

Now set the sub at 40Hz for movies and cross it over at 40Hz in the receiver. Try playing the Eagles and some LFE from Potter or something and see what you think.

If you have LFODH, play the apartment shooting scene in the beginning. At 40Hz, you will feel the machine gun right in your right ass cheek through your couch . You don't get that at 80Hz I bet.

I used my spl meter and my ears and compared the test tone from my receiver through my sub at -12 through -4 db at both locations. I also recorded db levels for a scene from finding nemo and from the haunting on both locations. I checked out the eagles HD DVD live from melbourne, and that is when I notcied that some songs sounded slightly boomy. lowering the sub to -12 db fixed this.

I was thinking about your new 40 hz set up and thought about experimenting with it....

but then my girlfriend got home from work and caught me with a scribbled paper of notes in one hand and an spl meter in the other.

I knew my tweaking was done for the night at that point

.

You know it's a really tough call on the cross-over settings. On one hand I really like the bass that permeates my entire room during the Eagles when I have my Denon on 80 and the 600 on by-pass. But on the other hand, I don't think that this is natural. It might sound impressive but it gets tiring after a while.

And ditto with movies. Doormat said it well when he was at my place recently. We watched the depth charge scene at 40Hz and 80Hz. He preferred 80Hz because it "hit him in the chest". But I preferred 40Hz because it hit me in the gut. I liked the initial kick that 40Hz gave me but he preferred the after-shocks of 80Hz. The sound was certainly more full with 80Hz. It would be great if somehow we could get that "40Hz kick" while preserving the fullness.

I still want a sub that hits me in the chest and the gut at the same time. I've only felt this once in my life and that was at a Trooper concert here in town. The bass was so powerful that it rattled my insides pretty bad and we had to leave after 45 minutes because I was feeling nauseous. It was a very unsettling feeling. My ears were just fine but my stomach wasn't right and my heart was "jittery". Now that I think about it, maybe I don't want that in my own house .

I guess at 30hz it would hit you in the knees...

Once in a while it tickles me a little below the gut and it sure feels fine .

Where's Bren when ya need him

Where would 35hz hit you at?

I am sure there are forum rules that would prevent me from answering that question! 35hz... Geez! There could be children reading this!

T - great looking setup. Well, except for the wallpaper thing you have going.

I have a 3808 on the way as well (to replace a venerable 3803). Very excited about it.

That Eagles DVD is the one I reach for when I want to show off my setup.

Enjoy!!

In case this thread gets dug up again:
(and I just referenced it in a new forum members post),
I thought it best to update this for any newcommers....

The wallpaper has been removed.

See this thread for details
http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=194004&fpart=4

Hey terzaghi,

What type of stereo stand is that, and where did you get it from?

I need something nice to hold 4 components.

- Rick

its is an omnimount stand and I got it from circuit city:
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/OmniMount...roductDetail.do

It is 100 dollars cheaper than it was when I bought it. The only draw back at the time was that I paid $300 for it... looks like its come down in price some since then.

It is very sturdy and can support a lot of weight.

My my.. look at that giant empty wall. If I had a wall that giant and that empty I'd mount a projector screen as big as a whale.

Ditto!

very cool setup,i also have the 3808 denon and currently trying to talk my brother into buying one. anyway love the setup.

Think you could talk your brother into buying one for me? <grin>

If you click on the link that shows the remodeled ktichen you will see I have hung up some pictures on the big empty wall.

No projector in this house... when I buy a house I will be making sure there is a room I can convert into a theater.