Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Review: Finally replaced m22 surrounds with QS8's.

Well, the day has finally come. The QS8's are up.

I started this love affair 4 years ago with a pair of m22's as mains and a VP150. Last year, the m22's were upgraded to m80's, and the m22's went to the back to act as surrounds. As of yesterday, the m22's are now 'homeless' and the QS8's are up.

Factory outlet ordered on March 5, shipped on March 20 (almost a week ahead of schedule), and delivered on March 22. Talk about fast shipping. Go Fedex. These are the first factory outlet speakers I've ordered from Axiom. Like most, I am very impressed with their quality. To be fair and honest, however, I have found 'the flaw' in one of them. As far as I can tell, one QS8 is perfect. On the second one, one of the rear brackets is slightly (and I mean slightly) crooked. I'm using the stock mounting brackets, and it took just an extra moment of 'fidgeting' to get it to seat properly on the 'T'. No big deal what-so-ever. It's up, it'll come down if/when I eventually move.

After recalibrating my system, my wife and I sat down to put the QS8's through their paces. We started off with a little multichannel SACD music. A Telarc SACD Sampler, to be precise, as this album's tracks are specially picked to show-off multi-channel sound. Some tracks are almost mixed like a movie, with ambient effects in the rears, while other tracks have elements mixed hard into specific channels. I had some reservations about how the QS8's would work with highly directional sound. Very impressive. We immediately noticed that 'enveloping' quality of the QS8's that are so widely praised. The speakers utterly vanished into the space of the room and greatly increased the depth and spaciousness of the performance. One track in particular is recorded in a small club, with the audience mixed to the rear and the performers on the front channels. Magnificent. The ambience of being IN that club was astounding. Rather than two distinct rear channels, the QS8's filled in the middle and it really sounded like we were actually there. So much so that my cat even noticed the difference. No really. Someone drops a glass or a plate in the audience mid-way through the performance. The cat, perched on a chair across the room, perked up his ears and looked at a space between the QS8's when it happened. That's pretty incredible.

Then we put on a DVD. Specifically, Master and Commander. For those that don't know, the opening scene of M&C has a fantastic naval battle, filled with both wall-cracking cannon fire and enormous amounts of rear-channel fill in of ocean, rigging, foot steps, shouts, etc. In a word, it was stunning. I can't really say much that hasn't been said before. The QS8's made the scene feel more real than ever. The creaks of the ship, the wood shattering from cannonballs - all of that was seamlessly painted behind and around us. Somehow there even seemed to be rear-channel depth to the scene. That is, voices shouting right behind the camera angle sounded much closer than the waves crashing against the ship further away. I hadn't really ever noticed that before. Pretty amazing. Zero directionality. Pure envelopment. Fabulous!

My M22's worked pretty well as surrounds, but now I totally understand why Axiom makes QS8's. Different ballgame completely. The M22's are still great speakers, but they are what they are. They're now going to be a second stereo-only system in another room, where they will shine. The sense of scale and the utter dissapearance of the QS8's into the background is incredible. These babies are worth every penny. I can't believe I waited this long to buy them!

Thanks again, Axiom!

Great write-up, Peter! Like you, it took me years to get QS8s, but now that I have them I am astounded by their ability to create a wide and expansive soundstage. They definitely upped the movie ante to "11."

Well done, Peter.

QS8s truly are an excellent surround speaker.

I've also found they work so good in 5.1, that I don't feel like 7.1 is even needed. (way to pass on more sales, by making stuff too good... :-P )

Peter, Nice write-up. I whole-heartedly agree that the QS8s are a fantastic product.

Why not try the m22's as rear surrounds. On the audioholics website I remember a review where the guy used your same setup and m80's for rear surrounds. He though it was a great way to set them up. Link:

http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speakers/floorstanding/axiom-audio-epic-80-600/page-5
You might be able to get a similar effect if your room is large enough.

- Nick

You give Peters a good name. Somebody needs to balance it out, I suppose.

Thanks for the review.

Wow, that is a fun review to read...

The summary page is great:
http://www.audioholics.com/reviews/speakers/floorstanding/axiom-audio-epic-80-600/page-6

Though the way he goes on and on about the 600 sub is making the wait for mine to be finished all the more painful!

Thanks for posting (I think)

Thanks all for the kind words.

My gear supports a 7.1 setup, and I've tinkered with it before using an old (but good!) pair of Energy Take 5's as rear surrounds. It was fine, but it really didn't seem to add much more to the experience.

The room setup & size is simply not conducive to a 7.1 setup. Especially with the QS8's.

Besides all that, both my wife and I are very much looking forward to having the M22's set up in our bedroom in a 2.1 channel system. We've wanted to do that for years, and I've got the 'green light' to purcahse whatever equipment is necessary to make it happen.

...and you get to define "necessary", right?

Sweet.

Just last year I bought a couple of M2's to serve as the rear surrounds in my 7.1 set-up. I thought that 4 QS8's would be overkill and when someone suggested M2's I jumped at that scenario. I'm glad I did. The rear surrounds do make a difference in certain scenes, and 7.1 Blu-ray disks like 3:10 to Yuma are amazing. One scene during the stagecoach robbery has a bullet travel from the right main and ricochet from the left QS8 to the rear M2. Once you hear a good 7.1 set-up, you won't go back.

My room is only 12 feet wide with the qs8's on the side walls. I was considering 2 m2's as rear surrounds but was thinking that my room is two narrow to really make good use of them. How wide is your room? Also, in a 7.1 setup should you move your qs8's from slightly behind the listening position to right at the side of the listening position to take advantage of the m2's as rear surrounds?

- Nick

My room is 13.5 feet wide and I have the QS8's positioned beside the listening position. The QS8's are wall mounted and the M2's are hung from the ceiling. I've found that the direct radiating M2's as rears complement the QS8's perfectly.

Of course!

The only concern I have with putting the surrounds right next to the listening position is that most dvd's are 5.1 rather than 6.1 or 7.1. So when I am using 5.1, the surrounds will be not in the optimal position (ie a couple feet above and behind the sweet spot). However, there is an option to extend 5.1 to a processed 6.1 for regular dvd's (using dts neo 6 or dolby pxl II?). But, are there options such as these on newer receivers with the new audio codecs such as dolby true hd? What is mean is can I extend dolby true hd 5.1 to 6.1 with some processing on the new recievers while keeping it uncompressed? Also, what if I have uncompressed 5.1 pcm...Is there a way to extend this to 6.1 without downconverting it to lossy first?

- Nick

I have a new Denon AVR-3808CI--great, great receiver. With the Audessey calibration it knows where I sit and how many speakers I have. It'll convert 5.1 to 6.1 or 7.1 with no problem, if that's what you mean.

When using native 5.1 source, you can use Dolby EX to extend signal to 6.1 or 7.1 without touching the front channels.

But, what about the new high def formats. If I have 5.1 pcm uncompressed (or dolby true hd or dts master audio) is it possible to convert it to 6.1 or 7.1 inside of the receiver (or blu ray player) and still keep it lossless?

It's all converted to PCM before any of the DSP problems and chips are applied (including bass management). So, whether the source was lossy or not, those portions of your receiver will not see the diffence (but your ears just might!)

Nick, there's no relationship between digital compression(e.g. the DD or DTS audio in regular DVDs)and applying a processing mode such as DPLIIx to send some of the surround material from the side surround channels to back surround speakers. If a format is uncompressed(e.g. regular CDs, some sound on BluRays), that's inherent in the format and can't change.

This answers my question. But, do these signal processors all sound the same for movies? Does DPLIIx sound better than Neo6 or some other one on movies? I noticed there is a music thread about this and some prefer one over the other for different types of music. Will my movies sound as good in 5.1 with the qs8's in optimal position (2 feet above and behind the listening position) compared to in DPLIIx synthesized 7.1 with the qs8's mounted to the side of the listening position and some m2's on the rear wall?

- Nick

A lot of it is personnal taste and your room (placement, acoustics). For my own taste, I usually use PLIIx for stereo movies, Dolby Ex for DD5.1 and THX Ultra2 Cinema for the hi-res coming either bitstream or in PCM.

In all honesty, the move from 5.1 to 7.1 is the one that had the least impact in my setup. I'm glad to have 7.1 (Stargate's BlueRay DTS:HR EX:6.1 has some glorious fly-by back-suround effects), but it remains last in my priorities.

To answer your specific question (with a slight change of algo), I would think that a 5.1DD track in 7.1 with Dolby EX and some M2s at the back would sound a bit better (more real) than a plain 5.1. It's all a matter of how much more (both in $$$ and in enjoyment).