Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners M3's as surrounds?

I'v recently upgraded my recievier HTR-5660 6.1 to RXV-3800 7.1

My speaker set is 5.1 with M60's VP-150 EP-175 and Q-4s.

Because i upgraded my Yammaha and Projector the wife put the brakes on speaker upgrade.

I really need a larger sub EP-500 and 4 Q-8s. Maybe Christmas??

I also have a set of M-3s and a VP-100 that im not using.

Heres my qustion. Could i add the M-3s or VP-100 to my sound system? Would the M-3's make good rear surrounds? or use them as front pressence speakers? Could the VP100 be used as a rear center speaker for 6.1?

Or should i just waite to upgrade?

You could certainly use the M3s as rear surrounds. They probably wouldn't get much of a workout, but they'd work just fine.

Hook them up, tell your wife that the big square boxes are only temporary until you get the real surrounds. It won't be long before she is the one who can't wait for the QS8's.

Why not 8's for surrounds and use the 4's for rears as a midpoint in the upgrade process? I can't imagine that wouldn't be pretty satisfying.

Jeb

I've been using M3's for surround backs for a couple years now. They work just fine. Especially good for multi channel music.

I played with M3's as rears and found they were better for music than H/T.
Using them as Presence speakers up front was pretty cool but they were just too big in my set up...try it out though.

Has anyone tried out the 'presence' speaker feature before?

What sound is sent to those speakers, anyway? And how does it effect the soundstage? I would think it would sound unnatural.

Near as I can tell, presence speakers are something Yamaha came up with, and some of their units contrive signals for them from the L&R channels. The intent seems to be for them to be fairly small, with amp power a fraction of what the other channels get. I wonder about cancellation effects, but haven't seen that concern discussed.

My now long ago thoughts on M22s vs. QS8s as surrounds
link to thread is here

i hate typing all that twice in a decade

I've read a couple of reviews of receivers that have the capability of using presence speakers. In both reviews the reviewer went on for a paragraph about how the WAF is so low for adding these presence speakers that they didn't even bother to review this feature. In the space that the paragraph takes up they could have just reviewed the feature. I too am interested in how this would sound. Is it worth all this extra effort? Although, from what I understand this feature is for music. I would be interested in using it for home theater.

I remember reading an article on how amazing an 11.2 system sounded. The .2 was discrete left and right subs and presence speakers were added to the front of a normal 7 channel setup. There may have been an additional set of side front speakers to get up to 11 channels. I think either Dolby or THX made a few recordings so that people could see the difference over a 5.1 or 7.1 recording. I guess there was a big difference going from 5.1 to 11.2, but not quite as big as the step from 2 channel to 5.1. So, presence speakers should make a difference. Although they will probably never become mainstream since the general public wants speakers to take up less room and not more. Look at how popular sound bars and cube speakers are, for example.

- Nick

I had a Sherbourn and it had "off axis". These speakers were supposed to be placed further to the front right and left, or just slightly in front of the front right and left up further out - like a frist set of surrounds. My set-up was/is with M80s, 150 center, and 2 pairs of QS8s with an EP600. I used a pair of M2s for the "Off Axis" channel. This channel was derived from Front Left/Surround Left & Front Right/Surround Right.
How did it sound? Well, it more noticable with films that had lush scores or musicals. Phantom of the Opera was incredible. It opened the soundstage and had the music filling the entire front wall. No longer was the sound confined to three front speakers. It actually made it seem broader and wider. I guess the effect was a result of what it derived from the soundtrack due to the way it was matrixed.
When I sold the Sherbourn and got an Anthem it had no "Presence Channe" so I've been using the pair of M2s for a center and no longer use my 150 at all.
The idea of a presence might have come from the SDDS theatrical sound system by Sony. Unlike Dolby or DTS it used more speaker behind the screen and has a completely differnt set-up. Which means if you seen a film in the theatre in SDDS (Sony Dynamic Digital Sound) you will never hear it at home the same way due to the very different speaker set-up. No film is transfered onto any home video format in at system and because of it there is not home decoder made. This explains why Sony was slow in releasing DTS soundtracks in the begining of DVD. They had hoped DVD would adopt not only Dolby Digital (which was accepted as a sound format standard) but would also accept Sony's SDDS. It didn't of course and DTS won the second place to Dolby Digital.
- Scott

In recent years I have purchased the higher end Yamaha receivers and/or integrated amps that used the presence feature first with the Pro-Logic soundtracks and later for DD and DTS. As far as I could see they were really the only ones that have continually had this feature. It is basically a sound overlay on the front L/R, surround and rear surround speakers to provide more depth and expand the soundstage and also gives you the capability of manipulating the effect to taste(delay, room size etc.). As far as the front L/R, you have the option of integrating the presence sound into these speakers without even having the extra set for the front presence effect. Yamaha's latest flagship receiver(Z11 $5000) has the 11.2 function which provides separate amps, in varying power levels for 11 channels. That is if you want to max out the capabilities, have the space and no WAF to worry about. A number of companies have had similar presence features, but you could only use them on two-channel stuff. Yamaha gives you the capability of overlaying the presence feature over "any" surround system.

I have found it to be a very worthwhile feature in acoustically dead rooms, especially for movies.

A review of the RX-V4600 in 2006 where the reviewer make a couple comments on presence speakers...

Review

From the conclusion...
"It's always a difficult task to pack up a Yamaha receiver after my review is over and I almost always miss the Presence channels for use with cinematic and concert movies. The RX-V4600 is certainly no exception in this instance. Until then, I leave my extra speakers in place and an open theater chair for their next round."
Conclusion