Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Energy RC-10

Just wanted some thoughts on people who have heard it. How does this speaker compare with the Axiom bookshelf speakers? Thanks.

Can't say I've heard the Energy brand, however, I know this subject has come up. You might search for "Energy" in the subject line.

It's been awhile since I listened to a set of Energy bookshlef speakers, other than a set of Take5's my brother-in-law has. I seem to remember the RC10 sounding similar to the M3's

I'm fond of Energy speakers. If Axiom didn't exist my home system would likely consist of Energy speakers. In fact, it was Energy's (and Paradigm's) 'canadian-ness' that led to my discovery of Axiom.

I still have the remnants of an old 'Take5' system floating around at my house acting as kitchen & workout room speakers. They are/were good little speakers. They share the Axiom goal of neutrality and clarity. Energy used to also talk about the Canadian sound research stuff that Axiom touts. I feel that Energy speakers are acoustically very similar to Axiom speakers. Axiom's give you more bang for the buck, but Energy does make good products.

I've not heard any of their 'reference connoisseur' speakers but I did listen to a few from the 'connoisseur' line a few years ago. As I recall, they were good but not good enough to make me want to switch away from Axiom.

My favorite Energy speaker is the 2.3i Veritas. Very lovely speaker. I think it might even be better than the M80. But they're $3,000/pair. Really good, but not worth double the cost over M80's to me.

My Brother has an Energy 5.1 set with floorstander mains that I can't recall the ver. of.

Different house different room but they sound pretty nice. As I recall, very nice vocals and very detailed highs. I think it is safe to say that in his configuration, they required a subwoofer to fill the bottom end way more than my M60s do in comparison. However, if combined with a good sub, they would be pretty nice I think. His floorstander mains have a fairly small, tight cabinet around smaller drivers compared to Axioms florrstanders, which might contribute to it's heavier reliance on a sub.

I can't actually remember if his sub is Energy. I think it is something else actually but I definitely remember the bass to be weaker than my setup, even compared with my living room setup where my cheap Sony sub is just there to help fill the large room a little and the lone M60s do most of the work in full range mode. Downstairs, the M60s with my EP500 is by far superior.

Of course, it's unfair to compare his setup to one with an EP500 and also, it might just have been how he has things adjusted. Maybe he has tuned out the bass potential as a musical preference and therefore my comparisons are made totally unusable.

Thats interesting Peter. If you look at the measurements on soundstage.com for the M22 and RC10, they are very similar. The M22 has a little less distortion, is slightly flatter to 5KHz and has slightly better off axis response.

I have no idea exactly how all this would affect the overall sound though.

Hi,

I've not heard the Energy RC-10, but generally speaking, Energy speakers--when they were still designed and built in Canada--were very good, with similar properties of neutrality to Axioms, perhaps a little less linear overall.

Now, since Klipsch purchased all of Audio Products International (the parent company of Mirage, Energy and a couple of other brands) and the original designers are no longer part of the company, it's anyone's guess what the current line is like. They're all built in China now, and knowing the Klipsch tendency to horn-load all its tweeters, it doesn't auger well for a smooth, wide-range frequency response.

p.s. Peter: "My favorite Energy speaker is the 2.3i Veritas. Very lovely speaker. I think it might even be better than the M80. But they're $3,000/pair. Really good, but not worth double the cost over M80's to me."

Nope, not better than the M80s. I reviewed the big Energy Veritas speakers, and they're very good, but a little dull in the midrange compared to Axiom's M80s. The midrange sags about 3 to 5 dB, which is quite audible. That said, they're very smooth with excellent bass, but certainly not superior to the M80s.

I would hope that Klipsch leaves the Energy lineup alone and not tinker with the designs.

Regards,

Alan

5db is quite a bit of sag!

Out of curiosity Alan. At what point are veriations from flat audible in the mid range. I have seen numbers that vary from 1/4db (pink noise) to 3db with various bits of research to support the different levels.

I am curious what your personal experience is.

Edit: Im am talking about a broad rise or dip in the midrange. I am aware that the narrower the peak/dip the less likey it is to be audible.

Hi Alan,

I have a different opinion of the Veritas 2.3, I own a pair along with the 2.0C veritas center channel.

I find that, at least to my ears, and with that specific pair that I have, the mids are 3 to 5db more prominent, not less prominent. There has always been this "bump" in the mid range and on certain frequencies it's actualy anoying. Not very often but on a few pieces of music I have the mids are to much. They do shine on female vocals though. I also find that I don't get much bass out of them in their current room / location. At one point I was seriously thinking of selling them and getting a pair of M80s to get more bass, but as it turns out, when I moved the speakers to another room in the house, they produce quite a bit of bass so it's the room not the speaker.

My opinion of my Veritas are really good highs, good mids in general but exagerated bump on some material, yet very good on female vocals. Bass could be better, but the room does not help my situation. I should have gotten the 2.4s at the time, one more driver probably more bass.

I cannot compare directly with M80s since I have never heard them yet.

Cheers,
Stephane

Hi Fred,

Broad midrange sags are VERY audible with music. To be certain of my recollections, I went to the Soundstage NRC curves. First, it was the Energy Veritas 2.4i (not the 2.3i) which I heard at length and evaluated so I don't want to castigate the 2.3i. You can see the 2.4i's measurements here:

http://www.soundstagenetwork.com/measurements/energy_veritas_v24i/
Note, the "Listening Window" curve is the best predictor, in my experience, as to what the speaker will sound like in most typically furnished rooms, because it's a combination of the on-axis and off-axis frequency response measurements. As such it best represents the combination of direct and reflected sounds that reach your ears directly from the speakers and reflected from walls, ceiling and floors in typical rooms.

The Energy 2.3i is the sister speaker of the 2.4i with two 6.5-inch woofers rather than the 2.4i's three woofers. I bet the overall curve of the 2.3i would be very similar to the 2.4i, with perhaps a little less deep bass output and extension (the enclosure is 5 inches shorter and less deep than the 2.4i).

On the 2.4i's curve, you'll note that at 1 kHz, the frequency response is -3 dB relative to the bass output between 100 and 300 Hz. Even if you reference the speaker to its output at 1 kHz, the midrange output goes down another 3 dB by 3 kHz, then by 5 kHz climbs back to the roughly the same level as at 1 kHz. Referenced that way, you could say that the 2.4 has a broad hump in bass output with a gradual depression in the midrange.

But our hearing is really peaked through the midrange, so our initial impressions of any speaker's sound will be formed largely by the shape of the speaker's frequency response between about 100 Hz and 4 kHz. The expression "it's all in the midrange" really does hold true. In the history of the NRC's double blind testing over 25 years, the speakers whose midrange response remained within +/- 1 to 1.5 dB through that region were always rated the highest on the listening tests in terms of being uncolored and musically accurate. Not surprising, given that the important fundamental tones and harmonics for most musical instruments fall into this frequency range.

The Energy's response overall is still very smooth, and in blind comparisons with other very good speakers, the differences would be audible but minor--"slightly muted compared to speaker B" "a little bit dull in the mids. ." (speaker B being the M80 v2). These are typical remarks of mine, but overall I would have rated it very well, on almost the same level as the M80 v2, with perhaps a slight edge to the M80 because of its more detailed midrange.

Regards,

Alan