Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Receiver for new speakers

Hi All.

I ordered the epic 60 500 from factory outlet thus i'm in my second week of the expected delivery of 5 weeks. During this time I will be looking to buy a receiver. I'm leaning towards the Denon AVR 2809CI or Onkyo TX-SR806. So i'm wondering if any of these receiver will be more than enough to drive my speakers. I live just outside of Toronto so does anyone know of a dealer that has a decent price on one of these units?

Thanks.

Either of those would be excellent choices.

unless you are one of the iron ear drum fan club boys, these receivers are more than adequate to drive the M-60s

The 60's are 8 ohm load and any receiver can handle that.

That's if I heard the question correctly... I'm a bit deaf.

Psi, just to say welcome and join the others in commenting that either of those units should have more than enough maximum power capacity for your M60s. Keep in mind that for an average comfortably loud level around 80dB the M60s will use a bit less than 1 watt. Low levels may use about a thousandth of a watt and brief peaks on some material having wide dynamic range(e.g., some recordings of some classical compositions)may have brief requirements as much as 20dB higher and could require as much as 100 watts, but that's still no problem.

With all the recent talk of Mojo I will translate, "...a bit less than 1 watt", to be the magical 1/2 watt!

Thank you all. Hopefully the speakers arrive quicker than the quoted 5 weeks.

This is the first time buying speakers and I can consider myself a newbie to these things. The only thing I know is how to wire these puppies up.

I'll be mainly used these for movies, music and Karaoke for my wife.

I hope you enjoy them as much as our family enjoys our setup.

Hey Psionic, I'm just down the road from you in Kitchener.

I was all worried about having enough power for my M80s leading up to the purchase. I am now finding that a 100w receiver is plenty of power for me in my 20x11x8 room. I can push these speakers up to uncomfortable levels without any noticable clipping/distortion. At one point I found an online calculator and figured I was using around 60w to get up to 90-95db, louder than I usually listen.

Spend the next 5 weeks figuring out what features you need in your receiver. Thats probably much more important than worrying about power.

Welcome Psi. For being a newbie, you've made a remarkably good choice for your audio setup. Before long you'll be considered the resident home audio expert to whom all of your friends come for advice on how to make their system sound as good as yours.

Welcome to the forums and congrats on your purchase.

Jason

Finally got my speakers after 4 weeks of waiting from F/O order, a week earlier than expected.

Here are some pictures







As you can see, the VP150 center speaker box is damaged, hopefully the speaker is not.

I'll take some more pictures after I unpacked them and hooked them to my AVR.

Santa's back must be in a lot of pain after dropping of that load

Your not waiting until XMas to open those are you? I would at least inspect the 150.

I unpacked the 150 and see no scratches or anything on the outside and the tweeter and woofer looks fine.

Although these speakers were from FO, they all look brand new. No scratches or anything. I'll have to wait until my AVR arrived to test out these speakers.

Congrats Psionic. That is a killer setup you got there!
I am listening to my Axioms as I type this to you:). Looking forward to your impressions or any further questions you might have.

Most of my theater speakers were FO, and they were all excellent.

Congrats on your new speakers, you will really love them!

Congrats on the arrival of your speakers.

Congrats Psi, great times ahead for you!

Thanks all. I'm still waiting for my AVR. The wait is unbearable.

I just bought a tilt tv wallmount. The TV is mounted above the fireplace at about 6.5ft high and the center speaker will be roughly 2 or 3 ft above ear level. Do you guys think I will need to tilt the center speaker downward?

Yes, tilt down slightly, a block of wood or a rubber door stop under the back of the speaker works well.

My center channel is mounted above my screen as well and tilted downward. You definitely will want it that way so it's not shooting the main portion of the sound over your head.

Well, I finally got my system together. I bought a Denon AVR 2809CI to drive my speakers. Been messing with the Audessy setup but always get interrupted so I'm unable to set the mic up at 6 or more different locations. I'll have to try that again when I'm home alone.

For those who has Denon AVR, what volume level do you normally listen to? Is it normal to listen at 0db? The volume range is from -70db to +17db and i'm listen at 0db or sometimes +5 db to get good sound. It feels like the AVR is underpower or something is wrong with my settings.

I have a 3808 and usually have movies around -15 to -20. Two channel music is somewhere around -30 comfortably. I have a small room, though--11x14 roughly.

that is much lower than the level i'm listening at. Something must be wrong with my settings then.

Those volume settings sound quite high to me too, though I have the 3808.

"Quiet" movie watching for me is around -35. "Loud" volumes would be -20 or -15. My speakers are all calibrated to around 75dB. If I was listening at +5 I'd have to close the door and sit in the next room.

The room size/characteristics do come into play. Loud for me is -12db for CDs, and -9db for movies. Comfortable is about -15db. I've never had the system at +5db. I think 0 was as high as I took it, and it was make your ears bleed loud.

Do you guys think there's something wrong with the AVR?

One more thing, anyone know how to remove the "REC" on the display or is it suppose to be there permanently. I went thru the manual and it doesn't show how to remove it but just how to turn it on.

Psionic,

Go through all the settings audessy set for your sub and speakers (distances, gain levels etc) and write them down on a piece of paper.

Then peform a factory reset on the denon which brings it back to the factory settings. Check your manual on how to do this. On my denon it was while holding down speaker A + speaker B buttons press the power button, then the screen will flash in 1 sec intervals, then release the buttons speaker A + speaker B.

Once that is performed go through your settings manually and re-enter the values that are on your sheet of paper (do not run the auto setup with the mic again).

Ok, I'll try that and hopefully that will fix the problem.

Wow...0 or +5 dB? I would definitely do a factory reset (microprocessor reset). Don't forget that you lose *all* settings including input names.

I did a microprocessor reset and my volume has improved. Now I listen to loud music at -15db to -10db, lots of base and very clean sound. The reset also fixed my delay in audio feedback from karaoking so that's a big plus by the wife.

Thanks all.

Now, you have to go read up the Audyssey FAQ on the AVS forum. It may take a few tries but it can help correct some (room acoustic) problems.

Yeah I am really looking forwarding to reading that article and re-running audyssey EQ on my denon 3808. I have to wait untill after Christmas though... My GF decided that the Christmas tree had to go in the spot that my subwoofer was. I will move it back to its spot and buy the $100 feature upgrade and re-run Audyssey on my vacation though.

Geez, thanks for reminding me, I still need to buy the upgrade and Christmas is the perfect time, well maybe a day or 2 before.

You know David..if you keep giving in to her like that, you're gonna be in big trouble down the road. Now in my house, I *wear* the pants, I decide what's important and what's not.......hold on guys, my wife is calling me...


************
OK honey, I'll be right there....oh sure, I'll take that right out....you need that moved, I'm on it....you want *another* purse - sure, no biggie
************

As I always saying, I'm the king of my castle. You better shape up or we'll deduct some man-points from you. Christmas tree where the sub was...where are your priorities man!


Actually that reminds me of a funny conversation. My wife wants to pick up a small area rug so the kids won't get cold when they play. I told her "you know I'll have to re-run the speaker calibration don't you?" To which I got the obligatory "rolling of the eyes" It's a diseases I tell ya!

Why couldn't she just decorate the subwoofer?

Or put the tree ON the subwoofer. I feel a picture from Mark coming on soon here...

In my house the Christmas tree was moved to another room to accommodate the speakers and subwoofer

Anyway David, you need to wear a belt too so your pants is tighter around your waist then it won't be taken off that easily.


Regarding these speakers, what crossover frequency do you set them at? Before when I ran the Audessy setup, it set my front large at 40, surround at small 100, center at small at 60 and subwoofer at 80.

I would set your mains to small and you can keep them at 40 if you like or move them up to 60hz like many of us here have them at. If you like the small setting better than the large or vice versa then run them that way. If Audyssey found some reason to set the surrounds to 100 I would wonder why as Audyssey set mine to 80. I would be inclined to say you could easily drop the surrounds to 80 and see if it sounds better or worse then go with the one that sounds the best.

Audyssey set mine as 80hz for the center and side surrounds and 100 for the rear surrounds (note, the surrounds are all QS8s...)

I run my mains on large and dialed everything else back to 80hz.

Jason

Jason,
You should try setting them to small. Audyssey filters for the sub is much more granular so sending them to your speakers my interfere (since it doesn't go through the fine-grain filters). you have en EP600 so might as well as let it handle the work and give your receiver a break.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've done both and find I prefer it this way. I like my bass.

To your comment though, what did you mean by "sending them to your speakers may interfere"

In that sentence, what is "them" ?

Jason