Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater System is shipped as we speak (so to speak)

Bob, as another example when I first got my M80's I was so excited to listen I hooked the up to my receiver and started to listen to some music. The speakers sounded like c**p. I couldn't figure out what was going on and was disappointed in my choice of speakers. It was then that I realised that I hadn't redone my calibration for the new speakers. the receiver was still set-up for my old ones. Once I did the recalibrating everything sounded great. I don't know if this is your situation but explore all your options brfore deciding yeh or neh.
Mel N.

I agree mdrew, once I padded/carpeted my basement, it was like night/day difference with the sound. Being a musician, Bob should understand that recording studios are treated for acoustic reflections. The same holds true for your home.

My M80s never sounded anything near what I would consider bright. My room however is treated with sound absorbers on the right and left walls. I noticed right off the bat however that poorly recorded music (many discs from the 80's) sounds terrible on them, and properly recorded/mastered discs sound wonderful. As an example, I had many of Billy Joel's original CDs from the 80's, and they just did not sound good at all. I purchased a remastered version of "An Innocent Man", and it was a night and day difference (I went on to replace all of my Billy Joel CDs with the remastered versions, and the same outcome occurred).

The M80s (IMHO, and from my own experiences) are VERY revealing speakers. They really are the epitome of a garbage in garbage out set of speakers. You should take some time to experiment a bit, maybe share some of your settings with us, and maybe all of us could help you out.

That's surprising Bob, I'm pretty fussy and used to play quite a bit of electric guitar back in the day, perhaps the HFs in my ears are a bit "rolled off" but I am skeptical because so many others find them to be accurate sounding as do I. Perhaps you need a pair of Maggies, which supposedly are uber-realistic. I agree with what others have said regarding the need of the M80s to breathe, depending on the size of your room, you may need to move them out a bit from the wall, at the moment I have mine around 2 feet out based on initial listening, however I am in a preliminary phase of speaker placement. Also, I find they sound better and better as I flesh out the sound system, e.g., 7.1 surround to me sounds much better than M80s alone, and Neo:6 or PLIIx beats stereo for music playback.

Well thanks for sharing, hope you succeed in finding what you are looking for, you clearly have worked harder than most to attain the perfect setup.

Hi Bob,

re: I know that my room is not ideal. 16 1/2' x 13' with the TV in a corner with the speaker on the right side into the 10 x 10 foyer area that extends beyond the back of this corner area.

Please keep in mind the following assumes two channel listening, no sub.

I’ve been trying to picture this in my head. From your statement above, it appears like one speaker is firing out of the corner and the other, the speaker on the right, is firing with no wall behind it whatsoever.

If this is the case, and I hope I’m not being presumptuous, the speaker on the left is going to have an exaggerated upper bass response because it’s firing out of a corner. The speaker combines with the wall and the area becomes a big horn. This would account for seemingly adequate bass. (Just ask the guy’s at Klipsh)

Now the right speaker:

If I’m picturing your room correctly, the right speaker’s rear wave is essentially being fired into infinity, again if this is the case; the bottom end from this speaker would drop out almost completely leaving you with just the higher frequencies. This could account for the overly “bright” response your hearing.

In any case, as I’m sure you know, to achieve great audio one must sometimes make compromises in room location and even furnishings, that being said, you might have no choice but to move things around, speaker brand notwithstanding.

I hope my words have helped. Good luck to you Bob.

Hello BoB/335,

You spent an exorbant amount of time and money with this purchase. Now that we are at this point I hope you post back with more questions pertaining to your setup or give Axiom a call.

Cheers

I do not think it means what you think it means. --Inigo Montoya

Axioms are definitely not exorbitantly (definition: beyond reason) priced. They are very close to the bottom end of the scale (if not THE bottom) if you were to compare them against other similarly good speakers.

Taking into consideration both the amount of time Bob spent on this forum deciding on his brand and choice of speakers (how many posts did he make regarding this?) as well as the money spent on his current system. The average Joe can't afford M80's, EP500, QS8, VP150 and a nice Denon receiver . Bottom line, its a big purchase, he spent a great deal of time on it and I hope he does not give up on it too early.

He does not appear to be open for suggestions.

Nah, he's gone and tweaked his room, found better-recorded CDs, and is in audio heaven right now, unable to drag himself to a computer.