Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Bass test - a bit of trouble

The last 2 minutes of "Saturn" from Holst's "The Planets" played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, under Charles Dutoit. Using this as a test since I'm considering getting a set of m80s, I listened to this on a friend's epic 80 HT system, and to be honest, the speakers couldn't quite handle the very low bass (I think it's a 32 foot organ pipe used in the piece) without turning down the volume.

Anyone have this CD and tried it?

Yes G, the Dutoit is one of the Planets I have and I just re-checked the passages you referred to( I'm sure that you mean the organ entries at 8:01 and 9:07 on track 5)on two different systems. I was able to get some sense of the weight of the organ even on my M22s played without a sub, however if I turned up the volume to increase the effect, the distortion or bottoming was significant. A sub gave the full effect with satisfying weight and clarity. I don't have an M80 and of course I can't be sure of what you mean by "handle", but my general thought is that even a speaker which has bass as good as the M80 can be helped significantly in passages such as these by a good sub crossed over at about 80Hz and well-situated, probably in a corner. I would wonder how your friend had his M80s and EP350(?)set up.

giro,

I share JohnK's concern as to how your friend had his system set up. Was the distortion coming from the sub or the M80s?

He has an HK AVR-525. In further tests, most of the distortion actually comes from the sub (the 'bottoming' mentioned above describes it well); I forgot what crossover frequency he was using at the time. In 2.0 mode, there is a distortion on the m80s at greater than about 0 dB on this amp's volume scale - but it's not as pronounced without the sub (350). Placement might be a bit of an issue here, as he just got the bits and has yet to sort out exactly where to put the sub.

Giro, If you spend some time reading through past posts/threads, you will find that the majority tend to skip on the Axion subs and go with something from Hsu or SVS.

As far as the M80's go, read this review from Sounstage:

Although the M80Tis have tons of deep bass, they didn’t quite reach the earth’s core, as I had first assumed they would. Based upon their low-bass performance, I was expecting the subsonic stuff to be dealt out in spleen-bursting quantities. My usual torture test for low bass is "Squonk" from Trick of the Tail by Genesis [ATCO CD 82668]. There’s some mid-20Hz synth on this track that tends to drive ported speakers berserk. The Axioms, understandably, couldn’t reproduce this note. It must be below the port-tuning frequency and was completely absent. Anyway, this type of bass is very expensive to achieve and completely beyond the design parameters of the M80Tis. If you want 20Hz rumble, get a dedicated subwoofer.

But I just can’t stress strongly enough just how much grunt these speakers have. Listening to "Rubber Shirt" from Zappa’s Sheik Yerbouti [Zappa Records SRZ-2-1501], I was almost literally blown away by the strength, integrity and depth of the bass and drums. There was little to no distortion of the low E note (or thereabouts) of the electric bass that’s central to this track. And this was with an LP and no rumble filter, at lease-breaking levels. The low bass could have been a touch tighter, as the sharp start-stop attack that my reference Hales speakers define so effortlessly was missing, replaced instead by a bit of overhang. But hey, I still loved listening to -- no, make that bathing in -- the Axioms’ rich low end. That a speaker of this modest cost can produce this kind of bass is nothing short of startling.

The entire review is available here: http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/axiom_millenniam80ti.htm