Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater External Amp on it's way....

Here's some posts/pics from an Emotiva get together.I noticed they had some M80s in attendance as well as some other speakers.Looks like a room I'd like to be in.I know some people have had some issues with the Emo amps but there are quite a few Emo/Axiom combos that do get along and sound sweet.Just scroll down.

http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=off&action=display&thread=5370&page=8

Looks like a great time to me. I would love to be part of a GTG. I liked what the guy had to say about the M80's...



Nice. Let the M80's bad rep be dispelled one GTG at a time!

M80s are ear bleeding bright, lack bass and hard to drive, say anything else and you may rip apart the time-space-continuum. Well at least at a certain forum.


P.S. almost forgot they also have to many tweeters, poor build quality, cheap crossovers and look crappy. Did I forget to mention that they are reeeeaaaallllllyyyyy bright.

Well actually I have to agree with the lack of bass comment. If you disconnect the bottom 4 drivers and run only the two tweeters, then I'm afraid the M80's really do lack bass. Oh well nobody's perfect!

Day four living with my XPA-3 and I have to say, I'm probably going to be completely def by the time I'm 40 (I'm 38 currently). The reason? Well I've been listening to my music really loud lately, and not even noticing it. When I first turn it on I seem to be able to tell that it's actually pretty loud and I turn it to sane levels. But the more I listen, a certain song will play and I'll go, "oh, I have to turn this song up", and then I wind up leaving it there. Then another favorite will come up and I'll do the same and so on and so forth.

But what I've come to realize is that when your playback signal is clean you hardly notice how loud you are actually playing it. UNTIL someone tries to say something to you, and they are practically screaming at the top of their lungs, and you can barely hear them!!! That's when I suddenly realize I have the stereo really jamming, and I turn it back down. But then it suddenly sounds really, really quiet, and I long for the higher volumes again! This could be a very damaging purchase I have made.

But God does it sound good!

Yeah, Micah; the guys who reviewed the M80s like that weren't able to see any use for those little metal strips on the speaker terminals, so they just took them off so that they wouldn't "degrade" the sound.

Seeing your second post, you're right, that can be a problem. "Clean" sound that's too loud is just as damaging to your hearing and can sneak up on you because of the lack of distortion. I'm into audio to enjoy music and not to cause me permanent hearing damage while paying more for the privilege. Typical average volume of 70-75dB with split second peaks of up to 20dB more on the most dynamic classical recordings is fine. When listening "loud" on occasion that average can be raised to 80-85dB and the peaks are still easily handled by typical amplification.

I know that keeps happening to me! Just the other day watching “Hunt for Red October” James Earl Jones sounded like Tomoko Kaneda

The little one on the left

To add to your point John, I find, for me, classical music is the most dangerous of music types for me to turn up to high, only to be blasted somewhere in the middle.

So many classical pieces start off very softly and if this is the first music I'm playing when turning everything on, I'm tempted to adjust the volume up only to have it eventually get much much louder. It's not as bad if I have been playing other things as I already have the volume set at a comfortable level and am less tempted to touch it.

This is also partly due to me being still mostly unfamiliar with my classical recordings to predict the swings in peaks and lulls. Actually, you are partially to blame for that because I have bought way more classical lately than I could ever become super familiar with. But that's a good thing.

I thought volumes levels were not noticeable unless you went up 1db or 3db, I can't recall which? If it only takes 0.1db to notice better bass, clearer sound, and better staging, then why do we always hear that you need a 1,000 more watts to notice a difference? I missed something in this exchange.

70-75? Good Gawd man, your missing out. Ray Brown's stand-up bass does not sound the same at 70 db as live. Sorry, just doesn't. You can feel the music in your bones live with each pluck of the strings. And there is no pain involved! Same for pianos and horns and drums. But I agree with you, a $20,000 amp would not make my computer speakers sound better at 75db. But why use Axioms, et al., for that level? To each his own, but seems like overkill for someone offended by the amount of overkill in this industry (which there is a great deal of).

Yours Truley, Honorary Head of the Pixie Dust Brigade.