Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo M80s vs. M60s vs. M60s+sub in 14'x18' room

willscary, I missed your post before writing that last reply. With a system like yours, I can see that the word "overkill" is not in your lexicon.

Just curious -- do you listen to music on the M80s (stereo only) with or without a sub? Because I could see getting M80s now and a sub in a year or so. Hate to buy the M60s and then feel like I wanted M80s all along.

Will be interesting to hear some responses to your power and cross-over questions.

To tell you the truth, I set up the system temporarily on the room that had housed my system just to make sure they worked. The system sounded sweet! Then I boxed up everything I own and began to tear out the lath and plaster, plumbing, HVAC, electrical...everything. My 100+ yr old farm house has gotten a completely new exterior, 2nd floor, and all new mechanicals in the 11 years that I have lived here. Now it is getting a new basement and first floor plus the addition. Hopefully I will have enough left over next summer to build an attached garage and tear down all the outbuildings.

My point is that a well designed speaker should sound at least as good, if not better, when being driven easily than when being driven hard. Distortion should be minimized and there should never be excursion limit problems. While 1 watt seems like very little power, it should be enough to create 90db noise through my system. To get to reference level, perhaps 2 or 3 watts will be needed. To create dynamic peaks during near reference playback, it is possible that 100 watts will be briefly needed in this small room. At these power levels, the Epic 80 system with the SVS should never be even close to being pushed hard, and should always sound smooth and sweet (I hope!) Just my take on the subject, and the reason I bought the Axioms.

To answer your question...I have had several top notch floorstanders in the last 20 years. They had great bass and sounded excellent. When I bought the SVS, everything changed. The sub gave me an extra octave (down to 16hz) that I could feel. It also took a load off the mains, making the upper bass cleaner. The M80s sounded excellent on their own. I am sure that they will sound even better when crossed over to my SVS at 40 or 60 hz.

There is not a huge amount of music below 40hz, but what is there gives the music feeling. It is hard for me to explain without using the same words everyone uses, but a good, DEEP sub does add a realism to the music. (When I say "deep" I mean a sub capable of getting you that extra octave...if you don't need extremely high output from your sub, I highly recommend the 16-46PCi. It plays very deep for its price, and in my opinion, any sub that doesn't go to at least 25hz is only taking a load off of good floorstanders, and not adding much in depth).

m80's in a room that is too small wont allow for the soundstage to come together. I dont know how much space an M80 needs in order to blend perfectly across the room, but it is more then the m60.

My definition of overkill is if you turn the system to 75% power and its too loud for loud listening. Make sure the system is connected accurately though.

So you are saying that if I placed, say, M22s in a room and they sounded good, the M80s would sound poor because they will betoo close together and therfore the soundstage will not seem wide enough? Shouldn't they both sound good as long as the extra depth in the bass region of the M80s reacts favorably with the room?

Thanks to everyone here and some sage advice from Brent at Axiom I just purchased the M60s. Can't wait to come back in a few weeks and report on them, and I'll be auditioning a Hsu sub from Compusa unless some other Austinite snags one of the remaining ones before I get to it. By the way, Brent at Axiom made the decision easier in the end partly by explaining that my receiver, a Yamaha RV-1005, used power limiting (via the 8 Ohm to 4 Ohm switch on the back) to power 4 Ohm speakers. This made the M80s less attractive, since I'd need a new receiver to power them to their full potential. But he assured me, as many of you have, that in my room the M60s would be indistinguishable or nearly equal to the M80s. Like any good salesman, Brent also pointed out if I wanted to hear music in the kitchen -- an adjoining, partially open room -- I should pick up an additional pair of speakers ... got me dreaming of M3is for the kitchen wall.

That's RV-1105, not 1005, not that it matters - a discontinued model. But I believe in accuracy in writing as well as in music.

Wow! After one day and night of listening, I can't believe all I was missing in the past. My M60s arrived and my wife and I love them. I know I'm just repeating what others have reported here, but I'm hearing instruments that never seemed to exist on my old speakers. On James McMurtry's "Paris" and David Gray's "White Ladder" there were noises that sounded, on my former Energy eXL-25s, like electronic distortion. I actually thought these were bad instrumental/electric choices made by the musicians and their producers. In one day with the Axioms, I realized these were musical instruments, and they sound great. (Now I just want to track down what instruments they are -- cymbals being brushed in one case, and perhaps some "zouks.") The range is awesome, and so is the imaging and soundstage in my 14' x 18' room. Placement has been easy, and the finish looks better than expected (I had low expectations based on the Web photos, which look more plastic-y than the speakers themselves). It was nerve-wracking to say the least buying $800 speakers over the Web without an audition (though in all honesty I passed up waiting for a locally offered audition). But Axiom's customer service was great, and this message board gave me confidence. It was worth the chance. I can't wait to get home tonight and spend the weekend listening to my M60s.

ABM, i know what you mean. we've had ours for about a year now, and listen to more music than we did before. i'm lucky enough that my wife works late one night a week. this is when i crank those guys, enjoy a brew and realize the gamble we both took paid off.
dan

Thanks for the update. We all knew how the story would turn out though, didn't we?