Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Set on Axiom speakers, need avice

Gringo,

I really wish I had the kind of change sitting around to drop on a set of M80s and a receiver like the Denon 3808's price range. That could take me a few months to save up for and I am not the most patient person.

My first set of purchase will be the M22s and an SVS PB12-NSD. This will put me in a little over 1K and I can definitely manage that once tax season comes around. I am very excited to hear what the M22s will sound like and I would like hear the kind of bass I know I am craving from the PB12. I think this combo will run fine with my 606. I will be looking to upgrade my receiver after I have set up my 5.1 if I feel like I need more power.

I haven't really read much on what the networking capabilities are. I usually like to keep the features simple because I rarely use a lot of them that comes with my electronic gear.

Seeking

Been wondering about what would be the best way to listen to music and concert blus. Which would be a better listening experience for music, the M22s for strictly two channels or the M22s + Sub.

I've heard some things about SACD but never really got interested to find out much about it until recent when I decided I will be giving 2 channel music listening a try. I've tried doing a few searches on amazon but nothing usually comes up. Are SACD better than Blus for music?

Seeking

I'm sure you'll find that a good sub will add a lot to your enjoyment of music just as it does to movies.

When you are searching on Amazon, you should get a number of hits from "SACD" or "hybrid cd" ect.

While there's not as much musical content in the subwoofer range as what you'll find in a blockbuster film, there are still some frequencies which may be better handled by a sub rather than running the M22s in full-range. Some receivers make switching between stereo with a cross-over for the sub, and a pure direct to the pair of speakers as easy as changing a listening mode. That way you can pick which sounds best for the current music.

SACD is basically a dead format. There may be a few releases here and there, but expect more and more high-res audio content to start showing up on BD. Sony's use of DSD encoding on the SACD format created more problems than it solved. Sure it was high resolution, but made it impossible to do anything more complex than buffering channels for a bit of delay for time alignment. There was no way to process the stream for setting a crossover point, let alone any fancy room correction. Later came a way to convert DSD into PCM which could be manipulated easily, but lost the point of using the more "analog-like" DSD.

Sony seems to have little use for their own encoding formats, and let them fall to the side rather easily. They also came up with a lossy compression scheme, ATRAC (and later added a lossless extension), but it never got use outside of MiniDisc and some studio gear. A derivative became SDDS which Sony uses in some theathers. But again Sony didn't push for its inclusion in DVD or BD.

Anyway, where I was headed, SACD while presenting single bits at rate of 2.8 MHz, in reality it can only reproduce audio information up to about a frequency double that of conventional CDs. Where as BD can have stereo or 5.1 tracks encoded at 192 kHz, which yeilds a Nyquist limit 4 times that of CD.

To answer your question. BD has the ability to grow to be a better format for music than SACD.

To achieve the FULL range of sound you need to run the M22s with a sub, that goes for pretty much any bookshelf not just M22s. The little enclosures of bookshelves just do not allow for good low frequency, 80hz and lower, representation.

jakewash,

I will definitely pair the M22s with a subwoofer. The reason I posed the question is whether or not I would be taking away from the pure two channel listen that a lot of the members on here do. I don't want the sub to overpower the M22s as I've heard some people say.

I know the M22s aren't full range speakers like the M80s and could use a little help from a subwoofer, but if you think the M22s + sub combo will be great for music, then I will definitely take your word for it. I think it would be a great combo and I can't wait until after the holidays to make the leap!

Seeking

The trick is to have the sub calibrated to the same SPL levels as the M22s, this way it will never overpower the M22s and if you feel it is overpowering them you can always turn the sub down a db or 2.

In addendum, there are several people who have compared M22's + Sub to M80's and have found them to be very similar. I remember Alan stating as much to me before I bought my setup.

Hi seeking, using a subwoofer with speakers for music should present no problem if you calibrate the subwoofer to match the SPL of the M22s like jakewash said. Doing this is similar to turning the 2-way M22 into a 3-way speaker like the M80 or M60. You’re adding another driver and a crossover to divide up the signal. The only noticeable difference I’ve heard with the M22 + sub setup vs the M80 + sub setup is more forceful mid and upper bass with the M80 combo. However, if I hadn’t A/B compared them I might not have ever know there would be a difference.

In some ways the M22 + sub combo can actually be better then using towers. Reason is most of the time you can’t place a speaker in one place in a room that gives both the best bass response and the best stereo imaging at the same time. Using a separate subwoofer allows you to do this.

Like michael_d and others mentioned above the M22s + are not a replacement for M60s or M80 for all circumstances, but I think it’s an ideal compromise for your situation. You will be able to get outstanding sound for both music and movies much sooner than if you had to wait to save the money for towers. And once you buy towers (some like JohnK haven’t felt the need) the M22s can become wide, height rear or whatever other new speaker position is needed in the future, or zone B speakers for another room.

Also having M22s now gives you more flexibility in the future as you upgrade your system. I was in the same boat as michael_d in that my screen size was going to be limited by the height of my M80s even after finding a room with a vaulted ceiling. I also considered downsizing to the M60 but eventually realized the slightly smaller screen was still way big enough. Point is that by locking yourself into towers early it could dictate other aspects of your setup. Or necessitate selling speakers to get smaller replacements.

There’s also nothing that says you’re next upgrade after the M22 + sub cant be a pair of M60s or M80s. Just move the M22 to surround duties until you can pick up a pair of QS8s. So I wouldn’t worry about not getting towers right away as by going this route your will get an outstanding sound system early and have an upgrade path the takes advantage of your previous purchases.

Cheers,
Dean

My thoughts exactly.