Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater SVS MCS-01 vs Axiom VP150

My country's SVS dealer loan me the SVS MCS-01, which is a GIANT center speaker
The 1st word my wife saw it and she said:"What a BIG BIG potato!! Don't you ever dream of buying that and put in the living room!!"
There goes my intention of owning it even before testing it

A simple 1st time review as compared to my Axiom VP150

Appearance
HUGE!!! at 10" x 24" x 13", it's look like it's even larger than my Emotiva XPA-3!! and weight 17.5kgs!!
the height of the speakers blocked slightly like 0.5" of my TV which is 9.5" from the table
The reflection of the Piano finished is a turn off as it reflected everything from my screen...

Setup
Simple enough, just unplug my the VP150 and plug in my speaker cable with dual spring banana plug and there it goes....but 1st need to "hug" the thing from the box to the table...

The sound
Ok, the most important part.
Processed by Marantz SR6003 and powered by Emotiva XPA-3, since the unit had been run in at the dealer's place, I just crank it up.
Tonal balance blend nicely with my Axiom M60 main and did not notice of any timbre mismatch. Did not run any calibration, just pop in "Celine Dion: Live in Vegas" Celine Dion:Live in Las vegas and select the song "I Am Alive".....immediately notice the clarity and more dynamic mid range as compared with the VP150

Then, I put in Storm Warrior II (A HK production based on comics by Ma Weng Seng) (Storm Warrior II) , the opening scene with dts-ma 7.1 selected, when "Mou Meng" engage "Man Kiem Kuai Zhong", the sound were terrific, can literally felt the swords are flying around you, and with the MCS-01, the colliding sound of the flying swords are more realistic than the VP150, and the dialog from "Chiit Mou San" also clearer even though he spoke very softly and less muffle compared to the VP150.

After that, pop in "AFQ Live" AFQ concert.....in dts-ma 5.1, I felt a more vibrant guitar sound and notice improvement on small details from the larger woofer (7" vs 5.25" of the VP150) and 2 big bass port at the back. Those size really helps bring out the sound of the concert.....

The thing cost $479+ vs the VP150 at $408, worth it?
Yes if you have a big room, but on a smaller room, unless u wanna play really loud, and for the mere $71, if you have the space for it huge size and a power amp to drive it, I would say it perform remarkably value for money and better than the VP150 in most way.

Just my take.....but not gonna buy it as it lack WAF looks

Please don't think I'm being insensitive to your findings and that I don't appreciate them, because I love reading speaker comparisons. But if you didn't calibrate the new center, how can you really say something like "the dialog from "Chiit Mou San" also clearer even though he spoke very softly and less muffle compared to the VP150"?

Maybe the new speaker was a little more sensitive and therefore 3dB higher in output....causing it to sound clearer in comparison?

For all I know, it just might be a fantastic speaker and well worth replacing your VP150, but without calibration, the differences that you were hearing might not have actually been there...

Thanks for the write up. That was mighty nice of them to let you simply 'borrow' the unit eh? Sounds like my kind of place.

Have you ever thought, since it is so big, about using it as a television stand so that your wife doesn't even notice it?

Thanks for the write up. So whats the process that you had to go through for them to "loan" you the speaker. Sounds like a friendly dealer.

Now, I *REALLY* want to hear the SVS M-Series bookshelf speakers.

Glad to hear that there wasn't a tonal mismatch but as Mark said you need to at least do an SPL match to quantify SQ differences as the louder speaker will almost always be chosen as the better sounding one, but I do beleive the larger cabinet size would allow for better dynamics, at least that has been my experience with center channel speakers.

yep, unless you calibrate each time for each speaker, the test would not be true.

Does it really matter of what his methods are? He was only giving his subjective opinions on each product anyways.

Gotta agree with the Doc for once. It's better to recalibrate, but...

Even if it is just a personal opinion (is there any other kind?), isn't still a good idea not to mislead yourself?