Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo M22 stand with smaller footprint?

Hi Daveb,

Nice dogs (what's he licking on that table?), nice rug.

I don't specifically know that Polk speaker you're using, but if I were to recklessly generalize--based on years of listening tests to American, Canadian, British and European speakers as an audio magazine editor--Polks are/were wildly variable and inconsistent in sound quality. Some were decent, others very colored and unnatural.

The main difference you'd hear if you replaced the Polks with Axiom M60v3's is more neutral, transparent and natural sounding instruments, with greater soundstage spread and depth (depending on the recording). With M80v3s, you'd get considerably greater bass extension and output and the ability, given sufficient amplifier power, to play cleanly at extremely loud levels. The level of transparency and neutrality of the new M80s vs the M60s would be similar, according to my blind listening comparisons.

By the way, with the speakers pulled out a bit, the fireplace would not affect the imaging or soundstage at all. It's only adjacent surfaces/shelving that will cause interference effects.

The center is a problem. I'll think about it; perhaps others here will have some ideas. An M2 center will work fine for music but obviously it won't have the same loud playback capability as a larger center channel speaker.

Regards,
Alan

Alan, i would guess the dog is drinking up some spilled beer..

Dave, i vote you just take out the fireplace.

i feel for you, the people who though it would be a great idea to put the plasma above the fireplace were not into HT stuff at all. you said the bottom of the TV is 7" from the mantel, how far is the bottom of the screen from the mantel? it looks like there is 1-3" of bevel around the bottom of the plasma, so that would give you almost 10", you didn't say how deep the mantel is. the VP-150 is only 7.5" high but is also 7.5" deep.

i would try to push the polks out a little bit farther from the tv, i think you will get better imaging that way.

I believe Alan has said before that the M80's only need to be an inch or 2 from the wall for effective porting.

Indeed it was beer on the table.

[Let the record show that I was drinking crappy domestic beer only because it was there to serve others. You should infer nothing about my taste in speakers or music from that choice.]

Anyway, Alan, those are RT1000p that I bought in college. I have had rooms in which they sounded amazing and rooms in which they sound bad. Oddly, it seems that they have sounded their best in places like this that are wider than they are long and/or open on one end. I have owned them for 13 years and have yet to determine any pattern whatsoever in their placement other than that they seem to work best when toed in to point slightly behind the listening position. Downstairs in a 12x14 room they sounded good at higher volumes than other rooms but the high end got fatiguing rather quickly (there's another explanation for that though - the room was empty except for an office chair and a fish tank. It was like sitting in a tin can). I will miss these speakers only because of an emotional attachment, much like one might look back fondly on his first honda civic. Though to be quite honest, when at their best they sounded far better than other speakers I heard at even 2-3 times their price (of course, perhaps those speakers were poorly set up).

Anyway, with regards to their placement in this room, their replacements can't come out any farther. Both for WAF and for space reasons. Thus, if I got M80s the back of the M80 would be fairly close to the back wall.

That said, the M80s don't have their own powered subs built in, so I guess the considerations aren't quite the same. Any closer to the wall and these Polks get pretty boomy. I believe I mentioned how surprised I was at the bass quality when I put them where they are right now. In the last place even one inch made a huge difference though, so maybe they'd sound like crap even one inch farther back.

Funny you mention that, Dakkon. It's fairly clear that the FP was an afterthought. Inside the "box" around it all there's still finished hardwood AND baseboard molding. It's the weirdest thing - they didn't cut the molding to make a square drywall frame... they cut the drywall (AND the faux brick base) to fit around the molding. That made fishing the speaker wire and cat5e a real chore, since I couldn't widen the existing hole. Anyway, there's a bit more space before the top of the screen, but the bevel also juts out there more, so unless it was super narrow, like a 3" deep On-Wall sitting on the mantel (which is 7 or 8, I believe), it'd still run into the bottom there.

Alan, you mention an M2 as a center for music... I don't listen to multi channel music, if that makes a difference.

Can I assume that the M22s don't have any placement requirements that differ from most speakers? (Can I also assume that M22s with a good sub will be comparable to M80s?) The issue I may face is that there's no good place in this room for a sub unless I can stash it underneath a chair in the very corner, which does not sound promising sound-wise. I don't require a ton of bass (plus this room is under the upstairs neighbor's bedroom) so I can get away with skimping a bit there as long as it doesn't totally ruin the recording.

As tempting as it is to just put M80s up here, that does effectively triple the price. So if I can do M22s that's probably the smart move.

you could do the in (wall/on wall) or the (on wall) vp150, these are much thiner than the regular vp-150....

depending on how well you know your neighbors, if there is a guy living up there he might be sympathetic to your situation, and be willing to work with you to see what an acceptable sound level in their room would be, and that might be able to help you choose a product. i know if i lived above someone, and they were like " hey man i want to get a nice stereo in my living room with is right under your bedroom", i would be MORE than happy to help out.


depending on the builder there my be no insulation between your celling and their floor, which would be bad for you adding a sub...


your room seems to be pretty small, in my bedroom i have some bookshelf speakers, a center, with an 8" woofer and it works wonderfully.


i would say some m22's ep 125 and one of the thin vp150's.. especially being that this room is under the neighbors bedroom. this will give you a nice sound, and will not be to loud at night.....

Ah, and since the box for the FP isn't right up against the cement block exterior, I can fit the in/on combos. That's the upside to having the fireplace there. The rest of the walls are 2x2 stud and not deep enough. That'd definitely be the best if I'm forced to put the center up top. I wonder if I could build a near-invisible bracket to hang an on wall VP150 from the bottom of the lip of the mantel. That'd put the tweeter at roughly 43" from the ground and in line with the speakers. Might look kind of goofy though. Maybe there's a way to cut out the curving piece and replace it with a rectangular one with an in-wall with a white grille built right into it. That'd be a fun little install. (That'd have to be a 100 though, it seems.)

The upstairs neighbors are renting and move out in 3 weeks. I don't know who the new ones will be but I suspect I met them when they looked at the place, since I haven't seen/heard any new traffic lately for showings. The girls upstairs now told me they haven't heard a peep from the in-ceiling speakers I put in the living room (under their living room) and I've played them at a decent volume at times when I know they're home. There's that green blown in fiber insulation up between our floors, and I guess it's doing a decent job. I can hear EVERYTHING between my own two floors without any insulation. At night when in bed downstairs I can hear the cats trotting around up here, and the dogs sound like elephants. Insulation blocking a 6.5" ceiling speaker and insulation dealing with sub vibration are two different issues though.

I am a night owl, but I can be considerate about volume and bass at night. I do still want it to be powerful enough for mid-day listening.

That said, it doesn't have to be overkill, since ultimately I will have a reference listening room downstairs. That's where I really want to spend my money. So if I can get away with a set of M22s with a custom finish and save a grand, that's another thousand I can spend downstairs... and heck, at this point I'm starting to think the M80s might be all I need for down there too, based on that one guy who got new ones last week that compare to a $50k system. I'm very eager to head south to hear Wid's M80s now.

The space is 14x14 but it's open to the kitchen on the left side. And the kitchen is semi open to the front half too. There's also that little space behind the couch in the dog photo. 110" ceilings. So while it's a nice 8 or 9 foot listening triangle there is a bunch more space to account for with the sub.

Is it worse to put a sub near glass than near drywall? Cause the best spot for it would actually be in front of the inactive one of the two glass double doors. It'd be out of the way, out of a corner, and could double as an attractive wood plant stand. But glass... could be an issue.

By the way, anyone have one of the non-black grille colors? Do you think tan, gold, or siena match these walls (use the daylight photo up above for the best representation of it)? And if so, is that too tacky anyway? Nothing wrong with the contrast of black. Maybe I'd stay black up front but try to color match the grilles on the surrounds since they'd be on the back walls.

i have my sub next to the sliding glass door in the family room. this is mainly due to space restrictions. however because the low frequencies are non directional it doesn't really matter... if you do put the sub next to glass, the glass will diffract the sound waves. kind of like a sub in the back of a hatchback, the back class just spreads the sound waves. you can do the "subwoofer crawl" to find the optimum spot, but sometimes, that just isn't realistic.

i think you should ask your wife about the grill covers, and not us... :p

Downstairs the sub is going to go in the exact optimal spot, even if it's right in the middle of the room where an ottoman might go. Up here there are other considerations, of course.

But I'd rather have no sub than one crammed into a corner sounding like crap.

I'm not familiar with the level of difference between optimal and mediocre placement though. My subs have always been these powered ones inside the speakers. I've never owned a stand alone sub.

WRT the grilles, we/she'll eventually make the decision, of course, as to what looks best. Right now I'm just wondering if anyone has familiarity with them to just say "that wall is the same color as light gold" since I've seen several people say that the examples on the site here aren't 100% accurate.

You can (and should) get samples from Axiom for the grill colors, as well as custom finishes.

That gives new meaning to "I'll have a dog and a beer."