Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater My Audition Thoughts

Let me begin with thanking Cesar Augstin for his time and inputs and letting me
take a look at his system. I had a great time during the audition and learnt quiet
a lot from Cesar.

The system I looked at

M22, VP150, QS8 and HSU sub [ I don't know the model, but it was big and brilliant].
Pioneer Elite 45tx

IN STEREO MODE - M22 with SUB on /off

CD 1

Carnatic [South Indian] and Hindustani [North Indian] Violin Fusion

I heard a rendition of Gandhi's fav song...It is a slow recital on the violin
accompanied by tabla. The highs were crisp and clear and
the tabla had great definition.The over all sound presentation was excellent
and i was quiet upbeat with the start.
The track I listened to had quiet a few highs but I was very impressed
with the result. The highs were never amplified to the extent that they would
sound metallic or too sharp for the ear.

CD2

Secret Garden - Dreamcatcher

I auditioned the track 'Prayer'. I wanted to check the amount of detail that
was presented by the speaker. This track has quiet a few instruments being played
with a female vocal. The track sounded very warm and soothing, just the way
I wanted to hear it. There was no compromise on detail every little sound had
a clear presentation. Looking back I should have heard few more tracks from the CD.

CD3

U2 - Joshua Tree

'..Streets have no name' was the track, and i could not belive my ears, I was disappointed.
The presentation was kinda flat or I should say - 'it lacked the mid range punch I expected to
hear'. This was the case with the SUB on too. Esp when the drummer goes solo, I would have
been happy with a little more punch from the speakers. The overall sound was a bit of a letdown
even when the SUB was on.

CD4 - CD5

Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms & Goo Goo Dolls - The big hit featured in a movie, don't remember the
song name

Eager to recover from my disappointment, I tried some more Rock, Sadly I felt the same way
as when listening to U2.

IN HOME THEATER MODE.

DVD1 - DVD2

Lord of the rings I & Star wars Episode I

I kinda recovered from my disappointment, The imaging was perfect & HSU was rocking. The center was
crisp and clear, Delivering every spoken word in great clarity. QS8 was a show stealer. The surrounds
were a bit far behind the listening spot, but that was never a factor. QS8 was a killer, I requested
Cesar to turn off the SUB to listen to the QS8's, I was very impressed with the ease with which
they were creating the ambience.

Overall my experience was good. I still do not know if I judged the M22s right,
probably the forum will help me on that.

The same evening I checked out PSB speakers with U2. It was an eye opener. The Second best tower in
the lineup was not even as good as M22. The best tower in the Silver lineup was close, just because
it had more of Lower end going for it. It was on sale for 1300$.

I am going to check a few more speakers and that will help me set a realistic expectation.

Don't forget that Joshua Tree was recorded quite some time ago, and, by today's standards, is quite poorly mastered. The M22s will reveal the flaws, all right...

Ken beat me to it. My CD copy of the Joshua Tree (from the original release - perhaps they have remastered it?) sounds absolutely terrible. It is not a disk I would use for auditions.

I have to agree. My only complaints with my fronts is with some of the older recordings. I listen to alot of 80s metal and some of it sounds horrible! I do realize it is in the recordings. I just save those for "drive time" or do some serious adjusting to the treble. I definately wouldn't audition with them.

I too eagerly put in my U2 cd and was dissapointed. I've since bought a 2 disc HDCD set from Ebay of U2's greatest hits. That sounds MUCH better. (It's not really the HDCD so much as the new release was remastered.)

Those original U2 cd's do indeed sound like poop.

Indeed. The excremental quality of late 80s - early 90s rock/pop CD mastering is revealed in all its grit by Axiom speakers.

The recording on U2 CD - never thought about it. Thnx guys. But i had the same feeling about the Goo Goo dolls song too,the song i guess is post y2k...was the earlier disappointment shadowing my judgement?

FYI for all. I am "cesar". 3rd audition of my Axioms, in fact 2 people yesterday. The axiom owners should be getting a referral discount. I could apply it to my M60 upgrade...

I did second that....

Remasters rule! Just the thought of re-buying kills me! The ones I have though are definately an upgrade.

I agree with many of the remarks others here have made about the original U2 CD. Try the second to last Mark Knopfler CD, Sailing to Philadelphia. The recording quality is much better. I also suggest the Alison Krause CD "New Favorite". I believe it may be the best recorded CD I own.

For any metalheads out there,(no pun intended, Tinfoilhat!) Stone Temple Pilots "Core", song 1, will make your speakers sound like you paid 10X what you actually did.

In reply to:

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The axiom owners should be getting a referral discount.

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They do. Make sure you're on the official audition list with Amie. If an audition you host results in a sale, you get a check worth 5% of that sale.

ah, I did not know that. I am on the list too. OK everyone, let's get gnrajagopal convinced!

Oh thank god, I'm not insane (not that I thought I was...) I was just listening to Alison Krause the other night and thinking how well it was mastered. I think it was So Long, So Wrong, however. So several of her albums are well mastered!

For metal, I think Metallica's S&M is quite well mastered, while St. Anger is mastered extremely badly!

Ultimately the Axiom M22s (or even other models) may not be the choice for gnrajagopal but the QS8s appear to have made themselves another sale.

I have not ruled out M22...I am just waiting to hear other speakers, but yea QS8 is a sure BUY.

I don't know which Goo Goo Dolls disk you were listening to, but the production on the only one I own (Gutterflower) is middling, at best. Recent vintage does not seem to guarantee great recording; the disks from Train have lovely songwriting, but "sound" terrible to me. Pity.

The song is Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
and from the OST of City of Angles released 1998.

In reply to:

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For metal, I think Metallica's S&M is quite well mastered, while St. Anger is mastered extremely badly!

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I have no idea why, but they actually mastered St. Anger like that on purpose! It is truely horrible.

I've grown to like the songs, but the mastering still bites. There are bits where it's really good, but then it switches back to muddy, bass heavy crap.

Hi all,

I thought I'd chime in sice I'm the new guy around here (I have been lurking for a while though).

Might be a good time for a thread on suggesting well-mastered CD's for demo purposes. Maybe there's one already and I just didn't see it....I am new - and you know how us newbies are.
I have had the opportunity to do an extended in-home comparison of the Axiom M80's, PSB 5T & 6T, Audes SOULs, B&W 704's, and the Paradigm Studio. Because of all this comparison listening, I have found a few of my CD's are of very good quality, and many of them are of significantly poopy quality. It might be helpful for us to share our thoughts on some good CD's to try.
As a side note - I'm considering posting my thoughts or maybe a short mini-review of my side-by-side listening sessions with all the speakers.

RJ

"Hoo-ray beer!...Booo tea!"

I use Dave Matthews Band to audition. Those are some well-mixed albums. Your m22's will be shining in all their glory with his music. Just about any track will do, but I like to start with "Satellite" as it reveals some crisp acoustic plucking and then gradually adds in other textures and colors. The song "Oh" off of his solo album is also really good for this. Queen's "Bicycle" is good for another style of rock. I use Beatles as well, since they were known to be so meticulous in their mixing. The studio mix was an art in and of itself for those guys. Check out "A Day in the Life" and of course, "Eleanor Rigby."

In reply to:

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Queen's "Bicycle" is good for another style of rock

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of course, then you'd be forced to listen to Queen!

Eagles - Hotel California has always been a favorite, as has Norah Jones - Come Away with Me

Excellent! I'm a huge Dave Matthews Band fan. Glad to know the brand of speakers I'll end up with will mesh nicely.

Too bad to hear that Train's mastering stinks. I was planning to pick up those discs at some point...curses.

BTW while we're on the subject of albums...does anyone play rap or R&B on these puppies? I have a vast collection...I'd hate to think it'll sound like garbage...and no snide comments about it sounding like garbage on any speakers!

-Nick

i 2nd the opinions of Eagles and Norah Jones. For Norah, I have both the 2 channel and SACD and both sound great.

Regarding R&B and rap, both sound great. However, considering that the genre doesn't really exploit great acoustics, it doesn't matter too much. I have a number of neo Soul CDs and those sound fantastic.

Excellent...Neo Soul..double excellent!

-Nick

The only rap I allow through my M22s on anything close to a regular basis is Jurassic 5. I love it.

It's sad how far out of the loop I fell musically when I locked down the CD budget a few years ago. Thanks for the tip on Jurassic 5. I looked them up on allmusic.com and I'll have to pick up their albums.

-Nick

Yes, J5 is OFF THE HOOK. I saw them in concert at Shoreline with Roots and Outkast. One of the best shows I've seen. Outkast is like the "new" Parliament. DJ Numark and Kut Kemist are unbelievable.

If you like J5, Justice System and Freestylers are good. I can go on forever, perhaps this is another thread...

Good points about difference in CD quality. On a poor system, there's less audible difference between a poor album and a good one. By contrast on a good Axiom stereo system the differences are significant. On a good surround system, the (few) good surround albums are breathtaking.

If you don't have SACD, even DVD players can play the DD 5.1 compatibility track on DVD-A albums. Examples of good DVD-As are Eagles Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac Rumours. If you have SACD, IMO the best example is Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. Elton John Goodbye Yellow Brick Road SACD is very good -- clearly deliniated soundstage with good use of surround.

Alison Krauss + Union Station Live is an even better example of how good SACD can sound. I highly receommend it.

Amazon.com link (I particularly agree with the first comment in the review section on this page.)

I don't have Allison Krauss -- Union Station, but I've heard it on several surround systems. It's very good, but as the Amazon reviewer said, not much surround activity. Maybe that's appropriate for the type of music.

Of course how to use surround is controversial to many artists and engineers -- some feel it's unnatural, since the live concert soundstage is up front, not to the sides. Others feel judicious use of surround simply expands the stereo image out to 180 deg, giving the artist and engineer more options, which if intelligently used positively contributes to the listener experience.

Personally I like a significant amount of surround, if it's properly done. That assumes your surround speakers are at about 90 deg -- music from behind feels very artificial and uncomfortable to me.

That said, how (and whether) to take 30-yr old stereo material and remix for surround is tricky. But it can be done, as witnessed by some of the below albums.

The difference in albums is amazing. Diana Krall -- The Look of Love (5-ch SACD), Norah Jones -- Come Away With Me (5-ch SACD), Carol King -- Tapestry (5-ch SACD), Peter Frampton -- Frampton Comes Alive (5-ch SACD), Neil Young -- Harvest (DVD-A), REM -- The Best of REM (DVD-A), are all great music but in general make somewhat limited use of surround.

By contrast Eagles -- Hotel California (DVD-A), Fleetwood Mac -- Rumours (DVD-A), David Bowie -- Ziggy Stardust (5-ch SACD), Elton John -- Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (5-ch SACD) and Pink Floyd -- Dark Side of the Moon (5-ch SACD) make more extensive (but still appropriate) use of surround. Even if you aren't a fan of these groups, it's worth trying the Pink Floyd album to experience what good surround is like.

If you have Axiom speakers in a 5.1 config, and a regular DVD player but not an SACD player, at least try the good DVD-As. The Dolby 5.1 track on these will give you an idea of what good surround is like on a good speaker system. It's an amazing experience.

pmbuko
Thanks for the heads up. I just got my first referral check the other day! Good to know that it "pays" to spread the gospel.