Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Planning an Axiom purchase

Hi,

I expect to be purchasing Axiom speakers shortly and am looking for advice/pointers.

My goal is to setup my living room for 2-channel stereo listening. TV watching occurs in a different room. Most of my music collection is eclectic, but leans more toward jazz ('hard bop': Davis/Coltrane/Blakey) than anything else. The music has been ripped to FLAC and will be served via a Squeezebox connected to an amp (likely to be one made by Audiosource).

The room is an 18' x 15' room with an 18' ceiling. The room is 'open' at one end, which is to say that while one side ends in a 15' wall covered with windows, at the opposite end the room opens to a foyer. The demarcation is an open second floor hallway/catwalk that separates the foyer from the living room. The foyer also has an 18' ceiling and extends for another 18' feet or so. Were it not for the catwalk the whole space would be a 36'l x 15'w x 18'h cube.

Along one 18' wall a 6' x 7' x 15" cabinet is centered. The facing wall runs for 9' from the wall of windows and then opens to a 10'x10' eating area with a 9' ceiling. The floors throughout are hardwood covered with assorted rugs. The room in question has a 10x14 wool rug centered in it.

I am considering 2 primary listening positions:

(1) Facing the 18' wall with the cabinet. The idea is to put speakers on either side of the cabinet. Two chairs face this wall/cabinet (one with its back partially to the open eating area mentioned above).

(2) Facing the 15' wall with the windows. The speakers would be in the corners. A couch roughly 17' away would be the primary listening seat.

Of these, the first option is more desirable, simply because I prefer sitting in the chair rather than on the couch. And no, swapping the two pieces of furniture aren't an option.

I am leaning toward the M22 v3 bookshelf speakers, primarily because I think they'll be more 'out of the way' than floorstanding models, as well as give me more placement options as my needs/wants change. I'm unclear whether a subwoofer is needed/desirable with these speakers. I have been tempted by the M80s, but suspect between kids & cats floorstanding speakers are in for some abuse.

My questions:
1. I'm unclear on the difference between the M3 and M22. Does the application and room configuration above indicate one model would be preferable to another?

2. What kind of power requirements should I be considering? The music will be played at ordinary listening levels, probably shaded to the quiet side in the evenings, and need not 'rattle the walls'.

3. What should I know about speaker placement re the wall of windows and the wall with the cabinet on it? If I put the speakers on either side of the cabinent, should I be concerned about the cabinet shielding the sound in any way...or should I be more concerned about the sound reflecting off the windows? I have 6' of space on either side of the cabinet, so I have plenty of room for optimim placement.

If you can help with these questions or otherwise provide food for thought I would greatly appreciate it.

The M3 is designed with a slightly less flat frequency response than the M22 to simulate more bass and is often considered the better choice when used w/o a subwoofer. I have not heard the M3 so I can’t comment on that. The M22 sounds good w/o a subwoofer but for a lot of music I find it lacking without one.



If you go with the M3s or M22s and aren’t sitting to far away I imagine any midrange AVR or up will power them as loud as you might want.


Generally you want the speakers place so they form an equalateral triangle with the center of the listening position. About 3 feet from any walls or other reflective surfaces is also a good starting point.

Curtains over the windows will help dampen any high frequency reflections if they bother you but the nice thing about curtains is you can also move them out of the way. Some reflections help create more 3D sound out of stereo speakers. With that big of a room you are going to have a lot of ambience. It also sounds like you will have a lot of flexibility in placement within the constraints you mentioned. The best, really the only, way to find ideal placement especially in a non-symmetrical room is to experiment with positioning.

You mentioned not wanting towers because of kids. I’m thinking that unless you shelf mount the bookshelf speakers they are even more likely to get knocked over if on stands than tower speakers are. Also the reality is that in a room that big you would be better served with full range tower speakers IMO. A bookshelf+sub combo is very effective and give more placement options than towers or even towers+sub but in a room that big I don’t think you’d have any issues with placing towers.

One of the best ways to find out what will work best is to order a couple different sets of speakers and try compare them in the same room. It’s the only real way to know what’s going to sound best. Return shipping costs are reasonable especially for bookshelf speakers.

Welcome Karl.

The main differences between the M22's and the M3's, aside from the cabinet and driver configurations are the M22 uses the 5 1/4" dual woofers vs the single 6 1/2" of the M3. The M3 has a bit of a bass hump around 100-150hz vs the more linear freq response of the M22....some users prefer the M3 for it's slight boost in the bass, others don't. The M22 is more typical of the 'Axiom sound' I would say, often said to sound very much like the M80s with the addition of a sub.

Any receiver around 90-100watts should be fine at moderately loud listening levels.

I would try various placements of the speakers after you get them and see where they sound best to you.

Karl, welcome. My first suggestion is that you not limit yourself to listening to 2-channel music source material on only front speakers. Using a mode such as DPLII, and especially with QS side surrounds, the enjoyment of 2-channel music is significantly increased. The natural ambience that's contained in the front channels(there was no place else to put it)although it came from directions other than the front is extracted and sent to the surrounds where it belongs. I never listen to 2-channel sources using only the front speakers when surround speakers are available.

The setup along the 18' wall should be fine. Separate the speakers far enough outside the cabinet so that they're about as far apart as your listening distance from them. As long as they're far enough forward to be slightly in front of the plane of the cabinet there shouldn't be any significant harmful effects caused by the cabinet.

I use and highly recommend for music listening(almost entirely classical in my case)the M22s. They're very flat, and in particular have no artificial mid-bass bump to add an inaccurate "fullness" in that area. For most music listening(excluding material such as pipe organ)they have sufficient bass without a sub, but this is something that you can determine after listening.

No special power requirements beyond the typical receivers rated anywhere in the 100 watt area would be present for listening to M22s at all safe(to your hearing)listening levels. I'd suggest that a Denon or Onkyo model with Audyssey MultEQ auto-calibration and room EQ be considered.

Another way to describe the difference between the M3/M22 is that the M3 not only has the aformentioned bass bump but also a slightly depressed midrange, where as the M22 is nearly flat across the spectrum for a more linear sound experience.

I've A/B my M3s with someone else's M22s. What others describe is true. The M3's have a fuller sound (low end) and the M22s have a more pronounced midrange.

So if you ever wouldn't want to use a sub then I would pick the M3s but if you don't mind having a sub always in the mix the M22's are a better choice.

2channel music only listening = M80. Do not stop, do not pass go, no other choices necessary.

Seriously. I have compared my M80s with and without sub for music and in most cases you cannot tell the difference. I found that the sub did fill things in with my pipe organ music.

The advantages of the M80: excellent midrange, no bass hump and with a -3db point of 36Hz, ALL the bass music can deliver.

I know its not on your list, but it should be.

Thanks all for the replies. Exactly the type of commentary I was hoping to get. Here are some of my takeaways:

M22/M3: The M22s sound more like what I'm after. I don't have an issue with getting a sub.

M80: ...but the observation that M22s + sub = M80s gets me thinking. I started with M80s on the short list but thought placement issues would be too great. Now I'm not so sure. The comments above about putting the speakers in front of the plane of the cabinet and that bookshelf speakers on stands may be potentially less kid-friendly give me pause. The plan was to mount the speakers to the wall, but I think I'll revisit the 'form factor' question some more.

power: Thanks - 90-100w was what I figured as well.

placement: I take the point that I'll have to experiment. Doesn't sound like either option I described has any obvious flaws that scream 'bad idea'.

surround sound: I appreciate the comment and used to listen to music in a DPLII arrangement regularly. Over time I may add to my living room setup, but out of the gate (or out of the wallet I should say) I'll be starting with 2-channel listening. My assumption is that I can add surround speakers over time, regardless of whether I go M3/M22/M80. Let me know if this is a bad assumption.

Thanks again for the replies.

Out of curiosity - do the M60's have this mid base hump that you guys are talking about? I don't detect it - but what do I know?

Welcome Karl. Another thing to consider is checking out the Hearing Things threads section. Depending on your location, there might be someone close willing to do an audition for you. That way you can hear the Axiom sound.

No, the cabinet goes straight down to the bottom.



oh.


Did you mean bass hump?

The freq response of the M60 looks quite linear if you check out the graph on the M60 product page.

Of late, I have shied away from Graph Interpretation.

Mark.....it was early

If you want the best two channel sound then keep your speakers away from the wall. When you mentioned the placement advantage of using M22 + sub I didn’t realize you were looking at wall mounting. The real placement advantage in using bookshelf + sub combo in most rooms, especially smaller ones is that you can place the sub for the best bass response while placing the bookshelves for the best soundstage. Wall placement negates the soundstage placement advantage because the reflections off the front wall will interfere with the direct sound arriving at your ears. Moving the speaker’s so the drivers are 3 feet or more away from the wall changes the timing of the reflected sound so your ears don’t confuse it with the direct sound coming from the speakers. However, is safety is your primary concern then you may choose to live with wall mounting.

You can also make or probably buy some outriggers for a pair of tower speakers to make them more stable. Someone here has posted about that recently. I won’t kid you I’ve bumped into my M80s and knocked them over twice because I have them pulled out from the wall. No damage because the floor is carpeted and their flat sides create an air cushion just as they hit, but I wouldn’t want to try that on tile or wood floors.

@sirquack: Good idea, thanks.

@grunt: Thanks for picking up on my wall mount comment - I should have made that clearer. I'm really wrestling with the guideline to keep speakers 1'+ away from the wall (let alone the 3' you mention). As big as the room is, it is not empty nor is it unused. In the next-to-the-cabinet arrangement, that puts one speaker in the living room traffic path.

I'm intrigued by the 'on wall' speaker form factor, but suspect I'll be trading one set of issues for another.

Most of us are in a similar situation as you in that we don’t have purpose built HT rooms and have to make some compromises. If you do plan on going with shelf placement I would stick with bookshelf speakers and not in/on wall. Bookshelf speakers can at least be repositioned more easily allowing you to experiment a bit with placement before putting up the shelves. Also a I thing you suspected bookshelf speakers are likely to have less problem being placed close to a wall because they have less bass extension to be reinforced than tower speakers will. If you did chose bookshelf speakers I would go with the M22s.

If wall mount is your best option, I would agree that the M22 + sub is the best (Johnk would certainly agree).

The main reason to keep speakers away from the wall is to avoid unwanted bass re-enforcement (boundary effects). When using a sub, you may be able to negate this by moving the crossover a little higher, thus removing some of that bass from the M22s and re-assigning it to a properly placed sub.

I was thinking that you were going to put the M22s on stands, in which case they really take up the same footprint as a floor standing speaker.

Welcome. You can most certainly add other speakers as you go. I prefer to listen to stereo music in stereo mode though, unlike Johnk. My vp150 does not sound nearly as good as my m80s for vocals so I prefer two channel for most music. Maybe that will change once I pony up for a vp180

IMO, you don't get THAT much bass reinforcement from wall mounting M22's that you have to worry about it. If anything you start to get better upper bass, something that I felt was always a little lacking from my M22's on stands or other placements I have tried.

David, that's understandable, so you should use the M80s, not the VP150, for the vocals. Nevertheless, you should still play in surround sound, probably using DPLII. To take the VP150 out of it you can either set the speaker menu to center "None" or set the Center Width DPLII parameter all the way to the outside. In either case, the M80s will play anything that would ordinarily have been assigned to the center speaker, but you'll still have the surround effect of the rest of the DPLII mode.

Thought I'd post a quick follow-up.

I went with the M22s and have them on either side of the cabinet mentioned in my original post. They are sitting on TV tables as I fuss with their position. Right now they are setup so that I have an 11' equilateral triangle formed with my chair.

My first impressions are mixed, and I'm waiting another week (and more usage) before coming to any conclusions. I'm not quite sure I'm getting the sound I want. I'm not sure if it is because of placement, the need to spend more time with the speakers, the need for a more powerful amp (a 75wpc Yamaha is driving them), or that I am so use to surround sound music that going back to stereo is a bigger adjustment than I thought.

Karl, there may be several things you'll adjust to get the sound you want, and should get from your excellent M22s, but yes, as I immediately suggested in my previous reply, don't limit yourself to listening only on front speakers. Surround effects make a significant difference, even with 2-channel source material. I never listen to music on a setup with surround speakers available unless I use a mode such as DPLII to extract the ambience imprisoned in the front channels and direct it to the surrounds, where it belongs.

Thanks, JohnK. Your reply came 15m after I purchased my QS8 speakers. Since a sub became optional, there was room in the budget :-)

I'm now on the hunt for pointers on surround speaker placement. I have the Dolby recommendations, but if there is a thread that already covers this topic I'd appreciate a heads up.

The Dolby recommendations are pretty much what you should try to adhere to but many of us are not able to stick to them and have less than optimal speaker placements with great results as the Qs' are very good at what they do.

Karl, the basic suggestion for the side surrounds in a 5.1 setup is maybe 2' farther back than directly to the side and 2-3' above ear level.

One of the variables to try is toeing in the M22s so that the tweeters point at your ears.