Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater stereo vs surround

I have been working with JC concerning a system for my house. After pictures & diagrams he determined that my room was less than ideal for surround sound. He suggested a pair of m60's or m 80's and either a vp 150 or a vp 180 and no surrounds. Is there anyone out there using a similar setup? If so how does it sound for home theater and/or music?

My second question is this: What is the major difference between using a receiver or using amps? Is there really that much difference in sound?

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me. I haven't bought any equipment since 1981 so this is all new to me.

Welcome to the forum, Mathew!

I'm assuming there is mounting issues for surround sound speakers in your room? Is it possible to put the speakers on stands behind your listening position?

If all you can do is the front three speakers and a sub, then that will certainly be better than just using the TV speakers.

I think we are all interested in looking at your room to see what we are dealing with. We can try to help!

Ha ha, if nothing else, we are very good at spending other people's money.

My living room does not provide a place for surrounds. I have a 3.1 setup using 2 pairs of M22, a VP100, an M2 and an EP350. See signature line. I'm impressed at how good it sounds every time I listen to it. Movies or Music.

Here's my (CatBrat) living room area to mount surrounds. I just decided it would not sound right no mater where I put them. Note that the seating area goes all the way to the back wall.

Can you describe your room, and why it is not ideal for surrounds according to JC?

Right now my upstairs setup has M22's, a VP100 center, and 350 sub, it it works very good for movies and music. There is no way you will get the same experience with just a front stage, compared to if surrounds are included. At some point I plan to add some Qs8's on stands or wall mount but will have to fish new wiring down from the attic.

A receiver has the processing and amplification integrated into one unit, versus having seperates (preamp and amplifier). A lot has to do with your room size and how loud you want to listen to music and movies. For most people a receiver in the 100-130 watts/ch would be fine. However, if your one of these people that like to try and achieve as close to true concert/orchestra and reference cinema movie levels, you might want to look at good seperates. They are built more robust and have more headroom to accomodate those dynamic peaks needed without runing out of gas.

Matthew, welcome. You give no details about how the surround question was "determined". At this point I'd consider such a decision to be highly questionable, since surround effects add so much to our enjoyment of both music and movies.

A receiver, of course, has an amp inside it, and is entirely satisfactory for powering Axioms unless the power demands are so unusually high that a separate amplifier with greater maximum output capacity is needed. Otherwise, in the vast majority of applications, there is no such need and there would be no difference in sound at all safe(to your hearing)listening levels.

My room is 12 X 19 with the TV on one of the 12' walls. There are 4 doors into this room. 2 on the front wall and two on the back wall. In addition on one of the 19' walls there is a brick fireplace that sticks out into the room 28 inches with an additional 17 inches for the hearth that is elevated 20 inches above the floor level. This will possibly block the right hand front speaker. On the back wall where I would have to put a surround, and exterior door opens inward and could either block or damage the speaker. Chair placement is another problem due to the layout of the room in relationship to the fireplace. When I get home tonight I will try and attach photos as they are on my home computer and I am at work.

As a side question can anyone give me pointers on adding an attachment? Under the FAQ section it says to go to the full screen view and click on file manager. I don't see a file manager or attachment button.

thanks, Matt

To show a picture, you have to save your file to one of the online picture hosing services, for example, I use photobucket. Then you just copy/past the image tag into your post. Basically it would look something like this:

[img]http:/filename [/img]

There is also a seperate gallery at the bottom of the main thread list where you can upload images as well.

Yeah, I've done a quick sketch of my interpretation of your room layout, and while things may in turn be less than ideal, it doesn't mean that they would be bad or not worth trying. I am sure that JC isn't trying to steer you wrong at all, we just have more sets of eyes to look at things from different perspectives.

On a related note, since you are new around here, it should give you a good feeling to know that you are working with a company that isn't trying to just sell, sell, sell. They want to work with you and your needs/situation and not just over-sell you. That is what WE are for. Like someone else said, people on the forums like to spend other people's money. I started out looking at M22 fronts, VP100 center, and QS4 surrounds. Ended up with M60 fronts, VP150 center, and QS8 surrounds... All have been crammed into a small and VERY irregularly shaped 10'x15' space. Many things are possible.

Oh, and welcome by the way...

Hopefully these links will get you to pictures of my room.