Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners M60s in an empty room

Has anyone here ever run their M60s in an empty room?

I had mine setup for a few days and they sounded fine (although I did need to play with the location quite a bit first to find the right spot). I then emptied out the room to paint the ceiling. My painting was rudely interrupted by a ski trip last weekend, and the room is still empty. It is 16x16x9 (I know... not good), with hardwood floors, and for now, bare walls. All furniture has been removed except for 1 loveseat and my 65" Mits. The only "soft" items in the room are 2 sets of drapes covering 60% of 2 walls.

I was jonesing for some tunes tonight after work, so setup my M60s and HK630 temporarily. Wow... they sound like completely different speakers with every CD. Most of them sounded way too thin initially, but some of them started off boomy. By playing with the placement of the M60s I was able to achieve good sound in every case. As soon as I changed CDs, I had to rearrange the speakers again to get the next CD to sound good. Each new CD required different speaker placement.

I was amazed at the difference that not having furniture in the room makes.

Anyone else ever experience this?

Just walk into a new home before it's furnished and you can practically hear the echos.

One of my pet peeves involves people discussing which receiver sounds best with their xyz speaker, what cables are best etc. etc.

I think the room environment and the speaker placement has a much bigger impact on what you hear.



...now, is it true that dark grey walls will add an audio ambiance that will surpass the current beige colouring?

Yes. I once had lots of cardboard boxes stacked around my listening room, during a house remodel. That made my M60s sound great, esp vivid stereo imaging. When I removed the boxes, it didn't sound as good. I'll be putting some acoustic panels on the primary side wall reflection points to fix that.

It's funny people get engrossed in whether in some speaker cables, amps, and interconnects sound better than another, when the room acoustics makes a far bigger difference.

Yep. I'm convinced now more than ever. If you don't like the way your axioms sound, fix your house because it ain't the speakers.

I'm sure you'll run across my other post describing how hanging an old blanket across a wall made a huge difference in the sound.