Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Advice needed for den Reno

Hi all. We're converting our never-used dining room into a parlor/den, and plan on putting in in-wall speakers. (If there's a sound difference, the Boss would probably accept on walls). The system is to be stereo only...no TV planned. I've sadly become a total Luddite with regards to electronics.

So, the questions:

1 Are M3s still the go-to standalone speaker i.e. no sub, for in or on wall installation?
2 Are there important performance differences between the on wall and in wall models? We listen to everything...rock, jazz, classical, opera
3 How does AirPlay work? Can I stream content from an iPod or iPad, or does Airplay stream directly from the cloud? Does my desktop need to be on?

Thanks

Frank, my preference would be either the M22 in or on wall model. The bass of the M22 is at least as strong as that of the M3, but the M3 has a hump in the upper bass around 100-150Hz which gives an impression of better bass farther down in the frequency range. I prefer the flatter M22 for the bass range. In either case, a small sub which can be quite unobtrusive significantly helps the bass and would be highly desirable unless it's not at all acceptable in your situation.

I don't have personal experience with them, but the Axiom specs are essentially identical for the in and on wall models. My view is that the appearance of the on wall is nicer.

The specs may be the same, but I can tell you from experience with pre-production models that the M22 on-walls do not have the bass extension of bookshelf M22s. I suspect the in-walls have better bass. I would probably choose the M3s, because of that hump. Perception is, well, how we perceive, right? And how we perceive is important.

Airplay is for streaming from iPads/iPhones/iPod touches or computers running iTunes. The music may be stored in the cloud or it may be on the source device (ie, the iDevice or the computer). If you store the music in the cloud, you would be using (and would have to pay for) iTunes Match, which I can tell you from personal experience works pretty well. But the Airplay device cannot stream directly from the cloud. Unless it's an AppleTV box, in which case you wouldn't be using Airplay per se.

Thanks to both of you. I had hoped that AirPlay would work that way.

Sub is not likely to be agreed to, but who knows? Unobtrusive is as subjective a quality as you can get. We're waiting on the quote for the cabinetry and still "debating" whether or not to put in an aquarium.

Will keep y'all posted

I've got in-wall M2's and would like more bass... I got one of the first sets of in-wall speakers and M2's were the only ones available at the time. However, I love the quality of the sound enough to not change them up to M22's or M3's. They are there for background music. If I want to shake the foundation, I turn up the HT in the other room. If you'd like pics and install faux pas, PM me your email and I'l send you some.

If I had to only have 2 speakers to mount on the wall, I'd choose the M3's.

::snicker::

Well, Cat has certainly done more wall mounting than any of us.

And I was just downstairs performing a slow, comfortable screw into a wall?

I can "post tease", too!