Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater M80 Placement questions

I have a pair of Axiom M80's and reading many reviews most state they are pretty hard to place. I do not have much room to work with but currently 14inchs from back wall toed in to the center listen position. Anybody done some differnet postioning of these speakers and found better results? Any good material to listen to while im moving them around sum to tell if one positions sounds a little better than the previous. Anybody

Each room is different, so we can't tell you which positions would be ideal. It sounds like you're doing a good job, though. 14" from the back wall sounds fine. Try toeing them in more, less, and moving the speakers further apart to see if that makes them sound better.

What CDs do you have available for testing? I like to put in Jazz or Classical to test out new speaker arrangements because it's really easy to tell when the soundstage "snaps into place".

retra,
I originally found my M60s somewhat finicky for placement but my distance between the 2 speakers was very limited. I recommend at least 8 feet apart to start.
I took a look at the images you posted of your HT room, very nice indeed. In fact, your room looks very much like the listening room at the Axiom Factory!

Forget about what the reviews say. Find some good quality music (many already listed on the forums, try a search) and tinker with the position yourself. Ideally the speakers should be setup in an equilateral triangle with your listening location.
See this here as a guide.

Thanks, for the advice, hopefully have time this weekend to tinker with it, also just got the Denon 3800, the book it came with is huge, have to do some reading on that to get the most of my DVD audio disc, sometimes I think I spend most of my time getting thinks set just right instead of actully ENJOYING it, hopefully once this is all setup it will all be good for quite sometime

Retrace,

Check out these 3 (very technical) articles, particularly part 3 and the room mode calculator. I played with the positioning of my M60s for 3 weeks to get the imaging and overall sound that I liked. After I read the thing, I took out the trusty tape measure. My speaker placement turned out to be within a 1/2 foot of where the mode calculator said the ideal spot for them would be.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Room Mode Calculator

One last piece of advice. Pick one or two CDs of each type (hard rock, mild rock, country, jazz, and classical). Don't spend too much time trying to get any one CD to sound just perfect. Adjust the speaker position until you get a cd to sound pretty good, then switch to another CD. Make small adjustments at a time (1/4" to 1"). When I adjusted the positioning of the speakers to get a CD sounding perfect, the rest of them didn't sound quite right. When you get it close, switch CDs. Keep at it. The rewards are worth it. I now have the outline of the M60s drawn on the hardwood floor with a grease pencil so I can get them back where they belong in the event that I accidentally move them.

I wanted to take a survey to find out how much toe in people were using. The M60s sound best in my room with no toe in. Others indicate that they need to toe them in to get proper imaging. I sit 12' back from them, and they are within a few inches of 8' apart.

I have a 65" Mits RPTV between them. The TV itself will resonate and emit bass frequencies right out of the screen. Pushing the TV back about 2" cleared that up. It also messed with the sound of my VP150. I raised it up using some foam pads and tilted it down towards the listening position to fix that as well.

Best wishes, let us know how you make out,