Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Sound Quality (Price not important): M60/80 vs...

The HP units will, I believe, have more bass as compared to the regular ones. I have not heard them, however.

Thanks to everyone for all your advice. Having experienced the M3 I was pretty confident about Axiom. Today I spoke with Debbie, and she helped me with a ton of questions. My decision came down to Axiom, simply because I get more speaker for the money compared to Focal and Paradigm (even on sale), and I can get customer wood which is not offered on the others for any price. All your advice helped me decide, and with Debbie's final answers I've pulled the plug:

Ordered the M60s with custom maple real wood finish. She explained how the M60 would fit my room and listening style. Now I have more money left over for a decent power amp!

Thanks again... Really helpful community of owners here!

Awesome hope you enjoy them.
The shipping is always quick.

You will love them I am sure and the real wood really takes the Axioms to a whole new level appearance wise. Now for the hard part, waiting for them to arrive.

Lol... Yes... the waiting. They are actually shipping me cabinet/woodstain samples first, so I can decide on the semi-gloss or satin.

I did have one question for them: Whether to go with the HP version or the standard. HP bumps me to 6ohms, and my Marantz and my vintage amps will easily handle that. The Marantz has the following specs:

Front:
100 W + 100 W (8 ohm, 20 Hz – 20 kHz with 0.08 % T.H.D.)
180 W + 180 W (6 ohm, 1 kHz with 10 % T.H.D.)

I like the 180 W number, however, I'm worried about the 10%THD. Will that be noticeable? Like, what I'm asking is strange, but I noticed with a lot of 4ohm and 6ohm setups THD goes up (with various amps). Will my speaker all of a sudden not be as high quality (re: sound)?

I called them to plunk down some more cash for the HP. They indicated if I was to run loud even sometimes, then it was worth it.

My idea of 'loud' may be different than others'. For me, I take my receiver up to 6 on a 10 scale (100W/Ch output amp), and I don't go much further. Something I got from my Dad years ago in the 70s... to not crank the volume ever. If I'm running those levels (60 or even 75 on a 100 scale), am I wasting money going for the HP version? I know that having a more powerful amp is where this is more likely to play out (if I was pushing 200 or 300 W/ch, then I'm less likely to fry my amp, compared to if I was pushing 100W/ch RMS). I eventually hope to drive these with a 200W/Ch Emotiva. They spec out nicely compared to the Marantz:

330 watts RMS @ 4 ohm (<0.1% THD)
200 watts RMS @ 8 ohm (<0.1% THD)

or

(rated power; THD < 1%):
150 watts / channel; into 8 Ohms; both channels driven.
240 watts / channel; into 4 ohms both channels driven).
(smaller XPA200)

Anyone have some advice before I spend $100s more on this little treat?

Specs on the Sansui:

This receiver can drive very difficult load, (down to 2ohms for very shorts periods of time) and down to 4ohms without any difficulty for long periods. It is rated at 75Wpc at 8ohms and 125 at 4ohms.

I'd ignore the Marantz 180w @1khz figure. It is cooked to make it seem more impressive. In reality at 6 ohms your more likely to see 140w at the same distortion. 180 is getting close to double down territory, and should only be possible when being taxed by a 4ohm load. This is with great geat of course.

I'm a firm beleiver in buying used high end equipment. The burlier the better. Sometimes, high end stuff is owned by wealthy, fickle audiophiles. They clean their gear with cloth diapers, get bored, and sell them in a few years for pennies on the dollar. Like new and usually 25% of msrp.

The Marantz is just creatively playing with numbers to make something look better on paper.

If they would have written the more realistic 130 W (6 ohm 20Hz-20kHz with 0.15 % THD, then you would not be writing to us.

Just by dropping the impedance to 6 from 8, you will never realistically ever get an almost double up in wattage power. The part to look at is more the measured frequency band of just 1 kHz to see that wattage number is grossly exaggerated

Also I gather that your Marantz receiver is of the old style volume control that goes from Zero to Ten, rather than the newer style that goes from -80db to +10db, where you get lots very little sound increase then suddenly it starts to get load really fast.

I would say that the HP speakers will start to be noticable on your reciever around the 3-4 mark on your volume control. If you get up to the 6 then you will definitely hear the extra bass

My Marantz is the 5007 (fairly new). I think it slowly picks up volume as you get up around 6ish. I don't recall, but I think it gave me a choice to set the dial to decibels or 1-10.

I guess my question now, is whether the HP or not the HP version of the speakers?
Are the 6ohm speakers as good as the 8ohm version? If so, I'll go with the 6ohm. I'm assuming they will sound good with my Marantz, and probably really good with my Sansui receivers. I will likely get an Emotiva amp next month on my trip down to the States, so that will ensure really solid sound.

Trying to reinforce my decision to go with the 6ohm over the 8ohm version, lol. Any advice is welcome.

The HP drivers are for guys who really want to wail on their speakers. That doesn't sound like you really. A 6ohm speaker will require higher current from your amp which can make it run a bit hotter though again given what your saying about your habits this should not be a concern. When I was younger my stereo hosted a lot of parties and it was cranked so the HP would have suited me then but now I use a sub so the load is taken off my main amp and speakers. Looking at the frequency graph the HP's show a decent bump in output in the 50hz to 70hz range, that along with the natural room boost the HP's should give a good bit of low bass. All that said , if you can swing the extra 6 hun I say go for the HP's I know I would cause I hate buyers remorse.

Richard