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Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421184 11/25/16 01:49 AM
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2x6spds Offline OP
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Oh yes, Serenity, they surely were!


Enjoy the Music. Trust your ears. Laugh at Folks Who Claim to Know it All.
Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421302 12/02/16 06:21 PM
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axiomite
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M3s are in and sound as great as I remembered. No time for serious listening yet but ran a few different CDs/genres through them as a quick check.

I wasn't sure how things like bass pedals were going to come through but White Mountain (Genesis) and Echoes (Pink Floyd) sounded really good. Not sure if the initial bass at the start of Echoes is pedals or bass guitar but sounds smooth & decently flat response either way.

Initially I put them on the stands and put the Sierra 1's on top of the M40s, but concluded that the M3's sounded better if they were a bit closer together.





Sorry for pic size, thought my phone used to make "small" pictures smaller than this when sending. Must be one of the recent Blackberry OS upgrades.

EDIT - that's interesting...pics seems smaller on the web page than when viewed locally, so ignore apology above.

Something to figure out on the weekend smile

BTW the new packaging is really good - Axiom may have finally come up with something that even a courier can't break, at least for the lighter speakers.

I guess you could still get damage if the driver practiced caber tossing with an M80 or M100 though.

Last edited by bridgman; 12/02/16 06:29 PM.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8
Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421303 12/02/16 06:24 PM
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axiomite
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The one thing I always find truly disturbing is thinking about how much money I would have saved if my first Axiom purchase had been M3s instead of M2s.

- wouldn't have needed to buy a subwoofer

- without subwoofer wouldn't have realized how good sound on modern DVDs was

- without that I wouldn't have been compelled to get AV receiver and surround speakers... or projector... or a few hundred DVDs/BluRays...


M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8
Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421304 12/02/16 06:49 PM
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axiomite
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%^$#$#&$*^@!!

I have short pieces of 1x1 lath under the front feet of the M40s to angle them up a bit, since my ears tend to be further from the ground than most. This means that the top of the M40s angles back a bit.

So I'm working in the office, DSOTM is playing on the M3s. I hear a brief "grunk" kind of noise, wonder if I have volume up too high (driving them with 250 WPC amp) but don't hear any other noises so figure the noise came from outside somewhere.

I go back into the living room & sit down, notice that the imaging doesn't sound right. Looking at the speakers something doesn't look right either, one of the M3s is missing !

The right hand M3 vibrated towards the back of the M40 (angled surface + DSOTM) and fell off onto the rockwool bundle I'm using as an impromptu bass trap. No apparent damage though. The left hand M3 had slid to the back of its M40 and was still moving slowly.

M40s are now level and rubber dimples installed on the M3s. Hopefully everything will stay put now.

Last edited by bridgman; 12/02/16 06:52 PM.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8
Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421305 12/02/16 07:01 PM
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impressions of M3 vs Sierra's


DOG is GOD spelled backwards.
What others think of me is none of my business.
M80 V3 MY GLOSS Cherry
Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421306 12/02/16 08:38 PM
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axiomite
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Not much yet, still playing with setup. Sierras like to be toed in towards listener while Axioms seem better either toed in less or pointing straight ahead. I really need a speaker switch box, going to start another thread on that.

- Sierras sound a bit more neutral (a bit less midrange) but I don't know which is "right"

(but the slightly more forward midrange in the M3s is also something that gets a lot of positive comments re: detail)

- Sierras seem to have a bit more bass but M3s seem to distinguish different bass frequencies more readily

- Sierras hit volume limits at relatively lower level than M3s (surprisingly low on some electronica)

- didn't notice big differences in efficiency

- main thing I noticed about Sierras in comparison with larger speakers was more detail in complex passages (suspected less cabinet vibration but only a guess)... relative to M3s the difference certainly isn't as obvious, may not be there at all

(if I had to use short words I would say that the Sierras sounded more "solid" than the larger speakers but I haven't done enough testing yet to tell if that is still the case vs M3)

(this may be why I have always liked bookshelf speakers on stands - thought it was 2-way vs 3-way crossover but maybe it was small/rigid cabinet)

So far it's turning into one of those "they do sound different but I'm not sure which one I like better" things, but the differences aren't as big as they were between Sierras and larger speakers eg M60s.

EDIT - I was starting to think along the lines of the Sierras sounding a bit "bigger" than the M3s, but after I moved the M3s out to the stands and toed them in a bit more I started getting the same "big" sound from the M3s, at least as close to the same as I could detect when unplugging & moving speakers.

Speaker reviewing is hard, at least doing it well is hard.

Last edited by bridgman; 12/02/16 09:21 PM.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8
Re: Room Treatments
bridgman #421307 12/02/16 10:21 PM
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axiomite
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Originally Posted By bridgman
Speaker reviewing is hard, at least doing it well is hard.

I guess it's a lot easier if you know what conclusions you want to reach before you start smile

Last edited by bridgman; 12/02/16 10:21 PM.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8
Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421328 12/04/16 01:25 PM
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axiomite
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OK, I have pretty much ground to a halt re: comparing M3s with Sierra-1s. The M3s are quite a bit more forward than the Sierra-1s (most reviewers describe the Sierra-1s as "warm" which AFAICS is the opposite of "forward") and it's really hard to tell if the other differences I hear are a function of frequency response or something else.

I can find passages where the Sierras sound less "annoying" than the M3s (generally busy passages with high vocals and edgy instruments at the same time) but in most cases I can hear the annoying sound on the Sierras, it's just quieter.

What I can say is that reviews talking about the extra detail you hear with M3s (and presumably even more so with Axiom speakers using the 5.5" driver) are spot-on - little things like finger movement on a guitar fretboard are noticeable on the M3s but go un-noticed on the Sierra-1s unless you really listen for them. The problem is that I wasn't sitting in the studio for the recording sessions so I have no idea which is more correct. There have been a few cases where I have been out of the living room, walk back in, make some kind of observation about how much better speaker X is and find that it's actually the other speaker playing (a short memory is a useful asset).

BTW I ended up moving the speakers around a bit more, so that both pairs were the same distance apart and I just had to move my head a bit to the left for M3s and a bit to the right for Sierra-1s. Makes one think about "Walk like an Egyptian".

I'm going to pick up some 2P2T relays and knock together an A/B switch box but without also having switchable EQ to take out most of the FR differences it's going to be hard to get much further. Hopefully someone makes a PC-based EQ that can apply 1/2 the EQ to one signal then on a key press apply the opposite EQ so that neither speaker has the advantage of being un-EQ'ed.

The one clear take-away from this is that M3s and Sierra-1s are both really nice speakers. I need to do some A/B testing with the M60v4s but at the moment I'm thinking there is something in my listening preferences that leans towards smaller speakers.

Last edited by bridgman; 12/04/16 01:52 PM.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8
Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421329 12/04/16 02:33 PM
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axiomite
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Listening to the end of "Cinema Show" from Selling England By the Pound I do get the impression that the balance of Sierra-1's might be a bit closer to "correct" than the M3's. There is a point near the end where bass guitar carries the <not really melody but most interesting part> and that gets lost a bit on the M3s but sounds just right on the Sierras.

Seems like I do need to start playing with EQ... I suspect we're only talking about a couple of dB here. Somewhere between the two is probably ideal...

Last edited by bridgman; 12/04/16 02:47 PM.

M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8
Re: Room Treatments
2x6spds #421330 12/04/16 04:32 PM
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axiomite
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There probably should be some kind of "yeah that's what it was supposed do sound like" web site where we get speakers and rock stars together...


M60ti, VP180, QS8, M2ti, EP500, PC-Plus 20-39
M5HP, M40ti, Sierra-1
LFR1100 active, ADA1500-4 and -8
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