Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Lifting up the M60,s

Hey guys . Building a new theater in the basement and couldn't help noticing that to get the M60,s to ultimate hearing height , I may need to raise the speakers approx 8 inches .
With this said , do you guys believe I am overthinking the sound-stage ? They sound great on the floor . I just thought while I have my complete system ripped apart , maybe I should build some pedestals for these critters ?
Any thoughts ?

Someone here made some nice simple pedestals out of 3 pieces of lumber... I'm probably going to do the same but I haven't had much luck finding the post.

IIRC I have some 1x12 left over from making the last set of stands, so I'm thinking about just screwing an M60-depth piece of 1x12 to a couple of 2x6's for a ~7" lift.

Whoever made the original stands please sing out - I remember your HT had an acoustically transparent screen and there was a lot of black in the pictures, but that's about as far as memory is taking me.

Andrew didn't recommend it....

I've lifted my towers a few times.
Sometimes it made things worse, others better.
Location in the room for both your seat and the towers will both matter.
Mine are currently off the floor but plans are in the works to drop them back down after removing a row of seats.
If you look, many theatres have the towers on a stage.
You won't know unless you try.
I lucked out, a local audio centre was selling 3 shelf (4 if you count the top) towers for $50 a piece. Meant for audio components, not speakers.
I bought 6, used pieces from 3 in a single tall tower for my AVR, amp, pj, ps4, etc and once a year or so I place the others (top and bottom only adding about 12" in height) under my towers.
Placement in the room is/ can be incredibly relevant. The time and cost may not be worth it in the end.

Nice.

My experimentation with raising towers has been with M40s so far.

I found that raising them ~10" definitely interfered with low bass response, but raising them ~4" left the response close enough to original that I could not detect a change across the ~1 minute it took me to raise and/or lower them.

Has anyone ever glued their LFR1100s and EP800 to the ceiling? Like...upside down? Did you witness an inverted response?

I tried but my wife couldn't lift my 800s, ha!

TAM

Considering I will be making the boxes myself , I could try your recommendations first . Doesn't take much to test the theory

I lifted my M60s. I probably have a picture somewhere in my build thread, let me see if I can find it and post it here....

Found it. My speakers are behind my screen and a false wall, so I painted them black, but they are far from fancy looking.

They are, however, rock solid and work well. This pushed mine up 5"... Is it noticeably better than without the stands? Who knows. Scientifically it should be, but I never tested to see if I could actually hear a difference.


Hey @bridgman look.... M60 stands made out of 3 pieces of lumber!

I have some time before I actually give them a lift as I am still in the drywall stage , however , this is exactly what I was thinking about

Yep, those are the ones I was thinking of. Thanks !

Hey, they're simple enough that I could build a pair before the post edit timeout period expired:



I used 4 pieces of lumber though, since I didn't have any 2x10 handy. So all 2x4 - 2 14" pieces on edge, 2 10" crosspieces. Does anyone know a photo editor that will automatically remove dust bunnies ?

Anyways, so far I'm happy with them. My problem with too-low speakers is that I unconsciously look at where the sound is coming from so after a while my neck gets sore. Having the height correct also seems to spread the vertical soundstage out a bit, something someone else here (Socketman ?) pointed out recently.

Bass response seems slightly different, but it *might* actually have smoothened it out a bit. The sound still seemed a tiny bit bass heavy before even with the speakers a couple of feet out from the wall, but I'm not getting that impression now.

OK, so overall I'm pretty happy with the raised speakers.

There is a bit of a "hollow" sound I noticed immediately (like a dip in the upper bass) but I'm having trouble quantifying it and haven't had time to either do any A/B testing or go back to albums I listened to in the last day or two before raising speakers...

... so I'm not 100% sure the hollow sound is a real thing yet. Thinking about distances and speed of sound it doesn't seem likely that raising the speakers a few inches (5") would be enough to muck up response in the few hundred hz or higher range, but no time to really think about it right now. What I do hear clearly is just enough bass reduction to cut down a bit of a boomy edge I was hearing previously - but what I'm not sure is whether that same change is also causing the 'hollow' sound.

Think I figured it out... I had previously been listening to the M3s on stands, so when I switched back to M60s I just set them up outboard of the M3s and didn't move the M3+stands in at all. The result was that the M60s were too far apart for seamless soundstage but I hadn't listened enough to them in that position to realize.

When I lifted the M60s the soundstage went from "hole in the middle" to "almost but not quite seamless". I moved them in a few inches on each side and the "hollowness" seems to have gone away.

It's always hard to be sure without going back and forth a few times, but short of building a hydraulic switch box I'm not going to have time to do that much testing for a while.

Anyways, very happy with the M60s now, more so than at any time since I got them.

Nice!

Thanks. Wouldn't have done it without your pics and your mention of the stands being 5" tall. That's what triggered the "hey that's a 2x4 on end plus 2xSomething flat" thought which made me realize I could build them from my 2x4 cut-off pile.

Turning bigger scraps into smaller scraps; the true spirit of woodworking

I think I will put my M80s on top of my 350s

I'm trying to visualize that...it sure would get people's attention when they walked into the HT.

"Your speakers are staring down at me"

Might actually work pretty well since M80s have tweeters and midranges down to "there"...

That is exactly what I was thinking. Since I have 2 rows of seating it would help the tweeters hit everyone.

If you want a statement, but some M100's ontop of a pair of EP800's. that will get some attention.. along with the 12' ceilings you'd need.

Everyone gets their own tweeter

Looking for some advice. I am looking at a used ADA 1500 3 channel reasonable price any concerns? 1 year old .
Bob M

Good price= grab it

Ok so I purchased the ADA 1500 .This new for me so I have a question on how you hook up the power so it turns of with my AV receiver. Do I plug it in the back of AV ?

Don't do that! The receptacle at the rear of your receiver is not intended for high power loads.

I don't think the ADA amps have a remote trigger.

Hi, your reciever should have a trigger out and the amp has a trigger in . You will need a mono ts cable which should really come with a amp i mean how hard would it be to include it.

I see the ADA has a 12V trigger. I think there might have been a vintage that did not include it.

The ADA amps come with a 12v. trigger port.
For the life of me I can't get mine to work, Dang Onkyo/Integra and their stupid triggers.

Have you traced the problem to the Integra?

It wont' go with any of my triggers EP500, ADA, etc. Have read around the web about they {ONKYO} only work with zone2/3 for power. Easier to just push the power button than play with settings every time.

Supposedly other brands don't have this problem.
Although my receiver is actually a TEAC PRO, Tascam PA-R200. But made in the Integra factory so inherited their trigger problems.

this from Emotiva may work for you Brendo.
https://emotiva.com/products/accessories/et-3

the sad part is getting one of those Emotiva jems shipped. Here in Canada nobody stocks them, and the one store that will even order it for me told me that the last time they tried it took just over 4.5 months to make it up here.

Try ordering it direct and you get your hands slapped with a $50 shipping cost + $28 brokerage and btw, they want that is USD. For the $140 it translates into, I can get my fat ass off the couch and press a button.

The last few times i have purchased from Emotiva it was seamless.I have purchased 2 amps and a processor but i know things change around there on a daily basis. I have used people on forums to send my parcels for me from time to time, most of us on here are honest joes. No duty ,it made in the usa. just went to their site and i see now everything is automated and it is expensive, tis a shame.

Yes I shipped from US to Canada the ADA 1500 was a very good price and made it worth $400 to get here but what a scam even when you buy private they still ding you with the 13% tax .Should have it by Wednesday looking froward to receiving it .Still need to buy front speakers and change out vp150 centre channel .
Bob M

Looking for advice on centre channel VP 160 or VP 180 M80s or M80s HP to pair with ADA 1500 .

Bob M

I have the 160 - it is outstanding.

Either model will work beautifully; however, the 160 has a more 'conventional' driver layout on the front baffle as contrasted to the 180..

Beware - they are both very large, heavy & require significant space in your system...

TAM

I have A VP160 and M80 paired with a 3channel ADA1250 for about the last 6 months.
Since getting my 1250 have had my crossover around 50 60Hz, with all 3. They all play really loud and low with authority, I previously had no idea how low the 160 plays, with it going through my receivers outputs. Since running the 160 now through my ADA male voices and bass are phenomenal so clean and clear, It almost mitigates my EP500 most of the time.

With the ADA1500 all of those choices would be spectacular and an H.P. version is the icing on the cake.

Another caution is if you get the H.P. you'll probably need some extreme subwooferage EP600 or the EP800.

Thanks for the input . Do you suggest the M80 HP VS STRAIGHT M80s. And will the VP160 handle the power of the ADA 1500 .

Thank you
Bob M

I have regular M80s and they already can go quite low with out the HP upgrade.

All the Axiom line up is tested in the factory with around 3 times the suggested power rating so the 160 should be able to handle the wattage no problem. you may get a little distortion or compression if you maxed out the volume, not likely to damage anything as you'll have plenty of power in reserve.

With the HP you'll either want a huge sub or none at all. I suspect the HP could be set to 40Hz and play all the notes with ease.

Brenda why would the HP version need more sub vs the regular M80s.I do have a sub 4 Q8s and vp 150 centre .

you may find the sub you have is not enough from the bass the HP versions would be producing. That's what I found with my SVS PB1000 it was great with my little M22 and M3 but with The M80 it just got muffled out by them.

Need help on buying XLR cables .Balanced or unblanced for ADA 1500 .
Thank you

RJ

Make your own. Its cheaper and you can make them exactly the length you need.

http://www.avshop.ca/neutrik

I still need the question of balance or unbalanced.xlr cable

RJ

The signals from both are identical. The only bonus of the XLR or microphone cable is that it's immune to feed back or ground loops. If you have a fair bit of equipment in your rack go for the XLRs. If not the unbalanced RCA will do just fine.

The locking feature is also nice with the XLR's . If your reciever or pre/pro has XLR then go with the XLR cause that way you can win any pissing contests.