Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners How to improve my Axiom sound?

I've had pretty good luck with the side walk of the speaker being parallel to the side wall, almost straight forward. Fwiw.

Just installed dBpoweramp and started the re-rip process. Went with "8" setting (because space is cheap, and why not). Any other setting I should focus on?
Thanks again. There are few forums that I can count on for solid advise. Axiom is definitely one of them! You all have a serious drive for great sound reproduction without the high dollar hype. (I still can't believe multi-thousand dollar cables are STILL being marketed and bought!)

Have you spoken to Ian about the possibility of a component change in perhaps a crossover in a speaker or another change in the mid drivers? does one or both of your speakers get direct sun exposure during the day?

I have a pair of vintage Cerwin Vega 12T towers in walnut veneer which were purchase in 1975. Over time they changed in sound quality from what I had started with. Also one speaker which was near the windows faded quite a lot from the sun UV.

I ended up having the crossovers serviced and the woofers re-coned at one point and it made a huge difference. However the mids were not serviced and with more time, they started to sound very harsh to me. I was considering more service work, howver Cerwin Vega was not the same outfit, they had been purchased by the Chinese and replacement parts was out of the equation.

I spent less time using my system as it just wasn't pleasing any longer, then last year I took a lightning hit which blew outlets out of the wall and rocked the circuit with my sound system on it. I lost everything, including the CV 12T's; the speaker wire terminals on one speaker were literally blown apart.... the speakers were toast. OK, finally upgrade time!

Thanks to a good insurance policy, I ultimately replaced everything with a Parasound A51 amp, Anthem AVM60 preamp and Bryston Model T's along with other items I decided to go up on too. All I can say is, wow, I had no idea what I was missing in sound as the degradation of the older equipment was so gradual that you don't notice it until one day it just grates on you for some reason.

Now I keep the speaker by the windows under the black cover bag which comes with it until I use it. I have to keep that beautiful wood veneer looking fresh.

I've decided to rip all CDs directly to FLAC (nearly there), then play around with placement. Also playing around with surround sound (PLII) settings, which is interesting. Pretty sure I prefer stereo mode ("pure" on my Onkyo AVR). Still getting the upper midrange peak, but it could be me. I'm ordering a Radio Shack SPL meter to help make this more objective.
I have not spoken to Axiom about upgrades...yet....Maybe going to the v4 versions will help, but I'd like to spend the dough right now (young kids tend to be expensive....). But someday, that omnidirectional option looks mighty tempting.
Thanks for the ideas!

I used to despise PLII for music when I was 8 feet away from my M80s and the sides were behind me. Then I moved 14 feet away from the M80s and the sides are now in front of me. I thought I had a wide sound stage before but now...holy mackerel! The effect is nothing short of amazing. Of course none of it would be possible if the M80s weren't 11 feet apart and 5 feet from each sidewall.

Fatigue is directly related to distortion.

I would check a few things. First, snug up the fasteners of your drivers and tweeters. Dont overtighten. Second, consider your room's interaction with you and your loudspeakers. What is the environment like? Have you moved things around or introduced furniture that is resonating or causing unnatural focused energy on a narrow band? Third, if your playback setup is a computer have you ruled out an update or setting somewhere that is causing dynamic compression?

Sidenote
Ripping to Flac will not improve upon a CD if that is your understanding. It is just a more efficient storage container. It is a convenience to have your files on a NAS server, but since Spotify or Tidal offer excellent sound quality, ripping CDs isnt worth the headache anymore. $10 a month. No brainer.

Get rid of the Onkyo. Not all receivers sounds the same. Room treatments too. Hardwood floors?

I get much better soundstage/imaging when I spread the M80s out for sure. PLII does sound good, but I think I prefer stereo. As I'm in a great room, I might not have the right room for it though.
I've had the same gear/room for the whole ten years. I'll check the drivers and make sure they are snug.
It might all be in my head too. Meaning, the upper mid was pronounced before but I didn't notice or care. But now that I'm being more critical, I notice more.
Does Spotify/Tidal offer high quality compression streams? I know I"m not improving the quality of my CDs, just storing on NAS like you say. THere were originally ripped as Apple Lossless, but I had some problems with a few tracks, so transferred everything to FLAC. But I'm worried I didn't convert properly, so am re-ripping everything directly to FLAC. I've got a number of obscure albums that would surprise me to find out Spotify carries.
Thanks again guys - Brady

You could also try tilting them back.
At one time I used/took the back feet and double stacked the front.The rear of the cabinet touched the floor. It looked cool but in your case it might help lift the highs so less of what you currently don't like doesnt hit your ears while seated.
One final thought, IMHO the quality of the recording is the most important. Compressed files really suck the life out of good music.

yea, thus everything in FLAC (no compression, right? or lossless, with minimal compression setting).
I'm also going to see if the SONOS DAC is better than the Onkyo. I currently run a digital fiber optic line from the Sonos to the Onkyo and let the AVR do the conversion (which supposedly has a decent DAC), but I've read the Sonos might be better at that? Who the hell knows.
I'll try the tilting idea- never thought of that. I do that for the center channel for obvious reasons.
(fighting upgrade-itis here!! the VP160 looks so nice)