Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions M100 max spl

What is the max spl of the 6.5" hp drivers before they hit excursion limits?

The quest for speakers with no Minimum Safe Distance

Just trying to figure out how much output is possible on them before destruction.

Starting to think about how mechanical vs raw spl output weighs up against perceived loudness when room treatments reduce energy.

Trying to figure out the opportunity cost of bringing the room in line with taget decay times at the expense of net system sound power. It is cheaper to create perceived loudness/dynamics by damping a rooms energy, but is it at the cost of limiting the ability to properly reach reference? ie. making it physically impossible to reach undistorted 105db at the mlp with consumer level gear?

Apparently my speakers were tested to 115db before self destructing at 117db by the designers. The ribbon tweeter failed. At 115db/1m I should be able to hit 105 at the mlp. Im not sure its actually possible though. The math says yes but barely.... I dont think they can.

I remember Ian telling us at the two anniversary events I attended - 30th and 35th - that the torture chamber has several kilowatts of power, and some drivers do withstand that.

I also have pictures from the chamber of drivers that do not...complete destruction!

The max SPL of a speaker is a tough question to answer. Let's discuss this free space at one meter.

At 200 Hz and up, a single M100 will deliver 120 dB. As you go below 200 Hz, delivering high SPL becomes more difficult. But the triple 6.5's in an M100 should still do in excess of 110 dB at the 80 Hz crossover level.

What most don't understand is 110 dB will drive you from the room, and 120 dB will cause hearing damage fairly quickly.

Then add into the mix the room gain, and a pair of speakers, and I cannot imagine a scenario in a home in which a pair of M100's would not be able to generate 115 dB at the listening position from 80 Hz and up.

Back to "driving you from the room" ... in our blind tests here, I have run a 90 dB sine wave (measured from the listening position) and asked people to guess the SPL. It was so loud the lowest guess was 100 dB. The average guess was 107-108 dB.

Does this help answer the question?

There is another consideration we take into account when designing our drivers and that is; what happens when they do reach full excursion? The trick here is to be able to have this happen without blowing the driver or experiencing any popping or other ugly sounds.

Hey Craig, what weighting are you using? A or C?

It just occured to me I use A weighting for absolute levels. Flat or Z weighting for response. I will have to report back on this. We were probably well above dbC reference level.

I just checked we were 3db above 85dbC pink noise reference. When I turned it down 3db we were out of pop territory. The new governor is set at exactly 85dbC pink noise ref.

It takes a lot of speaker to make reference happen in this room. Lol. I barely get there before trouble with dynamic peaks. Food for thought when people go throwing around the term.....

The measurements were with Omni Mic and weighting was "C".

Ian made a solid point regarding what happens when nearing the excursion limits. One of the best things about Axiom/Bryston speakers is they can deliver excellent resolution at low levels while never getting strident at high levels.

Whether it is a subwoofer or a speaker, it's hard to make a Colquhoun Labs speaker sound bad.

The secret sauce is in the white dust cap.

Yeah. The level of foolproof design in Ians stuff is pretty valuable if they dont audibly quit at high output. Kudos!

Hi Mojo,

Did you mean "under" the white dust cap?

No, "in". The black dust cap was acting as a black body and hence absorbed all radiation falling on it causing the driver to exceed thermal limits. Now it's a white body reflecting all incident radiation and hence it's cooler.

Sorry to be giving away all your design secrets.:)

Like water with ir?

You geek! I like it.

+2

Black Caps Matter!

Geez! Water is like a notch filter.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c...iquid_water.png

Band pass filter. Doesn't like Visible as much as UV and IR. Loves to gobble up invisible wavelengths. Yum!!

Neato eh?! Like fire conducting electricity (DC rectifier.) Nature is weird.

What I don't understand then Craig, is why there are talks of developing the T-Rex speaker that, anecdotally, is being conceived to deliver 130 dB anechoicaly. This sounds like insanity!

130 dB needs about 2 minutes to damage one's hearing, so yes, it's insanity.

Yeah...they're nuts. I wonder if the anechoic chamber will ignite as sound waves get converted to heat.

Whoa! Can someone shed more light on this rumour?

I enjoy overly loud and one of the reasons I'm planning on upgrading my m80s

I can't shed any more light on this. I only start the rumours

When I bought my m80's....the m100 were officially released only a few weeks later.

I was GENEROUSLY offered a full refund from axiom to upgrade to the m100 (and thats when they were at a introductory price and much cheaper lol), but was going through a divorce and couldn't even fathom coming up with the 500 dollars or so. That, and I felt guilty. New products are always and will always be coming out. I missed out fair and square.

Well, I'm so in love with my m80s and almost regret not making it happen lol

They are much more money now, but they are definitely worth the money. A lot of great time, energy, money and engineering went into those and the performance is top notch.

So I'm saving. This Xmas I bought the qs10's. Next Xmas it's the m100's and an ep800

With the trade in or sale of my m80 v3, my loyalty discount and waiting for a sale like the black Friday discount, I am going to have to come up with 4000 (on top of the trade in)

But....if there is a new badboy rolling into town by then..I NEED to knows!!!! Haha

Rumour has it T-Rex will be 4-way with triple 12" woofers.

Lol ;p

You start the rumours well haha

I know what you are looking for; loud, clean, and dynamic. I am a big fan myself of this. I would suggest the addition of an ADA1500-3 http://www.axiomaudio.com/1500-amplifier amplifier to your system before changing the speakers.

Noted.

I was running a Rotel RMB-1095 power amplifier.

I lent it to a family member who lent it to a family member...came back to me with the left channels not working. It's not a fuse

I've been eying up your amplifiers since they were shown. And it's definitely on my menu

I'm very happy with my m80s. Best speaker I've ever owned.

Mad Chesser. I would look to toss the Pioneer if you want to up your sound. I have have been through quite a few of the Pioneer amps from the lower VSX-1126 to the SC-1227, SC-1528 and all of them no matter what I did, didn't produce the clean dynamic sound that I was expecting.

If I went back to old school Nakamichi AV1 the speakers came alive with dynamics, an incredible sound stage, pin accurate placement, and none of the wishy washy malaze that I seemed to get from the Pioneer.
Not to say it was just limited to Pioneer, but I found about the same level from Integra, Marantz as well. I put in countless hours trying to get the sound that I knew I could get. Moving speakers, adjusting the room finishes that I could. Then I gave in and threw my money good over bad into an Anthem and it was like lifting a veil back off the sound.

Amps like the ADA1500 can only produce a good sound if the source that they are getting is good and clean. I found that the Pioneer that I had didn't give that. I went from the M80 directly to the LFR1100 that isn't a forgiving speaker. it gives you back exactly what you feed it in amplitude. so if your system isn't up to snuff, then you miss out on great sound and hear all the flaws in your face.

I know the Pioneer isn't a cheap receiver. But I would hate for you to go down the same path that I was on trying to get better sound only to be hobbling yourself from getting it by replacing the wrong parts.

I've heard the anthems are nice.

I know this is a topic debated as old as time but I'm of the camp that, room correction and eq settings aside, power is power. And one power source isn't going to sound better or "warmer" (or whatever catchy adjectives the industry likes to use lol).

I think having extra power on hand (headroom) makes a difference if you want it loud....but even that is debated by some. Especially with the sensitivity rating of axiom speakers. But I'm sure missing my rotel rmb-1095 I used to run . No service place in my small little town.

All of that being said, my quest for the m100's or something even bigger and badder ;), isn't to do with being unsatisfied with my m80's sound. On the contrary, I have been obsessing over speakers since I was 12 years old. I have been through many many pairs. High end to low end. My axiom m80s are the best speakers me ears have ever heard. Period. I fall in love with them over and and over again. The dynamics, the control, the soundstage...its all there. It's also a party speaker when I need it. It has some fucking muscle behind it's refinement.

All this talk about the m100 from me is just a desire to have the biggest and baddest lol...nothing more

In my space, the m60 would have done extrodonarily well. But I opted for the m80 because it was the flagship tower at the time.

And I got it with die cast baskets and dual inputs merely for the idea of increasing its value when I sell it (while it may be arbitrary, many average speaker heads look for this stuff). I did that because I knew I would need to upgrade to the new flagship down the road haha

I do realize that I will need more power for such monsters at the listening levels I wish to achieve but that will come in time. My rotel was a very nice power amp. Not as much power as an axiom amp, but I'd like to pay to fix it regardless. Perhaps to sell it and put it towards an axiom amp even

My most beloved power amp ever was a Bryston. And I know what I'm getting if I buy an axiom amp

Chess i thought the same way and i can not explain it but when i added my Emo amp to my Denon receiver it was like a window had been opened. Was it expectation bias, i have no idea and wish i had introduced it differently with more A/B but thats no how idid it. When i went to seperates i found nirvana and honestly have no desire togo beyond my M80's though i did add qs8's a while back and that was awesome. I hope you can find your nirvana as well. My next quest will be some Mid Bass modules for the gut punch i really like but i need to get it without playing at high levels, im just not wired like i was when i was young and dont like it as loud anymore. Bass is easier on the ears.

Yeah I would tend to agree. It's debated but I personally notice a difference when I have more power on hand. It's why I'm sad the rotel crapped out. Power amps like that aren't cheap.

So based off my experience, I think the difference you noticed is real and substantial.


My personality still needs bigger and badder lol

I'm pretty sure I had a discussion with someone at axiom before buying and gave them my room dimensions and layout....and they recommended me the m60. It went in one ear and out the other and I bought the m80's lol

Knowing that I'll need more power for the m100's eventually anyway, perhaps all this convo is pointing out that regardless of my plans, the priority should be more power first and then my inevitable upgrade

I can agree with that I suppose.

I have to do something with my monster rotel before I can focus on an axiom amp. Still debate whether I ship it to Vancouver to be fixed for an undetermined amount...or try and sell it damaged to a gear head.

I'm going M100s even though I love my 80s.

Gut punch...stay tuned! Heh heh...

I can say having rented a super amp (yorkville ap4k) they absolutely dont sound the same.

In fact, I could make the yorkville sound different than itself by varying its gain setting. You just learn stuff by doing. And forum knowledge/opinion can only take you so far. Rent one..... Long and Mcquade. 40$. Worth it for the bucket list. Be careful!!

Hi Mad_Chesser,

You are bang-on with this thinking. If you want it loud and clean you need two things. Lots of dynamic headroom and speakers that can take huge peaks of power. We tend to get overly obsessed with things like RMS power ratings and continuous max SPL from a speaker but these are not the major parts of the equation. In an amplifier things like lots of capacitance in the power supply and the ability to have voltage sag are the important parts, as they create the multiple possible for the dynamic peaks. The RMS power rating creates the base that the dynamic headroom is calculated from so it is important from that point to view. But if the multiple is 1 (like in receivers) or 1.5 you will not get loud and clean. The actual continuous power you will need is not going to be the limiting factor, it will be the dynamic peaks. A quick look at the math shows this. To have 15 dB of dynamic headroom at 100 watts of continuous power will equate to a max dynamic peak of 3200 watts; 12 dB of dynamic headroom would be 1600 watts. That is some serious power that needs to be delivered cleanly for a brief moment. This where capacitance and voltage sag become very important. The other side of this is what is the speaker going to do with these bursts of power? The 100 watts of continuous power will equate to a max SPL required of around 100 dB, which will be achievable by any decent speaker. What matters is what does the speaker do with the dynamic peaks of 16 or 32 times this much power. The M80HPs and LFR880HPs will do fine with this. The M100s and LFR1100s even better. I can say from personal experience that running LFR1100s with an ADA1500-4 or 2 x ADA1500-2 will never crap out on you. Now that is a party!

I sit 14' away, on the diagonal, from my M80s. 1 Watt should result in 83 dB of SPL. For 15 dB of headroom then, all I should need is a 1 W amp with 32W of dynamic headroom, right?

Thank you for that reply. It was informative and make sense.

I'm sold.

Ada1500 and a pair of m100's it is then! Haha

I'll buy the amp first though.

The ep800 is still last for my priorities(and pocket book though).

Me and the future wife are trying to save for a down payment for a house (we are renters). She is not happy with me putting all the extra money towards stereo until after we are in one. Can't say I blame her.

Sigh...it feels like its going to be forever haha

I got some decent toys to keep me occupied in the meantime

Love my m80's regardless of my future plans

I should note;

I'm very intrigued to hear the lfr1100 one day, but never really considered it because of my listening habits

It seems like something more geared towards the hardcore 2.0 stereo guys

I have ocd and rarely sit in the "sweet spot" for long

My stereo is often playing on extended stereo and I'm filling the upper floor with loud listening levels while I have people over or while I'm motoring around. That or blu rays and getting lost in home theater.

Usually me and my father get together for some beers and music so loud we can't talk lol

Where I think you might be missing in understanding is that the sound that you get out of your speakers has gone through a whole bunch of other electronics to get to that point.

I don't know your source material, so I can only guess. But lets for the sake of simplicity say you are listening to a CD. The CD player gets the digital signal and runs it through the DAC inside with whatever filters it wants/has and outputs that signal through your RCA cable. The back of your Pioneer has a some analog inputs but the internals of the Pioneer is all digital, so you are then running your analog back through a ADC to put it back into the digial domain, then the internal signal processing happens, it goes through any required pre-ampfication in a digital form and then back out through another DAC to the pre-out's on the back of the Pioneer. That then hits your amp and eventually the speakers.

There is a whole load of CRAP that the sound goes through inside the Pioneer before your amp sees anything. it is converted from analog to digital and then back to analog with who knows what filtering in the process. You can have a fantastic amp but if the signal you are getting out the back of your (effectively) pre-amp is corrupted from what was originally recorded, I don't care how good your amp is, you are not getting the original sound. Some pre-amps do a great job and sound fantastic. I personally found every one of my Pioneers to corrupt the sound and make it worse than what I experienced with my older Nak or my newer Anthem. Again, that just might be my experience and mine alone

I humbly bow to Norimasa Kitagawa and all the other great TX-NR818 engineers who are responsible for the electronics in my audio path. Without their ingenuity, my room-speaker-source system would still sound like total dog shit.

This is the last great receiver Onkyo built and the team that designed it, lived and breathed electronics and had a deep passion for audio. They worked around the clock to deliver functionality and performance you can't find in a receiver 3x the price. And the good folks at Visions let 7 of them go to me and my friends for what amounted to a song and a dance. I'll forever be in the debt of all those who had anything to do with this purchase and when I can no longer source components to repair it if it ever breaks down, I will keep it and take it to the crematorium where it and I can fuse for eternity.

I'm in a 4,200 ft^3 room, 14' away from my M80s and this integrated receiver ROCKS!

BTW, I see the same passion at Axiom. Passion matters. The 160 and 800 just might be coming on that joyride to eternity.

Sorry, I didn't realize you were specifically talking about the pre-amp portion of the pioneer.

Not all pre amps are created equal and I agree with what you are saying for sure.

Id say perhaps my experience with pre amps outside of the big box store is limited (spanning equipment from 1970 to 2005: rotel, pioneer, denon, Yamaha, Bose, Kenwood, Marantz, Harmon kardon, onkyo).

Id say for pre amp purposes the pioneer has been my favourite. I bought a Marantz SR7005 but after 3 days took it back and opted for the pioneer


I've only heard amazing things about the anthem. I was also eyeing up the emotiva pre amp at one time. Any experience with them?

Hi Mojo,

This is all correct. It is big rooms, big parties, and/or just wanting to be able crank-it-up where the power requirements go up fast. As an example if you are 28' away your starting point is 77 dB. That means four times the power is required to reach the same levels as being 14' away. Or if you wanted it to be twice as loud to keep up with the alcohol consumption, that is around another 10 dB required. Now you need 40 times the power in your bigger room. After all this I am sure someone will ask you to turn it up just a bit more.

Ahhh good old alcohol and the volume button lol *grin*

I've had people dancing in my medium sized living room and dining room to the m80s (when I had my rotel power amp running that is). The axiom speakers have some serious muscle. They are deceiving to anyone I've cranked them for.

I want it all!

Mad_Chesser. you are likely very right that the older stuff did more right than an awful lot of the newer stuff. As I eluded to in a previous post, the sound I got from my old Nakamichi AV1 seemed to blow away anything that I had bought post (except for my Anthem).

I think that the trend with modern mainstream receivers and pre's is to put far too much post-processing inside the unit that has a detrimental effect to the sound when you have some great speakers that are very revealing like the Axioms

My tube integrated amp has no chips that I know of. Therefore no processing except what comes out of my CD or SACD players.

It is connected directly to the Hi Level Inputs of my EP400s that do the heavy lifting down low - each outputting 500W. The mids/highs are handled mostly by the tubes that easily drive my M2s for a nice clean, articulate sound.

There is never any stress or nastiness that I can detect. I like it...

TAM

I didn't know you have M2s. Are they v4?

My EP400s are V3s, M2s are V3s just like my M3s (not used with subs).

They all sound just fine & will not require replacing...

TAM

Do the M2s sound better than the M3s?

They sound similar.

The M2s play best with subs whereas the M3s can play most music without, due to its lower reach. My M3s are corner located so can produce some decent bass.

My M2s/EP400s sound more impressive as a system than the M3s due to the subs contributing such a powerful low end. They can reach down to 17 Hz & are so 'musical'.

It is too bad that the 400 is not in the lineup anymore...

TAM

I've never liked the M3s. I am thinking either M2s or M5HPs for my living room. I'm a bit worried the M5HP might overload the space. I think you can still get the 400 if you really want it. It is very good!

In my room with the corner placement, the bass was reinforced unnaturally - it was muddy. Not really the speaker's fault as previous speakers there also exhibited the same behavior. I EQ'd some of the bass out of the sound with my amp but I still wasn't happy.

I made some plugs & stuffed them into the rear ports. The muddiness & excessive bass magically disappeared & I was able to EQ back to flat. All is well.

I used the M3s this weekend while decorating our Xmas tree. I put 5 Christmas CDs into the changer & played them for hours. Many were large orchestral works & choirs (TELARC), some New Age along with some Xmas Blues - the sound was most pleasing.

BTW - I must put in a plug for one of my blues buddies. If anyone is a blues fan, our superb local bluesman David Gogo (his real name & 2017 Maple Blues Guitarist of the Year) on Vancouver Island put out a Christmas album in 2012 that is really entertaining to listen to. Nice change from the ubiquitous Christmas stuff. Sample it here:

http://www.davidgogo.com/music/xmas.php

BTW - the Gogo family has operated a large Christmas Tree Farm just south of Nanaimo for decades. Check out the promotional video on his 'home web page' at the bottom & you can view him driving his vintage Mustang up to the farm...

TAM