Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Out with the old and in with the new

Look...say you buy 10 feet. That's 70 bucks. Now cut that into two, 5 foot lengths. You get two for the price of one! See?

It's hard to argue with you Mojo ...
I don't have to see you to know that amusement is written all over your face

Hee hee...

I want to stress again how much of a difference that 10 ga. cable has made. I not only have tighter, deeper bass, I have a clearer and more impactful midrange.

With my v2, besides a holographic soundstage, I was missing that smack on the drumskin and pop in the mids. V4 fixed all that in a very big and satisfying way. Then adding the ADA-1500 to the mix allowed me to hear the liveliness and expanded soundstage high and clean power brings to the performance. The new cables bring out the smack and pop even more and bass, even though I'm crossed to the 800v4, has a much improved transient response. It sounds as if the M5 drivers accelerate better and stop faster than they did before.

I've also added that cable to the 160. I had zero complaints about the 160, as the M5s, but now the voices are indeed clearer. Even my BFF/FWB commented on it today during Money Heist and she had no idea I switched cables.

I've also added an ADA-1000 to my two QS10s fed with the 12 ga. in my walls. I haven't formed an opinion about that change yet. I have a few scenes in mind that I'll be listening to again to determine if there's a difference over my Onk. I'll also be running some measurements.

So my main room is going to stay as shown below until I upgrade to active M5s. I have the 1500-3 feeding M5s and the 160 and the 1000 feeding two QS10s.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-BTKdCtDPGNSDk1vZJpbepAFBIZUABWl/view?usp=drivesdk

I should also add that since I switched to the new cables, I've been surprised to find that I don't need Audyssey XT32 for 2.1 music. I haven't formed an opinion yet about movies or PLII Music.

Yep, the M100v4 are pretty darned amazing. I'm back to those now in my main room after realizing how bad the M5s distort at high SPLs. The M5s sound so amazing...until they're replaced with the M100s. LOL!

Active M100s are in my future.

Hmmmm...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-BtCqNjx7YqJLAH8Soas6BpHpWdsJYk4/view?usp=drivesdk

HUUUUUUUUUUGE in every way.

We just finished watching Hellboy at reference level (0dB on the Onk). That reference level is at an MLP of 12 feet from the M100s, 14 feet from the 160 and 12 feet from the QS8s. It was ARMAGEDDON with astonishing clarity. The most interesting thing is that I measured the peak voltage at one of the QS8s and with an estimate of the impedance, I calculated just over 260 peak Watts supplied by the ADA-1000. I'm pretty sure my Onk can do that but not if it's also feeding other channels.

I took SPL measurements last night during the opening scenes of Fury Road on BR via the PS3. I recorded 105dBC peaks at -10.5 on the Onk. All sounded tremendously controlled and immersive through the 1500/M100/160, 1000/QS10 and 800.

At -5, the highs started getting squirrely. I turned the 160 off and all was fine. At 0, I was recording 110.5dBC peaks but I could tell I was reaching compression limits.

These levels are at an MLP of 12 feet from the M100s, 14 feet from the 160 and 12 feet from the QS8s.

As I thought about my last post, gut feel told me something wasn't right because I've been able to push the 160 a lot harder.

The PS3 has a volume setting. This setting was cranked to max. I changed it to what Sony calls normal.

Now I hit 105dBC at -5.5 on the Onk. I was able to get to 108dBC without detecting any harshness. That was at -2 on the Onk. Beyond that, I wasn't getting any harshness but it sounded like the only thing getting louder was LFE.