Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners can't make up my mind

I bought a set of inwall M4-v4 speakers with the good intention of installing them in the back wall of the media room. This is not going to happen so there is no point in keeping these speakers that are still wrapped in plastic in the original boxes

I have a set of M3-v4 computer speakers that sound awsome. I however don't like them attached to my Mac as the mac doesn't like to play as nice as it should with volume and trying to adjust the volume on the back of the speakers is a total pain. I have just given in to not using them for that but rather have made up a small media player with a Raspberry Pi and plug them into that with the USB cable and can use them as a psudo portable outside speakers that kick out some wicked sound and just use the Raspberry as the music source.

So I still have the Mac that would be nicer to have some better speakers for and beside it is a windows10 box that I play some games on every once in a while. I have an old Nakamichi AV1 stereo that would be really easy to plug in beside the two computers, and just run an USB audio out plug from each computer to the VCR1&2 inputs on the Nak and then let it drive a set of speakers. I do have some older Energy speakers that will sound good. I don't know if a pair of M3's would sound better. I don't see the point of going b-stock sale right now as what is online isn't what I really want. I am not in any rush to get the speakers. I don't think the room is big enough to justify M5's.

Can't decide if this is just buying for the sake of it. ITS computer speakers for G-Sake. I guess for me it comes down to price. The web site gives me two options for trade in conditions. Good and rough around the edges. I don't think my trade in speakers are either. They are pristine in original packaging un opened from Axiom factory. So I guess the holdback comes down to price. If only I could get someone at Axiom to call me to see if we could work out a slightly better price that will tip me in favour of spending more money.

Your M4-v4 are priceless. I'd never trade them in no matter how much Axiom offered me.

typo. they are inwall M3-V4

I'm sure Axiom will give you full value for upgrading to active LFRs. The actives are 12 times as good as your passive LFRs.

I am sure that the active LFRs would sound incredible, but likely not in the room that these speakers I am buying will be located. For LFRs to sound good they need room to breath and a 8'x10' room isn't ideal for that.

I got an email from Ian, and he made a very reasonable offer for upgrading the inwall M3 to a bookshelf M3, so I will likely go with that. I still have the small nag in the back of my mind that I should look at the M5, but I am sure that the price difference will be enough to preclude me from moving forward.

However.. when I got my first set of Axiom Audio speakers, a pair of M80-V4, I did hook them up to the Nakamichi and was mind-boggling blown away with how great they sounded. If what I have heard is true, that the M5 can sound close to what you get out of the M80, just not quite as loud, then will I be left wanting just that little bit more?

The Axiom factory has burst at the seams with orders and all the staff is working around the clock to get everyone their gear. Apparently Ian is surviving on 1.5 hours of sleep a day but he somehow still found time to read your post and make you a generous offer. Wow!

I've discovered the M3, M5, M50 and M100v4 are all problematic in smaller rooms due to their inaccurate bass response. The M50 is the best of the bunch in this regard. All the others have prodigious bass output that is difficult to tame. The M50 is prodigious also but it appears to be more linear. I've tried port plugs but didn't like the sound. I had to cut my bass by as much as 16dB and even that wasn't enough when playing loud.

The actives are a completely different animal. They are worth the price for the bass alone. For music, I will take the actives in 2.0 over my M100/800/dual 500s. You can't possibly understand this until you hear it. In the same smaller rooms where I had bass problems with all the others, I drop the actives in and there are zero problems. No "room EQ" needed of any kind. The amplitude response curves tell the story and I would have never believed how much difference those curves make without hearing the actives myself.

So back to your question, the M5s are more accurate than the M3s in every possible way. You will hear things with them that are masked by the M3s. If you place them along the 10 foot width, you will have a wider soundstage with more images that are better isolated relative to the M3s. If someone took my M100s away and I was left with M5s in my living room, I would not complain. I thought at one time I wouldn't complain about swapping M5s for M100s in my main space but I've come to enjoy the more expansive images the M100s cast in my 4200 cu. ft. room.

I second the vote for M5.
My M22 have really big stage. But misses the oomph of 6 inch Hp driver. In my Qs10 the extra low driver is awesome.

No experience with the M5 itself, I totally suspect it could easily recreate a smaller M60/M80 fuller performance.

Sadly the hit to the wallet was too much for me to handle with the M5, so the trigger was pulled on a new pair of bookshelf M3 in Walnut.

Congrats
The M3 started my Axiom system.

The walnut is very special!

Well, with every bit of good, also comes a bit of bad. So I decided to drag the old Nak out of it's storage place hiding in the unused front sitting room, and brought it upstairs to the office where the Mac and PC are. Moved the cheep sony speakers that were hooked up to a cheap 20w digital amp connected to the mac and ran the wires to the NAK. All sounded great.. for about 3 hours.

Then there was a distinct humm sound in the room. Then there was a funny smell. Needless to say the Nak doesn't produce sound out of the right speaker channel any more and if you touch the unit, all sound cuts out. Pretty sure it's dead!

So a wonderful set of speakers are getting shipped to me in 26 or so days that have no real means of getting powered. I could see if I could reserect an old Yamaha that it about 3 years newer than the Nakamichi that I think I might have thrown out to my parents house. Doubt they are using it.

But part of me says I should just look to get a new sort of amp. I need it for just two functions, or more to point, two inputs. Two sets of RCA in with a switch of some form to select each input. A balance control would be nice, and I'd prefer a treble/bass adustment. I was thinking of some form of warm sounding hybrid tube/digital amp at 60watts will be more than fine.

Anyone have any suggestions of what to look at? Links prefered. Availible for Canada is a must.

Sony STRDH190 2-ch Stereo Receiver with Phono Inputs and Bluetooth Audio Component, Black https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B078WFDR8D/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_gqQcEbCXPHTZ0

Yamaha Natural Sound Stereo Receiver (R-S202BL) https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01ITB23YC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_YqQcEbG1PSFHD

What do you think of a NAD 316BEE or Cambridge Audio Azur 350A

It's really impossible to say how the NAD, Cambridge, Sony and Yammie compare to each other sound-wise with M3s until one has had a chance to audition them. I don't see much difference between these on paper but not much info is given to begin with. From an internal build perspective, I'd take the NAD or Cambridge with preference for the Cambridge, but that doesn't mean they sound better than the others. I can't see how spending more for the NAD or Cambridge would buy you better sound.

Check for a single-strand short between the speaker terminals on the back of the amp. I don't think it's likely given your description of events (3 hours) but worth checking anyways.

I picked up a Grant TubeDAC for a few reasons, one of which was getting a sense for how "tube sound" fitted into modern systems. My impression in a nutshell was "sounds nice, messes with imaging". Not sure how much of that would translate to a hybrid amp but figured I should mention it.

Fuses don't normally give off that special expensive smell but just in case is it worth looking up Nak model # and checking ?

@mojo - I took a look at the two options and picked the Sony just for the sake of it. Its $170+tax. Then I dove into what Sony had published.

- 100w / channel (love how the stores call it a 200w unit)
- The phono amplifier and transformer are positioned optimally to minimize interference from the magnetic field.

But you then look at the published graphics that Sony provides and you clearly see its a larger transformer with pure class-D amp. You know this is just a switching power supply with an pulse width modulation amp running at who knows what voltage to give you the 100w per channel. You can also speculate that is 100w fully driven to clip.

Pulling up the NAD 316bee.v2, at least they are a bit more honest about their product. It is a liner power supply inside with a pretty well sized terodal coil. I don't know if its an AB or D class amp. But more interesting they actually publish at 45w per channel @ 8ohms with IHF dynamic power of 90w @ 8ohms, giving you 3db of head room. I can get one of these off CanuckAudioMart for about $350

Then you have the Cambridge Audio Azur 350A ($175 used 4y/o). The manual specs it at 45w @ 8ohms. I have seen the unit on youtube taken apart and it has quite a well sized terodal coil power supply. There is no real spec pulling up on what or even if there is any dynamic headroom or if the 45w is to full power clip.


Now I remember that Ian had a really good posting that I read somewhere where Mojo was talking with someone else about the Axiom ADA amps and headroom, liner power supples vs switching and sound clipping. Ian had gone to say about how many amp companies.. ie Sony,Pioneer,Yamaha,Marantz.... report nice huge numbers for their amps but are giving you a number to fully driven clipping at a single 1khz tone, where music is dynamic and you bursts of power. It was something like how much dynamic head room you need and working backwords to show that a 100w amp might really be like a 12w amp with 9db of headroom. (wish I could re-find that posting)

This brings me back to the question at hand. I can get a 4 year old used Cambridge Audio unit for about the same price a new Sony. My gut tells me that the CA Azur350A will likely sound far better with the M3 as I get the feeling it likely is a better built unit with a far better amp guts inside of it. The NAD is likely the same build as the CA but will cost me double for a "NEW" open box unit that the seller says sat in its box and was intended for a man-cave garage that never happened.

What would you choose?


@Bridgman - I don't think it's a loose wire or something like that. I know there is a part of me that remembers the old NAK. I will pull it apart and see if I can see anything obvious, but I have done the logical diagnosis and think it's something bigger inside that is at fault.

The internal build quality of the NAD and Cambridge appears to be better. The Cambridge appears more well-thought out in that department. You are correct in that NAD is more transparent about their specs. In consideration of this last point, if someone held a gun to my head and I had to choose between all of these on potential sound quality alone, I would choose the NAD.

Along the lines of Ian's guidance, consider the following. In your 8x8 room, the M3s will give you an honest 97dBC of sound pressure level before you can perceive any distortion from the woofer. That's only 16 peak Watts. Perhaps, if you are not a discerning listener, you may not perceive any distortion until 103dBC. That's 64 peak Watts.

97dBC is nothing to be ashamed of. That is plenty. Given your posts on the M3 vs. the M5 and your concern to save some cash, I think either the Sony or Yammie will fill your needs while being easier on your wallet.

Matt, here is another one for your consideration. I have the Pioneer A9 which I am very impressed with. The A9 is essentially two mono amps with twin toroids and hefty capacitance in one chassis. It is conservatively rated and has no trouble with any of my Axioms including the active LFR woofers. It is dead quiet! I get a wide, deep soundstage with very well-defined images.

The one below may be similarly good to mine but with less power.

https://www.visions.ca/product-detail/45...141&sku=A20

You probably cannot go wrong either way, minus some power for the Japanese products. The newer may be better than the second hand for longevity unless it truly hasn't been used.

Still have never heard of any real problems anyone ever has with either of those English products all around, very well built.

I hate making decisions like these. I have owned more than a few pioneer products from bestbuy/future shop. I know they sounded sub par but most often you got what you paid for. The later ones were getting ok as if you’d wait for them to be replaced by newer models then the $1200-1600 models would come down to the $450-600 price levels that sort of to me showed how much markup was in the units and what they likely should have been selling for.

But I have never owned a Pioneer Elite form another store line. I imagine that Best Buy get a specific design for them that don’t line up with everyone else. Who knows if they get a high margin lower quality made knowing they are big enough that people will just buy from them??

Do I put my distrust in getting crap to one side and say perhaps it will be an ok unit??

You can pay an ever upgrade cost for electronics especially stereo equipment. Is it better than the one before it?? Does an Arcam FMJ really give better sound than a NAD bee to justify the $600-1000 price difference. I don’t know

And if I put just about any major brand into google and search for <brand.name> failure rate, you will get pages upon pages from forum users saying it was a piece of junk and never buy that brand. It’s a wonder that any company is still in business.

What is the answer?

Check these guys out:

https://www.partsconnexion.com/

They have a lot of deals on various integrated amps, and are located in Burlington, Ontario.

I was ther earlier today Craig. They do sell quite a load of really nice stuff at ell sorts of price ranges, but where I am paralyzed is how much (or little) do you need to get something that will sound good. Sure I could go in there and drop $1000 and be pretty sure that what I get will be pretty darn good, but what if I bought the cheapest option for $300.. will I be satisfied? Do I need to get a $500 or $600 intergrated?

I could get them to plug one in with their speakers as mine haven’t arrived yet and listen.. but what will I learn. Did something that sounds good there mean it will here?

This Arcam receiver is killer - it may be overkill with 7 x 80 WPC - as you are looking for 2 channel. BUT - it's tremendous as a 2 channel amp, and the power supply will be entirely dedicated to your 2 speakers. It's listed at $299 US on their site:

https://www.partsconnexion.com/TRADEIN-86347.html

I was thinking of if a good quality AV receiver would do just as good a job considering there are sometimes loads of those for sale rather cheap.

I did download the manual for that Arcam Diva and it's interesting that on page 30 of the manual it covers both by-wire and by-amping the speakers. Now I know I ordered the M3 with bi-wire posts, so it is possible. That way I would be getting effectively 2x80watts per speaker using more of what the unit has, rather than running a single channel and getting 100watts of power. Perhaps that will give me more dynamic headroom.

Tech Radar did a review - with tests - of the unit. Here is what they measured:

""In our lab, the model delivered 105W across five channels, and 130W in stereo mode (into 8ohms). Multichannel mixes are simply laid bare in the room and the sound all but leaps out of the speakers, creating the wonderful illusion of a much larger listening environment.""

This means you are going to have 4x105 watts for the M3's - that's going to rock. And Arcam's stuff is just plain great sounding.

Why, according to Arcam, is HDMI bad for audio?

Well, I placed an order for the unit. They are closed untilL Thursday so I hope that they process me first. Well, I can drive to the office for 10am when they open so hopefully all will be good.

Another crisis averted

Matt - I just checked. It is off the website, so it is likely you got the unit.

You need to look at the era for this unit. This is an HDMI 1.0 spec. So by comparison to what was capable over coax, yes this method via HDMI was far inferior to what you'd get with other digital connectors. it wasn't until HDMI 1.3 came out that there was enough bandwidth to offer the higher bit count modes. You must remember that the early spec was very locked down in it had to format the signal to a specific spec and even if it was just sending audio, a blank video package was also being encoded.

Matt,
What did speakers did purchase.

RJ

I see about HDMI. Thank you.

Matt, sorry, but now that you have the Arcam coming, you really ought to do something about upgrading from the M3s you purchased to M5s. I'm not kidding.

As of recently most high end recommend against HDMI in favor of I squared S, As HDMI is a Sony/Philips product {In turn you get Sony/Philips sound}
According to many such companies S.A.C.D. is the greatest but their copyright chips suck. Go figure, personally I agree with copyright protection and these 2 companies have been involved in it so long they are copyright through and through. Both could literally drop all products sent to North America worry free and never really lose money.

I was thinking more about how is best to setup the speakers when they come. Right now I have a pair of Energy C3 speakers sitting on my only speaker stands inside the front sitting room. Do I just steal them for my other room, and then put the C3 speakers onto the 'to be built' inwall shelves that I promised the wife I would build when we moved into the house 8 years ago?

Alternatively, I could consider getting the FMB as the M3 are small enough to actually consider mounting on a wall.

The Arcam has 7.1, so even using 2 channels for by-amping will leave 5.1 left. I have a Mirage sub that my wife wants me to move and a spare small center speaker that I could wall mount between the two monitors on my desk. Then do I put up a couple s small satellite speakers to get 5.1? Or stay more true to the intended purpose and just run 2.0? or put in the sub as the M3 could gain some help if needed.

All questions again.

Not sure what 5.1 would sound like in a small room like that. I'd say you're best off getting the best 2.0 you can get. The M5s will give you the best 2.0. Kijiji the Mirage and the center and upgrade to M5.

You will never get good soundstage depth if you are FMBing or installing right against a wall.

What is going on?

My M3 are in production .. so hopefully they will be done in a week. Guess it is more the limitations of the paint booth. Picked up the Arcam AVC280. Figured it was smarter to get one from the dealer that has been fully tested and comes with a 90day warranty, over the AVC350 that is a few dolllars more but you get what you get. I can live with 20 less watts. Not like the M3 will likely perform any less with the slightly lower wattage.

Plan on running the speakers with (passive) bi-amping as the Arcam does actually have some decent power inside and can take advantage of extra rear amps going unused.

Mojo. I don’t feel M5 for me would have been worth it, and the cash went towards the amp and possibly a new set of stands.

Right now I have a real SH! Set of small Sony speakers hooked up just to test the amp to make sure it will actually play and has left/right working output. Then it’s waiting for Axiom sound goddesses to arrive.

Let us know how it all sounds when you set it up.

I have not heard a v4 I didn't like. Each one has its own character and evokes different emotions. The M3 and M50 are special in their own way. When I want to relax, those are the speakers I listen to.

I'm real anxious to hear the M2s and the difference between bookshelf and on-wall.

Its hard to tell what is worse. making your mind up about what you want and should get, or the wait for it to get made and delivered.

It's not too bad for you because you already know what M3s sound like.

The wait is over. My wonderful M3 speakers arrived this morning. Allowing them to re-acclimatize to the indoors. Actually, I just haven't got around to putting together a new dual set of banana plug speaker wires yet. Maybe tonight when i get some motivation to find proper 12gague speaker wire downstairs.

Let us know if the walnut textures the sound.

Well, it seems that Ian got to me with his latest promotion.

I don't know if this should be in a different section but my VP180 is being returned and I have ordered a pair of M5HP in Walnut. will likely swap out the M3 in the bedroom/office that I am currently enjoying, and put in the M5.

Just have to wait for them to get made and then I am going to drive up to pick them up rather than having them shipped down to me. Trade the VP180 for a new set of L&R.

The M5HP is in a different league.