Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Starting to oggle new gear

A21 wont drive the LFRs by itself. Can you find another one to match it?

I would prefer the widest sound presence with the 77" tv. The extra drivers and cabinet size will do that and the placement of those extra drivers should help with the left/right pull i have do to distance limitations with seating.

That's true (although not the flaw i mentioned).
I would be planning on getting a Halo A23 to run the back channels if i went through with this setup but in the meantime, i could bring my Anthem MCA30 back upstairs to run the back channels or i would borrow an amp from a friend until i could get the A23.

The flaw to which i referred was having an all Axiom setup in the media room EXCEPT for the mains. I would be pairing Monitor Audio mains with an Axiom centre. Some people get their knickers in a twist over timbre matching, etc etc. I would preferably have the mains and centre all be the same brand/model line, far less bothered by the surrounds and sub, but Axiom has one of the best centre channels out there and for far less than any Monitor Audio offering.
This is in USD
https://www.speakershop.com/product/monitor-audio-center-channel-speaker-gold-c350

Maybe, maybe not. You'd have to try both. The 160v4 is more linear on axis than the 180v4. With the 160, at 10 to 14 feet away, I can sit 30 degrees off axis with no appreciable difference. 15 more degrees and I can definitely hear an appreciable difference although I would not object.

I'm not sure you want a wider presence. A center is supposed to anchor sound to the center of the screen. The 180 will work but so would a 160 OR in my case


a VP150ow (under my 77"). This size is fantastic for a 77". It fills the 18x18x9 foot room it's in and sounds great.

P.S. that left speaker is impossible!! Darn think keeps moving

One more thought ...

The advantage to the VP180 over a VP160 is that it's not as tall ... so, it may fit better under your screen (which is why the VP150ow won over the VP160ow). I'd also suggest you consider the on-wall option if your screen is on the wall ...

Actually IMO, the sound should anchored to the screen, not specifically the 'centre' of the screen. Presently when someone is located on the left of the screen, the sound comes too much from the middle of the screen, which isn't correct. You could almost say it's like watching a dubbed Chinese movie with a person talking on the left but the sound coming from somewhere displaced.

In your case, based on your room dimensions and picture, if you are (and it appears you are) sitting farther back than i am with better placement of the mains up front, then you will get a much better sound from the centre area in relation to the screen. If i could sit back about another 3 feet, it would improve. Because our seats are closer to the mains, and i cannot setup a true sweet spot for a seated position, there are only two ways to better anchor the centre sound; by using the AVR menu options for changing the soundstage (tried this with the old Onkyo but it was clunky) or getting a wider centre.

I have tried smaller speakers and a larger one laid on its side for testing. The wider centre channel makes more sense because of the speaker placement/seating limitation.

When we did some blind testing of two speakers years back, i put the sound into mono mode and had the two speakers side by side about 15' away from the seated position. The person in the seat could not tell if the speaker playing was the one on the left or the right. Sitting farther back causes that effect but the reverse is true the closer you sit.

I actually spaced the tv to the right height so that it clears the VP180 height. Either way, the slightly lower ceiling height provides a limitation such that any centre channel will direct sound to the back wall which is blocked by the tv screen.
I've noticed a huge difference in the centre channel sound since the new tv went in. The old RPTV had the centre sitting on top of it and hence had typical sound reflection off the back wall.

I'm sitting a bit further back than I want to at the moment because of the temporary furniture. I'll be setting things up a bit closer in the future. In any case ...

I did do a bit of testing when considering where MLP should be. Screen wise I wanted to be in the the 6' to 8' range. Sound wise even at 6' the sound was fairly even across the screen (although a bit too close for two channel). I'm wondering if your running the center a bit too hot or if something else is off.

I had the opposite happen when I was testing the surround setup in the HT. My speakers were setup for a 150" screen while I was watch the picture on a 27" monitor ... that was very weird. The action on the right and left was way outside where visually it should have been coming from. Oh ... I had a VP180 under the monitor ... talk about a wide center

It's all in the speaker positioning.
Seats are 10' from the speakers but the chairs are so wide they span about 7' with almost 2' of padded arms in the middle (the actual sweet stereo imaging spot is where the chair arms are!). Hence, when sitting in the left hand chair, you are staring directly forward to the left speaker with the right speaker way off to the right.
Did a quick text layout.
Think this kind of triangle setup which ideally would be more of an isoceles shape from mains to the sweet spot for a seated position (i can provide pics later; was going to wait until i swapped out all the speakers to repost the new setup in the gallery)

_______<----6 feet b/w mains---->
--------------------WALL----------------------
Spkr (L)__*******Screen Size*******_Spkr (R)
_____________***VP150***
__________********VP180**********
[
[
[ 10 feet back
...[ .....................}..................{ ......................}
...[ .....................}..................{ ......................}
...[ .....................}chair arms { ......................}
...[ .....Chair .......}chair arms { .....Chair .......}
-----------Wall----------------------------------------

Note how the screen size to centre channel size varies dramatically.
Also note how the seated spots for left and right are very off the actual centred location for a sweet spot which in this room is impossible to get a solid stereo image at either seated position.
The back wall with the chairs is about 14 feet from the TV but it is a an angled downward wall, plus the back chair width and cushion depth leaves the user at 10 feet from the mains with no possible movement back any farther.
The main speakers are about 10" out from the opposing wall with the TV so no additional distance backward is possible.
Configurations for moving the mains closer together at most cuts the distance to 5 feet apart from 6 which has been tried and the stereo image gets even smaller....moving the mains apart any farther worsens the left/right pull).
The chairs cannot move to the left or right more than an inch or two.
There is no more room to adjust speakers or chairs beyond a few inches at most.

Many years ago i tried all these variations and where the mains sit presently is about the best i was able to get to minimize the left/right pull. This is why having the wide front soundstage becomes necessary. It was why i auditioned the LFR at the Axiom factory specifically.

The room sounds great. Some of the best DVD-A recordings are quite stellar even though at the two listening positions you have a bit of left/right pull. Adding some back surrounds will only increase the surround effects (and technically i could go as far as Atmos and add heights and ceilings but with the room all finished at this point, plus the extra cost, i'm not going to bother and am stopping at a 7.2 system).

I'm just limited unfortunately due to the room size and the size of our lounge chairs. If i had a row of 3 or 4 home theatre chairs instead of our double size lounges, at least one chair would have the actual sweet spot.