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

My neighborhood has been pretty quiet the last few days. That ended this morning. I opened the living room windows, turned the Pioneer up to max, and let the 1000-8 and 1000-2 spray CHIC out of the actives at a glorious 120dBC/m. While wearing my muffs, I observed the walking dead across my street come to their windows. Then we went for a nice walk while listening to disco tunes permeating my bland neighborhood. The cops haven't showed up yet.

https://open.spotify.com/track/28NBmftocOzTPEb6OYA9fW?si=5cA2CyTHQUmFV22zFTs71g

I think that counts as domestic terrorism under US law.

Good thing you live in Canada.

Don't tell our PM. He will outlaw active LFRs.

Brendo asked in another post what the actives sound like relative to passives. I thought I'd try to describe it here using a piece from The Doors I like very much for its lyrics (see link). This is all in my 1800 cu. ft. living room with no room EQ.

On the M100, Jim is back but not as far back as with the actives. On the M100, the sounds on the left and right are more collapsed into the speakers. With the actives, the left and right are behind the speakers and expanded beyond the speaker boundaries. In essence, the actives disappear far better. The bass out of the M100s is unbearable; I have to turn it down by 10 units on my Pioneer and another 6 units on my Chromecast Audio. There is no such problem with the actives. The over-all sound with the actives is bigger, more expansive and Jim's voice is outside my bow window while with the M100s, he is back but not outside. The actives have more immediacy and tightness to their sound. It is a much nicer experience to listen to the actives vs. the M100.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7mc2TP4Vzuyw2vNf1bLW9f?si=G36YBluCQc-8EP2OWRFFMA

Beyond this song, where available on the recording, the actives portray more images, with more space between them with higher resolution to those images relative to the M100. The soundstage of the actives is wider and deeper and sounds more expansive; everything sounds freer, more natural without any softness where there should be hardness and hardness where there should be softness - yin and yang is well-balanced. Even an untrained newbie immediately prefers the actives over the M100 judging from bass and mids alone.

On this particular tune, I can hear every one of the bass notes extremely clearly including the hardness of the pluck and drone of the harmonics. On the M100s, they are mushy, boomy and mashed together.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5uvosCdMlFdTXhoazkTI5R?si=9LH4vziJR3ODz_0kG_ClAg

I've found a tune that brings my active LFR system to its knees. Not sure yet if it's the amplification or the speakers that are the limiting factor. I can hear low frequency distortion at ungodly levels. This is likely where the twin 500s would help.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7AfZO99SLUostJ2ZS8tN6D?si=y4LnJsJPQvuACPPDreLcPw

My M100/1500/800/500x2 system in my 4200 cu. ft. basement room can't replicate the slam of my active LFR/1000-2/1000-8 system in my 1800 cu. ft. living room.

I have my 3 subs set to boost and my Onk cranked all the way up. No doubt it's loud but the dynamics are just not there! It sounds slow, muted, dull. If I didn't have the actives for comparison, I would have said the above-referenced tune is a sub-par recording.

There's a lot of mid-bass and mid-range energy that is just not happening in my basement system.

I forgot to mention the starting drum slam on the track above is shutting down my 1500. I've never been able to do that with any other tracks. My crossover is set to 80Hz.

The 1000s in the active system are holding steady. I could give them another 10 units of volume from my Pioneer pre-amp but I'm worried about the mid-woofers. They are popping out like Marty Feldman's eyes. They're not distorting though.

I may get courageous and give them all this tune has got.

That track is a system killer!!!!

We were discussing krakatoa SPLs in another post and I saw a post by Tanner on audiocircle so I'm prompted to post this reminder: anyone out there with active LFRs, be very, very mindful of that volume control. I've said it before that I listen at -33 from 10 feet away and that is plenty. You can very easily damage your hearing and also end up with sinus cavity issues from the pressure including headaches, balance and vision problems.

Tanner BTW said that he listens to the active Ts at low levels as well.

Ian, I recommend you include a warning in the active LFRs manual.