Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Speaker Setup?

Can you be specific with how larger vs smaller speakers trend in your room. Did a pattern emerge? (Hint)

I can tell you what I observed although admittedly I didn't really approach it like a science project.

In general, I found larger speakers, with more drivers, need a bigger room and a greater MLP. Larger rooms do not necessarily need larger speakers. If you want to sit 12 feet away from your fronts, M2s are good enough with good subs like the 500s even in a 4,200 cu. ft. space like mine. In a 2,000 cu. ft. living room, floor-standers are a total waste of money and will give you more problems. This goes for music and movies but I will tell you that active LFR1100s add a lot to movies. I could not say that about M100s vs. M2s as fronts.

-- Bass --

Any passive floor-standing or bookshelf had attenuated bass response when moved away from the boundaries. No surprise there. In my living room, the M2s were the only ones that played non-bloated bass. M50s were a somewhat close second. In the basement, the bass response was good from all passives as long as they were moved into the room a few feet. They all still needed XT32 correction.

The actives are very different. I didn't notice any bass bloat at all. Quite uncanny actually. I suppose maybe they were tuned for boundary placement but even so, when I move them away from the boundaries, the bass does not change. Not sure how this could be. Also the actives don't need any XT32 correction. There is no difference between corrected and uncorrected to my ears.

-- Imaging/Soundstage --

The M2s were the easiest to image out of any passive. I found as I moved into larger speakers, it was more and more difficult to image and I had less degrees of freedom. Ultimately, for the best imaging and soundstage, they all need to be into the room, forming an equilateral triangle with the MLP. You can move the MLP closer to hear more of the speakers rather than the room. I find this too "in your face". You can move the MLP further if you want to experience the soundstage as if you are more "in the audience". This is how I prefer it.

The actives are quite different. In my living room, I really could not get soundstage width beyond the speaker boundaries. I was sitting 10 feet away and they were 10 feet apart. The size of the actives was getting in the way. The M2OW are far better in that regard. In my living room, I am giving nothing up with the M2OW compared to the active LFRs. Yes, the bass out of the actives in the living room was something else entirely but what I have, with my two crappy subs and the M2s, is very satisfying also. The basement is a different story because I am sitting 14 feet away and the actives are 12 feet apart. They're only a foot into the room. The size doesn't get in the way there, and with well-recorded material, they completely disappear acoustically. They really don't need perfect recordings. Yes, music with them is amazing but it's the movies that totally surprised me. No center needed and the experience can't be matched even with the M100s.

It's the first time in 13 years, and I am no longer wanting more out of my speakers and subs. It took a hell of a lot of experimenting, and money, to get here.

That matches my experience very closely although M5HP's are also "no bloat" at the distances I was able to space them from the wall. M2's, M3's and Sierra-1's were all perfect in terms of imaging and tight bass but had other shortcomings (it's a BIG room).

This is with ~1.5 bales of rockwool set up as bass traps, which improved bass response so much that I should probably double that at least and experiment with other materials as well.

I am not expecting the same kind of insanely wide imaging from the LFR's that I can get with current speakers when everything is set up just right, but I expect to enjoy the wider sweet spot more than enough to make up for that.

Your comments about the bass from the actives are encouraging - my one nagging concern has been the obvious "if I have clearly preferred bookshelf speakers over towers in any room I have lived in for a duration, why the heck did I buy LFR1100's ?".

The actives will give you wide soundstage provided you place them wide apart and either sit close or far. Here's what I mean by that.

They're 12 feet apart in my main room. If I sit 15 feet away, I get width. If I sit 8 feet away, I get width. But 8 feet away is like you're sitting at the edge of the stage. 15 feet away is like the stage is further away. If I sit somewhere in between those distances, it's like the actives get in the way of themselves. Of course these dimensions are room-dependent. There is some ratio of distances though that result in less than optimum soundstage performance.

You bought actives because you're curious...as am I. But bigger is definitely not necessarily more enjoyable. It depends on the room and their position and your position within it.

K. I'll get something started.

This is great. It would be awesome if Andrew shared his setup strategy. His vids are great but don't really get into any specifics.

Having fun reading all your experiences.

More!

I'm not sure why everyone assumes that speaker designers know how to set speakers up in a room and tweak a room. That's a science and practice all on its own. Trevor, I'd lay money down you know more than Andrew in this regard. That's not a knock on Andrew.

Speaker designers have to embrace a design "standard". That standard helps them build product regardless of the room the product is placed in. That standard for Axiom is Toole's research. Axiom has interpreted the science behind that research and adopted that interpretation within its Family of Curves. Over time, it has adjusted its understanding of the curves and the design parameters that lead to greater accuracy for the specified operating boundaries of a particular speaker.

What Axiom has done with its FOCs signifies a very mature level of requirements. These requirements are used to design speakers and the components within them. Without them, a speaker designer is free to design to his own requirements, and those requirements likely won't be valid in the markets the speakers sell in.

The actives prove to me that a highly accurate FOC works very well. Room integration as a result becomes easier. Now hopefully Trevor can make it easier for all of us by spilling some secret methods.

Naw, I think he probably has a kick butt setup and room that we would all strive for.

His collection of music is damned impressive if it fills a room!!

I feel I have two terrific rooms as well but I am not sure I am an authority. I am led to believe I am another "a" word.

When I'm invited to friends' homes, I give them a few tips about their speaker set-ups, and invariably the dudes want to give my ideas a try. They are astounded with the result and exclaim "Honey, come listen to this". The wife comes into the room, looks absolutely horrified with the re-configuration, glares at me, raises her hand, points at me with her index digit and declares, "You're an asshole!"

Don't worry, you can be both !

That's the wisest thing I've heard all week.