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

I forgot to mention about last night. My buddy was floored with the M2OW/125v4 set-up in my living room. He always was amazed with this set-up but of course these subs have given it a clearer and more emotional sound. Anyway, he left with my M2 bookshelves. He's going to experiment in his basement with them. I think ultimately he'll pitch out the floor-standing KEFs he has and go to M2OW.

I am very curious as to your thoughts on the sealed vs ported designs now that you have both. In the past you were quite adamant that sealed were without question superior. Based on the comments above, have you changed that firm stance?

Mike, the ported models I heard was my 600v2, a 350v2 and a plethora of other manufacturers. I had never heard a sealed until the 800v4. That cemented in my head that sealed is better compared to all others I heard. Far better.

But now...well...this 125v4 is superb! You'd never know it was ported until you lifted the grill and looked.

As far as I'm concerned, for Axiom subs, it's not about ported vs. sealed any more. It's about size, SPL and low frequency extension. That is as it ought to be!

As far as I know, I am the first to report this since the sphinctered v4 subs were birthed.

Edit: It's also about cross-over adjust, phase adjust and XLR or RCA. And it ought not to be. Andrew should have yanked the high level inputs on the ported subs and added the same cross-over adjust, phase adjust and XLR or RCA. These are the only obvious poor product decisions that I see.

It's no contest between the 125v4 and the SVS PB1000 (in ported or sealed mode). The articulation of the 125v4 is absolutely superb! My buddy and I just did a head-to-head. The SVS 1000 certainly goes lower and louder but it is muddy and not as emotionally satisfying. That goes for movies too.

Absolutely superb musicality. So totally enjoyable. It has me scratching my head why I've spent so much money on Axiom sealed subs.

On top of that, the M2 bookshelves put the KEF floor-standers to shame. And no - none of this took any critical listening. He's so pissed! Slowly he's changing everything out to Axiom.

One of the things to know about the EP125v4 is you may need to get it out of the corners. That's really the case with all subs. Don't expect it to be as linear as the sealed subs. If you stick it in a corner, certain tunes may excite it along with your room. I don't know about the other ported Axiom subs. I can only tell you what I hear with what I have. There is no such effect with the sealed Axioms I have. If you stick them in the corner, you just get bigger sound - which some may or may not like.

I've only picked up a resonance on Fly Me to the Moon by Sinatra in the playlist I posted. No such resonance on the 500 or 800 in my main room or if I place the 500 in the same place as the 125 in my living room. No such resonance if I put the 125 in my main room. It's the 125/living room interaction that is exciting the mode in the 125. I've moved it out of the corner and all is well.

Recall what I had said about the active LFRs in my living room. It was the most amazing bass I ever heard. Just the active LFRs with no sub. They were better than 500s or 125s. So of course the room/speaker interaction really matters and the actives were made for my living room as far as bass is concerned.

Having said the above, other than the resonance due to corner placement in my room on that one song, I enjoy that song more on the 125 than the 500. Simply put, the dual 125v4 sound better in my living room than a single or dual 500. I just find it to be a very tuneful, articulate sub.

Cool Mo glad your enjoying it so much.

Could the detail your finding be some what related to the amount of content the 125s are getting to play? As in real world unless your really into Hiphop/Tecno or pipe organ. There really isn't a whole lot of content in the sub 20/30Hz region? So the 125 should have more content to play in general.

For me you could say I had a competition between SVS PB1000 and Paradigm and the Paradigm smoked the SVS!!! My Anthem ARC fell behind the sub and snapped the LFE right out. Total K.O.

Brendo, the corner resonance wasn't related to low content. I'd say it was somewhere between 50 and 70Hz. I haven't heard it since I moved one sub out of the corner.

The 125 is real nice for most ladies. Females are anatomically more sensitive to low bass to the point where they ask for it to be turned off. The nice thing about the 125 is that it doesn't go down low enough to be a pain for them. It's also physically smaller of course which they tend to like.

Can you cite a reference. Never read that.

Thanks for calling that out, Trevor. I always thought that was the case particularly given my experience with women asking me to turn down the bass. But now that I've searched, I am less convinced.

I found a couple of references but nothing that I would say convinces me that females are more sensitive. First, this link cites that "Women seem to be around 3 dB more sensitive than men except at 8 and 10 Hz..." between 8 and 70 Hz.

https://www.noiseandhealth.org/article.asp?issn=1463-1741;year=2004;volume=6;issue=23;spage=37;epage=57;aulast=Moller#:~:text=%5BFigure%20%2D%204%5D%20shows%20their,be%20performed%20on%20these%20data

This link cites the following for "low frequency noise": "In somatization, a problem which has a mental or emotional cause is expressed as physical symptoms. These symptoms include: "headache, fatigue, joint pains, nervousness, sleep problems, burning of the eyes, nausea, dizziness, weakness, memory problems, gastrointestinal symptoms and respiratory symptoms" (Bailer et al., 2005). Typical patients are well educated, middle aged and about 70% female." My bolding.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1260/0263-0923.28.2.79

If you go by the amount of audiophiles we've all been exposed to I would think men are more sensitive to sound. Rarely do you find women as obsessed with sound as us. They tend to look at us laughing and thinking we're nuts.
I do find older well educated women to not like bass at all. I think it has more to do with the types of equipment they have been used to. As subs weren't really a thing until the 90s.

I helped a family member set up one of my old HTIB systems in their living room to help with T.V. dialogue. Even with the sub totally down to zero now unplugged, My grandmother who is 93 hates it due to the amount of bass even with subs integrated then turned off. It's still to much for her. Considering her oldest son has been a performer since the 60s and she's been to more shows than most anyone in boomy halls. We all find it funny since it adds so much to the experience for us.