Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater M80s vs M100s

So i've had a pair of SVS Ultra towers for a little over a month and a pair of M80s for about 2 weeks. I think i will be keeping the Axioms although i have to say my wife and kids really prefer the look of the SVS. They look much more imposing and since they are in a large room with a 120" screen the SVS fit better in that room.

This leads me to think about switching the axioms to the M100s for the size , but i am wondering if it's worth it. The room the speakers are in is 22' x 15' x 12'high

I use this room for 80% movies and 20% music. I have the in wall axioms for side and rear surrounds. I will soon be installing the axiom in celing speakers and i use the SVS PB3000 for LFE... this is an awesome sub BTW. Nice upgrade from the EP500 i had. I use an Denon x3600h to power the speakers.

Given all of that do you folks think it's worth upgrading to the 100s or use the money on an external amp instead? I'm thinkng of a 9 channel emotiva.

I totally think M100v4 is the way to go in your case. Movies were a completely different experience with M100s vs M5s. I also expect your bass to be better...more linear. Ditto with mids. Not sure about highs.

I have to say, I was totally surprised when Ian recommended the M80s. I just kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to cause you any confusion.

It may be an idea to let your wife and kids choose the finish? You get real wood veneer in a selection of stains as you probably already know.

I would totally expect the 100s to best the M5s, but how much better are they than the 80s?

I actually got the 80s in a walnut high gloss finish. They are nice, but we actually got used to the black piano finish of the SVS. It suits the decor of the room better so i think i will have to get them in that color if i decide to move to the 100s.

I have my 100s in a 56x25x9 room and they fit the room better compared to the paradigms I had in there. They also have ample sound to fill the room and that’s with no walls and doors so the sound is actually traveling 42 feet wide right now. I had the svs16sb ultra and I really prefer the sound of the 600 better. I had a 500 but it couldn’t produce the sound the 600 does. Just mentioning that as comparison to the 500. The 100s are amazing speakers running off my denon 3700h and I can’t wait to push them with the ada1500-5.

Listener, I've said it 83 times on these boards: bigger is not always better. I'd say most of the time, smaller and fewer drivers works better than larger with more drivers. So one shouldn't expect the M100 to be better than the M5. I personally preferred the M5 over the M100 in my 4200 cu ft space and my 1900 cu ft living room. The M5s produced a bigger soundstage and acoustically disappeared. But the M100s sounded more like real instruments, went louder than I needed with no distortion and were just AWESOME for movies. I couldn't get enough of movies, man! It was an amazing 3D soundstage. This is when I realized that towers really matter for movies.

My M80v2 were just total garbage compared to the M100v4 and M5v4. I can hear Alan Lofft saying "You know better than that, Mojo. It's just a matter of degree." Yeah, OK Alan, but not just a few degrees but 180 damned degrees like someone finally saw the light.

Now I'm not saying the M80v4 is garbage - I haven't heard it. But Andrew and Ian didn't work the M80v4 over the way they did the M5 and M100. Andrew aged 10 years getting the Model T and M100 to do his bidding. And he ought to be damned proud. Ian too because I think he was the final sayer on the response curves.

None of this is new BTW. I've said all this before.

So for you Listener, since you're into movies so much, and since the M80s work well in your space, I expect the M100s to sound better than M80s because they are more linear in lows and mids.

I totally agree with Mojo here, Movies ROCK when watching with the M100's and they are my goto speakers when i'm going to turn up music or hear a new song.

It's more important that the M100's have proper amplification with a decent receiver, it's been my personnel experience that the smaller speakers are more forgiving with less than ideal equipment pushing them.

I have the M80 on walls, they do not compare to the M100's, for obvious reasons (cabinet volume makes a big difference) plus there's probably a lot more going on in that cross over due to the larger cabinet. I've not heard the M80s so I can't comment further.

I feel like I kept reading towers don't matter so much for movies, that they really come into play with music. I've had towers as front L+R for forever, but maybe I'll try switching to my M5HPs for a little bit to see how much difference there is. It's probably unfair to compare them to Actives.

Good experiment, Charles. I always thought towers didn't matter either for movies. I guess the M80v2 didn't. When I replaced the M80v2 with M5, the M5s were much better for movies and music. Then the M100s taught me how much better bigger can be for movies.

I don’t think towers or bookshelves are specifically better for movies or music. I’d say it’s more a function of what is better for the room.

My M2/VP150/EP500 system sounds awesome. Perhaps towers might give me more directional bass but so would two subs setup correctly. The big difference being that towers come out of the box already matched level and timber wise for their low end.

My A-LFR1100s (Same speaker configuration in front as an M100) are quite impressive.
For music they are unmatched.
For movies I’m not sure if they are noticeably better (over the M2+500) as your attention is elsewhere and both systems perform at a very high level of fidelity.