Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Surround speakers QS10 or M5HPOW

Need to make decision about replacing my surround speakers. The room has no right side wall so the surrounds are mounted on the back wall. Unfortunately the couch is also against the rear wall. I'm thinking of going with the QS10's but Atmos I believe suggests monopoles for the rear. Currently the rears are mounted a bit high and I feel that you can't really feel their effect, probably more to do with the seating position though.

1, How hard of a rule are monopoles for the surrounds with Atmos? It seems all new receivers are designed with Atmos. My current receiver has it and offers 7.1 or 5.1.2.

2. Would the quint poles compensate for the poor seating position?

3. What is the suggested mounting height for QS10's

3. Possibly in the future there will be a right side wall. Are Atmos side surrounds to be monopole as well?

I'm hoping to visit Axiom in two weeks time when on vacation, in their area. Hopefully they will let me in for a listen, unfortunately the fourth wave is starting to climb here in Ontario.

Thank you in advance for any input !!!

Some rooms just do not lend themselves to ATMOS. If you can not get your rear/side speakers far enough away from the listening area ATMOS my not work for you. You might be better off going 5.1 or 7.1. It’s far more forgiving on placement. In that case QS10s are the way to go.

It's really rough on the mind to not do Atmos when your receiver is capable of it. In this case however, placing Atmos-recommended speakers like M2s or M3s behind you, so close to the audience, buys you nothing. QS10s on the other hand will be heard without a problem and they will sound diffuse even when listeners are that close.

Also consider this. Pin-point localization of Atmos sounds may be undesirable unless you have many point sources throughout your space.

Considering the above, going with QS10s gives you more options. You can use them for 5.1 or 7.1 and also try them with Atmos. BTW, you can hang them off the ceiling with a bracket.

In my case, I run 4.9 with my actives and non-Atmos Onk in my 4200 cu ft space. My QS10s are side-mounted. I can't ever see trying Atmos until my Onk dies. Even then, I will be in no rush. It is that good.

I should also add that a well done 5.1 or 7.1 system will blow away your average ATMOS setup. This is because most ATMOS setups are poorly done. If your not getting decent object placement at at least the MLP then ATMOS is more likely working against the surround experience than for it.

I run 5.1 in my family room … I’ve gotten a few “wow”s on the surround sound. I purposely didn’t put in ATMOS since aesthetic and physical trade offs were not ideal. 5.1 surround also had a few advantages I wanted … in this case … a much wider surround experience covering more of the room making the surround viable even outside the listening area.

1, How hard of a rule are monopoles for the surrounds with Atmos? Hard.

2. Would the quint poles compensate for the poor seating position? Yes.

3. What is the suggested mounting height for QS10's? 5’ above finished floor in your case.

3. Possibly in the future there will be a right side wall. Are Atmos side surrounds to be monopole as well? Yes.

Well Trevor, good call as we were not answering the questions asked … were we …

Ok, sounds like QS10 is the way to go.

I did not realize that a ceiling mount hanging bracket was available for the QS10. i thought it was for the 8 and 4 only. How far out from the rear wall should it hang?

Trevor, is that 5' to the centre, bottom or top?

Does Atmos have to be turned off in the receiver or does it only work if you install program high ceiling effect speakers? How does it know your not using monopoles?

The closer to the back wall, the closer the rear sound field will be to your MLP. I suggest you experiment.

Trevor, is that 5' to the centre, bottom or top? Tweeter Axis. 2’ above seated ear height in 5.1

Does Atmos have to be turned off in the receiver or does it only work if you install program high ceiling effect speakers? No.

How does it know your not using monopoles? No.

Processor maps the sound objects to as many speakers configured during setup. More speakers means more seamless and 3dimensional sound bubble. Atmos is a codec only. In an atmos processor height objects are rendered with height speakers if enabled, but atmos is still compatible with a legacy system like 5.1 etc if not.

rrlev, so in your family room your not running an ATMOS equipped receiver,processor?

Mojo, stupid question here but how do you experiment with the position if your hanging it from the ceiling. I have a California stucco finish and I wouldn't want to drill a lot of mounting holes in the ceiling and then have to patch excessively. Do you know of a way around it from previous experience?

Trevor,



Not sure what your saying but sounds like the QS10's are a mistake because of the receivers Atmos codec.

It’s ATMOS enabled (hard to find a receiver that’s not) … just use it for 5.1
If no top speakers are assigned then ATMOS is not enabled.

When you experiment with the position, use a temporary structure. Suitable temporary structures could be a ladder, stacked soup cans, a vertical boxitecture.

Others will tell you the QSs are forgiving. I am strongly recommending you experiment. In my case, I very much preferred moving the rear soundstage forward a bit. Your opinion may differ. There is no right answer. My buddies love their rear 5.1 soundstages. But when they come here, they "Oooo!" And "Ahhhhh!"

My room is being set up for Atmos but like Trevor said if you don’t have the Atmos speakers plugged in your receiver doesn’t process and play Atmos surround. I can easily change out my m5s and qs10s on my rear surrounds right now with very little difference between the two

Canes, are the quick mount brackets the same for the QS10's and M5OW? curious but does the tweeter height remain the same? Have you installed height speakers in the ceiling yet?

I think I know what your trying to say but in the interest of clarity …

A receiver only knows about the speakers you have assigned in its setup (or it can figure out from what terminals speakers are connected to). It can not detect (at least no receiver/processor I know about) what kind of speaker you use (direct, di-pole, bi-pole, ..).

5.1, 7.1, … are bed speaker formats which work well with the side/rear surrounds high up on the walls. These surround speakers should not be confused with height or top speakers.

Height speakers are unusually speakers mounted high above bed speakers. Top speakers are usually speakers mounted above you. 3d formats like ATMOS, DTS-X, Auro-3d need tops and/or heights to place sound objects in a 3d space. 5.1, 7.1 have no concept of what theses things are.

So depending on if tops and/or heights are present a receiver/processor will know which surround scheme to go for.

Thanks for clearing that up, Rich. I didn't feel like typing all that out.

Sorry, never heard the term "bed speaker format" before, acronym? meaning?

The speakers below the overheads.

Rrlev, yes that’s what I was trying to say just did a poor job.

London, yes the quick mount brackets are the same. I have swapped around the qs10s and m5s a few different times just for fun to see if there are any movies where I can tell a distinct difference and in 5.1 I can’t.

Canes, are your 5.1 surrounds beside your MLP or behind?

Slightly behind MLP

That may be why you don't hear a difference between QS10 and M5. Ears are less sensitive to noises from the back and even directly from the side. I have my QS10s forward. When I replace them with M5OW, the sound is more direct and the mids and highs are slightly more prominent.

. Even though What Mojo says is correct … side/rear surrounds should be 90 deg and/or behind you. That you don’t hear the difference is, IMHO, placement, room, material played, and ear dependent … the QS10 surrounds should be more diffuse… I.e. harder to detect the exact direction the sound came from. if there is nothing for the sound to bounce off of then you might only hear the sound coming directly at you.

I'm sure that's a large part of the issue. I don't have anything to reflect the sound.

Canes, it'll be interesting to hear if the QS10s are more diffuse when powered with the 1500.

Canes, To clarify your surrounds are mounted on the back wall and how far back is that from the MLP? Are your seats against the rear wall or a space?

Because the QS10's have that woofer on the front face does that make them seem like a mono?

Purchasing confusion has definitely set in.

There are two kinds of shoppers in this world. Those who think critically, and those who don't. Unfortunately Bill, you think critically. The only thing that could possibly satisfy you is trying both M5 and QS10. Otherwise, you'll always wonder if you made the correct choice.

With a little luck, next week they will let me into their showroom!

Axiom Site Visit Equipment; 3 face masks, face shield, nitrile gloves and a ten cup flask of Tim Hortons coffee.

The showroom consists of an anechoic chamber next to a PC jammed with a boatload of curves. You don't have to listen to anything. It's all in the curves.

I'm going to test drive the 10s on the ada this weekend while the wife is working. I have a handful of movies to play that should put them to the test.

London, they sit just behind the listening position, about 12" to the center of the speaker from MLP. My room is open in the back behind the MLP, roughly 35 feet of open space behind. I will let you know over the weekend the sound differences I can notice between the two surrounds.

Test results are in. I swapped the m5s and QS10s several times over while listening to primarily movies. I ran the spectrum on sound, everything from war movies to animated. The QS10s had a very noticeable difference but where they really started to shine was when I raised them up higher than ear level. At 4' off the ground, same height as the m5, they sounded fuller than the m5s. When I took them up to 5' the sound seemed to disperse more into the room and the sound became more enveloping and I could start to separate location of sounds. I would assume the added height was needed due to the 9' ceilings but that's just a guess and I went strictly by how they sounded. The m5s, being monopoles, were much more "in place" and you can definitely tell why you would want them for Atmos. The sound is very directional since it is only firing in one direction. Both sounded great but if I were sticking with a 5.1, 7.1, etc system and not going for Atmos I would definitely want the QS10s. I did run all tests with all 5 speakers running off of the ADA1500. Both speakers benefit from the extra power. Running off of my AVR the surrounds were a little lacking unless I cranked the volume. Reference level on the war movies was way too much volume. Gone are the days of listening to things at ear bleeding volumes. -10 to -5 was all that's needed depending on the movie.

Canes., Thank you so much for taking the time to test and report!

Thanks everybody, for your input and advice!

Looks like QS10's are the best choice for my poor seating position. Starting with them at 5' off the ground and then just play with their final position from there.

If you can I would try them at different heights. Your room will definitely be a lot different from mine. I think Mojo has his higher than 5' but you'd have to ask him to confirm.

Also for what it's worth I helped my dad set up his QS8s in his room at his new house. His couch sits against the back wall because unfortunately there is no other option in his room. We mounted his QS8s same width as his fronts on the back wall at a height roughly 6.5' above the listening position on 8' ceilings. He has v1 or v2 QS8s, I believe v2 based on when he purchased them, but they can't really hold a candle to the v4 10s. The sound difference is night and day and the extra 6.5" front driver makes a huge difference too.

The bottom of my QS10s is 5'7" above ground. Although I am happy with the sound from the QS10s, lowering them in my room would likely make them even more diffusive. Placing a barrier - like a ceiling - in the near-field of any radiator, causes chaos. This is why experimenting with the height would be a worthwhile thing to do.

Like Canes said, and I've said countless times before, the QS8v2 pales badly relative to the QS10. I don't know about QS8v4.

I've often wondered if Axiom has experimented with quadpolars that have angled mid-woofers.

QS10's are very forgiving on placement. My family room is a great example ...
(I'll probably repost this to the gallery once we have the room totally together ).

Please forgive it's messy state ... the kids are home and as parents we have sadly failed in getting them to put their muck away (and I was too lazy to clean up for the pictures). We, also sadly, have yet to decide where to hang, no less actually put up, any pictures or art (after a year+ of being in the place) ... all the furniture is temporary till we get out there and replace it ... but hell, it's a family room!

The room is 18' x 18' with M2 fronts, EP500 sub, VP150 center, and QS10 rear surrounds.
Half is dedicated to a ping-pong table. The other half is dedicated to a 5.1 home theater setup and kid computer area. The couch is about 1/2 way between the front and back of room. Putting MLP at 10' from the speakers (12' from the 77" screen). M2s are about 6' apart. Given that ping-pong wallis 13' from MLP and is mostly glass (see third pic) and that the other is about 6' from MLP the imaging is surprisingly good .

The QS10's are about 9" under the 10" high soffit and their bottoms are about 79" off the floor.
As you can see from the 2nd picture they are placed symmetrically on the room resulting in a very asymmetric placement to MLP/Screen. It has worked out fine. Any where on the couch it sounds great. Even when way out side of the sweet spot movies still come off with reasonable surround sound ... this just would not be possible with ATMOS in this room (especially without really mucking up its aesthetics).



front of room showing the asymmetry:


Ping-Pong side ... (with cat in tree)



Note: The final plan is to have MLP about 8' the screen but given couch situation this is the best I can do now. Also there will be a barn door installed as an attempt to isolate it from the rest of the house.

Does Atmos require all speakers be toed into the MLP? I think that all plan view pictures I’ve seen show this, other than the height speakers. If so you could never use on walls or in walls correctly for it and the sides would have to be carefully placed?

Most rooms aren’t perfect layout. Atmos seems to be too finicky to me, but perhaps there is some forgiveness to it. I’ve also realized that I’ve never seen QS10’s in the B stock, refurb or Audio Mart stores. Either there are no customers buying them or they’re 100% satisfied. From everything I’ve read the later.

rrlev, is the wall that wasn’t shown where the future AT screen is going?

Ideally with ATMOS you’d like to achieve an image between any two adjacent speakers for all listeners you care about. Exactly where you point your speakers depends on the best compromise for the group you want to cover. It’s not an exact science as you know from setting up two channel systems

Note that on walls can be mounted on a bracket if you want/need to aim them. There might be a compromise in sound as you move them further from the wall. Since I have not really experimented with this I have to emphasize “might” even though I’m pretty sure it’s true.

on walls can be toed in toward the MLP but it will slightly change the sound as they are designed to be against the wall. I have had mine mounted on a support with nothing behind them and also put up a piece of drywall just behind it to see if there's a difference. With the drywall up you can notice a difference although it still plays fine without it. Getting optimal sound is the goal but sometimes compromises have to be made due to room constraints or other obstacles. You will probably enjoy it either way. With Atmos the sound is more directional to a specific speaker so as long as you can tell which speaker is supposed to carry the sound you're okay. Everything I've read about Atmos says to get as close as you can to the optimal set up but if you have to make some slight adjustments it will still work. DTS encoded soundtracks are more forgiving to speaker location.

Everyone loves their QS10s. No one is going to trade them in until the QS12s come out.

If you don't mount them directly on the wall, you lose bass. They need to be mounted in the center of a minimum-sized area of 4' x 4' in order to benefit from boundary gain. Mine are mounted on the wall and are crossed to the sub at 40Hz. When I place them on ladders a foot away from the wall, they lose about 20Hz of extension. That 20Hz of extension from the QS10s makes a real difference for me. But you'd never know you're missing it until you hear it.

I'm looking forward to hearing how Atmos works with your QS10s. I think you will be very happy both with Atmos and legacy surround formats.

What would a QS-14 have in it?

8" front driver, 2 - 6.5"mids and 2 tweeters

Think if you need more then a QS10 you should double them up ...
Actually, I bet that would really work ... ask Axiom ...
(especially about placement)

The QS12 will have triple 8" woofers and articulating mid-woofer and tweeter faces so you can tweak to your heart's content.

Mojo, You should talk to Ian about applying for a job ...

Lol is that what bi-wiring terminals are for?


I will definitely pick him up an application.

I'd get fired real quick. I've grown up in an engineering environment where every decision has to be justified and air-tight. If products aren't perfect, people die! I'm sure I'd never get an Axiom product to market and if I did, it would be decades late and all the staff would be ready for the Arkham Asylum.

We have all asked on our visits to the factory...0 for 3 for my quest to work for Ian! LOL

Awwww geez! I just realized Mr. Tanner is gonna throw a conniption if we use 8" drivers on the QS12s. Those are reserved for his Ts. How about if we go with triple HP 10" drivers with 2" voice coils? Those suckers are gonna piston like Kim Goodman's eyes!

No … the AT screen is in the HT which will support ATMOS etc …. This room is just a TV room but as you know in the 2020s they need surround too.

Well, that would depend …. just have to find the right starting position.…
You know, start slow, get a feel for the place, work your way up …
I think your in luck, saw this listing and it’s only one notch below “product researcher”

“Axiom Court Jester”

I could be like Dimentio in Super Paper Mario. I'd enslave Ian and Andrew to build actives with drivers all around. And none of this 6.5"and 5.25" kid stuff. I'm talking 24", 18" and 16" drivers for bass, 12" and 8" for lower mids, 6.5" and 5.25"for mids, 4" for lower highs and 2", 1" and ribbons for highs. We're talking an 11-way active omni! This is what Kodiak needs for his 10,000 cu ft room. While Ian and Andrew are working on that day and night, I'll enjoy Andrew's vinyl collection on Ian's boat.

Sorry for delay, been busy do to heat wave here in Ontario and a daughter moving out of our rental home.

Picked up several of the walnut colour samples, Axiom really goes all out for their customers. I thought I was just picking up paint chips.
[img]https://imgur.com/kcU1uuZ[/img]

I purchased a set of M3 in ceiling to try out. Took the 21 day savings route as I'm too busy to play with them right now, and the darn things showed up in 5 days. Next weekend hopefully I will build a false ceiling joist, 10' wide by 16" with moveable drywall panels that can be positioned to match the joist spacing above.

As far as the rear surrounds go I'm still leaning toward QS10's (Espresso) especially after watching Andrews You Tube video from May2020 on Where To Place Surround Sound Speakers: 5.1 and 7.1 Rear Channel Set Up

What's the sample second from the right?

from left to right: caramel, cinnamon, espresso and nutmeg

My walnut caramel and espresso look nothing like that.