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

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.