Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Requesting feedback on HT upgrade from Axiom Owner

Hello,

I am looking to upgrade my speakers in my home theater. I am looking for recommendations on placement of the speakers on wall and also few concerns with design of some on wall speakers.

I use the home theater for mostly watching movies and shows and on few occasions watch some video songs on YouTube.

Current Room and Equipment:
5.1/7.1 Setup
Room 16x21 size media room with acoustic transparent DIY projection screen.
Left and Right: (Polk Monitor 70 II)
Center channel speakers (Polk monitor CS2)
Side: Polk Monitor 40 II as surround.
Back: Some old Polk speakers
Subwoofer: New REL HT1508 Predator subwoofer (15inch).
AVR: Harmon Kardon AVR 635 with precuts (75 watts all 7 channel driven)
Apple TV HD
Screen size: 144 inches wide and 69 inches height
Sony HD Blueray player
Projector : Optomo HD25LV (1080p projector)
Only one row of seats
Budget: Price preferably want to keep it below 1100.

I am happy with the subwoofer and I don't intend to replace or upgrade it. I only looking at upgrading the front three speakers and using the current tower speakers on the side and move the Monitor 40 to the rear. I already have prewiring for 4 or 6 inceiling speakers to add Atmos or front top left and right speakers with voice of god speakers. I was considering upgrading to atmos when I upgrade the receiver.

I read that using the center speaker behind the screen would make huge difference to the audio experience for movies. I am considering on wall speakers so that I could place them behind the screen without any changes to the wall. The stud behind the screen might not in the ideal location to place the LCR speakers so I thought on wall would work best as it would allow me to flexibility on placing the speakers. I also thought on wall would sound better than in wall speakers.... I am basing it purely on recommendations online. If anyone has first hand experience with differences between on wall and in wall .. please share it.

I am looking at three options. I would like to get feedback from existing Axiom speakers users who are using on wall or regular speakers.

1) Use Regular M5HP On wall speakers
2) M5HP for Left and Right with VP160 on wall
3) Three Axiom VP180 on wall speakers as LCR mounted behind the screen
4) Three Axiom M60 on wall speakers
5) Two Axiom M60 on wall speakers and one VP160 center on wall speakers

M5HP vs M60/VP180

I have large subwoofer and I would be crossing the speakers at 80hz so will I notice any difference between the M5HP and other speakers M60, VP160 and VP180.
There are also other challenges with these large speakers...especially M60 on wall....placing them completely behind the project screen will be challenging...

Concern on VP180 :

If the budget was the issue..I would consider the first option or even smaller speakers. I prefer to have best sound for home theater..price is not an issue but I have some concerns with VP180 design.
I have read post online from reviewers and people on other forums that design of the VP180 with two tweeters is unorthodox. I understand some of these comments could be made by speakers who never heard or used Axiom speakers. That is reason why I wanted to get feedback from owners that owned VP180 or upgraded to VP180 from other axiom speakers. Do you hear comb filtering issues with the speaker ? How is the performance of the center speaker inline and offline from the speakers ? If there are draw backs to the design of VP180... I would stick to the M5HP on wall or M60 on wall.

Placement of M60 behind the screen:

My current screen is 28 inches from the floor but I am planning to move lower..probably looking to place is 16 inches from the floor. With this configuration, is it possible to have all three M60 behind the screen without blocking one of the woofer with the projection screen frame. Projection screen frame appx 4 inch wide.

Placement of M5HP :

When I sit in the sofa, the ear height is around 34-38 inches. Also what should be ideal height of the on wall speaker tweeter ?

Best time to purchase Axiom Speakers
Axiom had Black Friday sale. Do they have any similar sales in middle of the year ? I believe during the black friend it was around 25% discount.

Another final question:

Is it better to upgrade the AVR to 4K with Atmos before upgrading the front three speakers ?

Sorry for the long post.

Thanks
Venkat

Wow Venkat,

Lots of questions.
Your room is almost exactly the same size as the HT I'm building (See HT in-progress). Since it's not finished I can not speak to how everything will sound when the room is completely tuned. Since I'm interested in having both a great 2 channel experience and a great HT experience my main speakers are not behind the screen but on the screen edge (about 2.5 feet from the side wall and something around 3' in front of screen). The center will be behind the screen. Probably a VP180 on-wall if I use masking. If I don't an M80 on-wall.

I've tried out a system in the room (untreated) to get a feel for how I wanted to set it up. For this test the mains were LFR actives, the center a VP180, side and back surrounds M5's and the tops M3 on-walls. Sounded great.

I would not worry about the VP180. It sounded great from every seat and it's a good size for your screen. But I personally think having 3 matched speakers for your L/C/R is the way to go if they are behind the screen. Take your pick of on-walls: M5, M60,M80. The reason to go with a horizontal center is only because most don't have an AT screen and have to put the speaker below it.

Every on-wall I've heard sounded fantastic. The in-walls I'd personally avoid. I've tried a pair and they are a huge compromise. Consider putting a false wall 6+" off the front to hold the screen. You might want to make it of AT fabric so you have the option of placing the speakers and acoustic treatment where ever you choose.

Lastly, I understand that the optimum screen height is with eye height somewhere in the lower third of the screen. My thinking is if your natural seating position angles your head quite a bit it's the lower 1/3 of looking straight ahead.

Axiom sales vary greatly ... sometimes ok and sometimes it's just too good to pass up. My guess is that they will do something for xmas.

Is the budget of 1100 per speaker?

Is that a 170” screen? (Diagonal)

In that size room M5HP on walls minimum for LCR channels.

We are about to do a 150” diag AT screen install. On wall M5s are planned for behind it.

I heard and read a lot about the speaker placement in the VP180 too but I can honestly say that it sounds great at any seating position. I have 4 seated positions currently and I don't notice any off axis difference between the seating positions. Like rrlev I am in the process of building out my HT room but I have everything hooked up and have enjoyed the speakers tremendously. Should be even better in the finished room. IMO the m80 or m60 on walls paired with the 180 would sound good.

Frankly, after I bought the VP180 OW, I considered both the L/R M60 and M80 OW, yet, when I looked at the specs and the fact the M5 OW is the only one of the three that had the HP woofer already built in, I went that route and saved myself a bunch of money. With all that in mind, I really couldn't justify spending the difference just moving to the larger M60 and this is something that might want to be considered.

Casey01,

I was considering only three M5 OW as you can easily place them behind the screen without any portion of the speaker visible below the screen. With M60 and M80, the speaker will be visible below the screen..which I would like to avoid.

Can you share your experience of using M5 OW and VP180 OW. How does it sound to you when playing movies ?

Thanks
Venkat

Hi Rrlev,

Thanks a lot for the response and answering my questions. Sorry for posting such a long post. I noticed other forum members would need some information about the current equipment and room dimensions in order to provide good response.

Just saw your HT progress thread. You have RC channels for the dry walls and nice speaker wirings for every speaker. It looks good and I will be following the thread closely.

Thanks
Venkat

Is the budget of 1100 per speaker?

Budget is per speaker. As you know that I will be need to spend at least 1500 for three M5HP OW speakers.

>Is that a 170” screen? (Diagonal)

The screen dimension is close to 160 inches but when you play movie with 2.4:1 aspect ratio it is around 156 inches and if you watch 16:9 it close to 138 inches. Its it not exactly 16:9 or 2.4:1 screen. If I had gone with 2.4:1, the height should be around 60 inches but I added few additional 9 inches so that I could have a decent screen size even when watching 16:9 content. I like 2.4:1 screen but on those wide screens when you switch to 16:9 shows...you have to zoom out to fit the 16:9 shows.

>In that size room M5HP on walls minimum for LCR channels.

Yes, I plan to use minimum M5HP.

Have any of your done speaker comparison of Axiom speakers with other retail brand speakers like Revel.

I owned Polks years ago. Think for 48hours or so.

I want to say monitor 50s.

Not really a fair comparison with Axiom stuff.

When utilizing the M5HPOW keep in mind the mounting height. These speakers come with the wall mounting brackets factory installed for the tweeter to be on the top and the ports on the bottom. You need to keep this in mind when you lower the screen or you could install hardware to flip them upside down. I am planning to do this over the holidays, as I feel the sound and dialog come from the bottom of the screen. There is a post where Trevor flipped his rear channels.

Axiom being a Canadian company usually has a Boxing day sale, I picked up a pair of B stocks and ordered one new M5OW last year for about 35% more than what you are budgeting for just one.

I was behind a movie house screen a few years ago and I kind of remember that the tweeters were about mid screen …

I was editing that last post but got interrupted…. Theaters are serving a large venue … our setups are dictated by the 3d specs …

In ATMOS, DTS-X, and auro-3d the bed speakers should be around ear height (~ 1.2m. If I remember the specs correctly 0 to10 degrees max from your ears). How that relates to your screen makes thing interesting … if your screen is way higher do you raise your speakers? Personally I think that question is very setup dependent … in any case I’d keep at least the front 3 at the same height.

Frankly, if I had the choice of doing it all over again, I would have picked 3 M5 OWs instead of the VP180OW center channel, only because, unless it has changed, in my opinion, the supplied mounting bracket is too small for a speaker of the VP180's weight necessitating an additional in wall mount to make sure it is secured properly. The only reason I picked the Vp180 because I changed to wall mounting my last two televisions and wanting to maintain some continuity I had previously had a standard VP180 that was 17" deep and had to sit on a cabinet below and well in front of my monitor. You don't have these potential mounting issues with the M5 because it only weighs 21 pounds. I am not sure why Axiom still don't offer optional regular speaker connections on the OW units? In any case, It seems you have considerably more flexibility in your set-up than I do so, the three M5OW would be my choice.

As far as sound is concerned, your center channel will almost always predominate anyway, however, with a 11.2 system and two 200 watt per channel 7 channel amps I have pretty much thrown everything at the M5s and they have yet to give up.

Casey,
I’m not 1000% sure about this but I thought the VP180ow’s was hung with two brackets. How old is your vp180ow?

Yes, bed speakers 4-5' to tweeter.

Front 3 in a row at tweeter height if possible. Matched speakers even better.

Pretty sure budget allows for 3x VP180 as vertical channels. That would be something I would say!

Just buy aftermarket brackets (like french cleats) and use the T Post as electrical connection block only. The T Post is a super ingenious design, but I can see a long speaker being a little nerve wracking.

I've used these before. Work great.

Cleat:
https://www.amazon.com/BIGTEDDY-Picture-Hardware-Aluminum-Mounting/dp/B07C4H9YK1/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=french%2Bcleat&qid=1639309660&sr=8-6&th=1

Even I have DIY spandex screen. I have not yet used the speakers behind the screen. So I don't know how they perform. Since you are using the spandex screen. Can you share how they sound with speakers behind the screen. Also you mentioned the sound was coming from below the screen with M5HP ONW. Is that happening because they have ports at the bottom.

VP180 is very heavy speaker. I will confirm how many mounting brackets are provided with it. @rrlev confirmed that he got 2 brackets with the newer VP180 but I will post any question on the forum for the axiom team to confirm it. Another member on the forum Mojo mentioned that he did not like three M5HP ONW so he replaced center to VP160 ONW. I would prefer to have three same speakers for the LCR. I wanted to check with the Ian or Andrew if we can use three VP180 in vertical configuration and height of the middle of the VP180 on the wall. Another option is use three VP160 ONW as the width of VP160 ONW is just 21 inches, it should be possible to place them behind the screen. I would like to get input from the axiom team on that configuration.

You mentioned the bed speakers to be 4-5 feet to the tweeter. I read online that tweeter should be at the ear height. For me that comes to 34-38 inches. I would like to clarification on the tweeter height for the on wall speakers. I would like to hear thoughts from other members on this topic. I understand that people with two rows of seat might place them higher but what is the recommendation for room with just one row of seats.

Thanks for sending the link to the aftermarket cleats. If Axiom does not provide two proper speaker mounts for the VP180 ONW, I will definitely order some extra mounts.

Yes, front LCR at seated ear height to tweeter. Channels closer to the listening area should be cheated slightly higher to avoid hot spotting.

Sorry. Hope this clarifies.

My screen height from the bottom is 24" to the floor, unfortunately I have an equipment cabinet that is 20" tall in front of it. The bottom of the M5's are just above the bottom of the screen frame by about a half of an inch. This puts the tweeter at about 42" off the ground a bit high. So the speakers mid and woofer are at the bottom of the screen and that's why I feel the sound appears to come from the bottom, the dialog seems to come from the middle of the screen though. Maybe its just me but I've noticed in many theater build threads where people use bookshelf speakers they invert them, trying to keep the tweeter low and have the sound appear to come from the centre of the screen.

I have found that the dual layered spandex has no effect on the sound once you run the Audysey correction. I don't use the speaker grilles behind the screen either.

Disclaimer Notice! I'm a newb to this.

I do not have a VP180ow … I just thought it came with two brackets because I “seem” to remember seeing a diagram of it some where.
But Im starting to suspect I’m wrong

Was this a miss type or were you thinking of perhaps teired seating. I started to say in the post above
In the theater I was in the speakers were placed mid screen. The question in my mind is … was this done so the dialogue and action came from mid-hieght of the screen or was it the best compromise height for 20+ rows. It kind of makes sense to put the tweeters mid screen. But why do all the surround formats spec it at ear level.

What’s the advantage of using centers as verticals?

Using the VP180 as vertical has 3 possible benefits.

No question on horizontal dispersion.

Arguable better tweeter coverage over more seating heights.

Larger than an M5HP without either pushing tweeters way too high or too low if inverted in the case of OWM60 or OWM80 behind screen.

The OW180 is a swiss army knife if you get creative with mounting.

Option in your setup. Curious what you think.

If I was creating a theater only room my first go to would have been 3 180ow's behind the screen surrounded by AT fabric. But I'd have to experiment with tweeter placement.

The vertical VP180's are interesting but a big variable in my mind as to how they would interact with the rest of the sound system in the Z axis. I'd expect that VP180 might be an issue placing the vertical axis higher than expected and perhaps providing a more vertical spread making objects placement a bit more fuzzy. This is all conjecture ...

The 3d formats are expecting the fronts to be mixed with heights and tops to place objects. If the fronts are too high you won't be able to place an object straight ahead of you. But if your screen is high then the sound placement and especially the dialog will be too low.

I just got it a little over a year ago with the M5OW shortly thereafter, so unless something has changed during that period, it would be the same since the bracket itself is an integral part of the connection to the amps. For the record, I did make my case in a call to Axiom indicating, in my opinion, the On-wall portion itself was too small, screws were not big and long enough and the cable hook-ups were barely large enough to accept Axioms own 12 guage cable. In any case, I did a workaround which solved the problem. I was hoping that there would have been an optional adjustable on-wall mounting system with the regular binding posts, since with the current bracket you might not have the luxury of a wall stud exactly under the center of your screen.

One has to remember that aside from the space for the speakers and wiring, the OW wall speakers such as the VP180, M60, and M80 are solid wood so they are almost as heavy as their regular counterparts.

I now remember where I saw that drawing. When I received my VP150ow the directions looked like it was supposed to be hung with dual brackets. I thought maybe the VP150ow being a refurb didn't have the newer mount or that the directions were generalized to cover all the VP's (some having dual brackets) ...

A single bracket for the 150 seemed a bit sketchy and I ended up moving it bit off center since exact center just missed the stud ... I'd never dream a VP180ow would mount that way

Since the topic has come up, anyone have a tried and true method for wall mounting the heavy QS10s?
There's loads of possible drywall plugs options at Home Depot, but hoping someone has a specific one that has been solid. I'm a bit less concerned about the QS8s (already had mounts for those which held for 15 years just fine although there was always a rattle that could not be narrowed down).

Nice system btw.

Don't worry about long posts. The details help.

Ditto.

Since i've gone with the bigger VP180 from the VP150, the soundstage is wider, less pinpoint in the middle of the screen. Plus, you REALLY notice the heavier bass and midrange output.
Wow.

I've done a bunch lately, see other threads in the Stereo group, but none with Revel.
That being said, i have my eye on getting some Revel F208s, so stay tuned.

took the easy route and just screwed the QS10 T’s into studs … I.e. they are not centered on the room but you don’t notice because of the back wall layout.

I am hoping to hit at least one stud for each, but just in case?
https://www.homedepot.ca/product/e-...nchors-screws-heavy-duty-4pcs/1000403218

Thanks for the reminder to pick up the heavy duty EZ anchors, My QS10s are suppose to ship this week
There are also Toggler bolts that could be used, I installed kitchen cupboards with them two years ago, solid. Probably overkill though.
Toggler

Re-read that post ... that was a miss type I meant 3 M80ow's ... with M80s tweeters at 0 degrees.

From there I'd move the screen downward if needed and M80s up if I had to. This way I'd meet the ATMOS/DTS-X specs while getting the dialog coming from the right place on the screen. On a 150" screen with some of the the surround speakers inverted and cheating all the speakers toward the 10 degree mark I think I could to get the sound close to center with the screen 18 to 24" off the floor ... I have these numbers somewhere but I should recheck them.

You are right three M60 or M80 is more logical options as it has been done before by other people on the internet. Using three VP180 in vertical orientation might be wild idea because the two tweeters are separated by the midrange woofers could cause some issues with imaging. I have read one review by one person that experimented with three center speakers that are similar to VP160 and was happy with the results.