Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Passive LFR1100's and what to expect

Try moving them (measured from side wall to center of front tweeter) 3 foot from side walls, and 22 inches from back wall (measured from wall to front center of tweeter) and try MLP at about 8 feet. Put DSP on near 1. Try toe in so right speaker passes to the right of your right shoulder and same for left side(passes to the left of your left shoulder). See if that opens up soundstage and imaging.

From the manual:

The location of your new Axiom LFR1100 speakers will significantly affect the sound quality you experience in your particular room so take care to position them correctly. Since the LFR1100 is an omnidirectional speaker with active drivers located in both the front and rear of the cabinet you will want to keep some space all around your LFR1100s. Around twelve inches (300mm) would be considered the neutral position. If you need to place them closer to or further from the wall or corner than this your DSP box does have a switch on the rear panel labeled “Boundary Compensation”. Around 8” (200mm) from the wall would be “Near 1” and 6” (150mm) or closer would be “Near 2”. If you are more than 24” (600mm) from the wall “Far 1” should be used and more than 48” (1200mm) would be “Far 2”. Th e “Boundary Compensation” switch can also be used to adjust for highly reflective or highly damped rooms. A highly reflective room may be more suited to the switch being in one of the “Near” positions and a highly damped room one of the “Far” positions. Ultimately it is best to try various positions in your room and go with what you feel delivers the best performance.

This pretty much covers how the boundary compensation switch should be used based on distance from the rear wall. There no other adjustments possible to the DSP and this is on purpose. The DSP programming has been exhaustively adjusted for optimal sound power response of the loudspeakers.

As craigsub has mentioned, you MUST have amplifiers with identical gain, otherwise the levels to the front and back sections of the LFR1100s will not be as intended and the interaction between the sections can certainly throw off correct imaging and soundstaging.

Thanks,

Andrew

Here is a link to the owner's manual ... https://axiom-manuals.s3.amazonaws.com/LFR1100.pdf

Here is a link that shows exactly what the DSP does - if one knows how to read it. Happy to call you to explain a lot of this to you ... https://www.axiomaudio.com/pub/media/catalog/product/l/f/lfr1100-sp-lw.jpg

I went from M80 to a pair of LFR1100 passive about 8 years ago, so I bought into the technology when it first hit the market. The points I make were what I found and may not be valid for everyone.

The speakers are room sensitive in when I originally got the speakers I was running them in my front room on the main floor that is 12'x14' and they sounded very impressive like you were standing in the same room as the artist performing. But 2 years later I moved them downstairs to my basement to a purpose built room 15'x18', the sound seemed to degrade to the point I thought that something was missing.

I played around with several different configurations, sound treatments but nothing seemed to fix it. Then I started to think it was something with the source. When I changed the pre-amp to an Anthem (had tried a Pioneer, Marantz & Integra prior) The Anthem was like switching on the light switch and the speakers came to life and started to give the sound that I remember from when they were upstairs.

I have since traded those speakers in for a set of the Active LFR1100 with a pair of ADA1500 amps to drive them.