Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Well I finally did it...

I have been lurking on this user forum for some time now. I finally laid down my hard earned cash for an Axiom system. So far I am very happy. I hooked everything up on Saturday. The surround installation took a while because I like everything just right. Wire management and such goes a long way to make my better half happy. I ran the Avia DVD setup and set the levels on all 5.1 speakers using my SPL meter. I am in the process of tweaking the crossover setup to find the best roll off frequency for the M22's. I have tried 60Hz, 80Hz and 100Hz. I'm still not sure where I like it best. I watched my first DVD Sunday evening. It was Open Range. I have always liked westerns and several of you recommended it as a good movie to audition the speakers. I had several "WOW" moments. The first rain scene in the opening chapter had me running for the windows. Yea it was that good! The thunder sounded and felt very real. And the shootout towards the end had me ducking for cover. I was also very impressed with the dialog coming from the VP100. I kicked around the idea of getting the VP150 but settled on the VP100 due to my meager room size and I have no regrets.

When I put in a music CD I wasn't as thrilled. But I think It may be a configuration on my receiver. I haven't had much time to fuss with the many modes on my receiver. It has a lot of options so I might not be doing something right. I'll probably play with that tonight.

Quick question about speaker break in. How real is it? Are you really breaking in the speakers or training your ear to the speakers?

Hear is what I wound up with for my 14'X14' room.
M22 mains (SS24 stands)
QS4 surrounds (wall mounted)
VP100 center
HSU VTF-2 MK 2 Sub
HK AVR-630 Receiver
HK DVD-22 DVD player
Digital Cable on the way
New HDTV on the horizon as prices come down to earth a little.

Special thanks to Alan. I had some pre and post questions that were answered very quickly. And thanks to Amie who sent me tracking information within one hour. It's service like that and a quality product that will continue to make Axiom a very successful company. You can count on "word of mouth" recommendations from me. That's for sure.

Axiom has another happy customer.

-Tom
Albuquerque, NM

TRG-

welcome to the axiom family.. 'open range' is a great demo movie for your surround system.. i still use the rain scene to show people the importance of good surrounds. if you watch any of the 'matrix's' or 'underworld' you also get a great work from the surrounds as the shell casings from the guns bounce off the floor.. its pretty neat.

keep tweaking on the crossover.. its all about persoanl preference.. i have mine set at 80Hz, and i like it.. fooled with it some this weekend, but ended up going back to my original setting at 80Hz. it will take some time til you get it to where it sounds good to you.

your HK receiver is very desired around here, so you might just need to tweal it a little to get the music sounding right. or, as you mentioned, you may need some time for your ears to adjust.. i persoanlly, dont believe in break-in.. i am sure you will get several diff opinions, but you can make up your own mind.. but, if you give it a week, your eras will be acoustom to the new, full, vibrant sound from the axioms.. if you dont believe me, after a week, go plug your old speakers back up, and they will sound horrible. i did it, and i am a believer.

enjoy your new system.. have fun with it.

bigjohn

Welcome TRG.

It always blows my mind when somebody's first post is "Well I got 'em and hooked 'em up."

If you've been lurking, you've probably read that Axioms are very accurate speakers and will expose a badly mixed, or poorly recorded CD. That could explain you're "less than thrilled" reaction to music. Give yourself time to get used to the speakers, and by all means experiment with many different cd's as well as the settings on your system.

Keep us posted.

I personally would stay away from 100 Hz crossover. It generally (to me) has brought unhappy moments to my ears as my sub was amplifying to heavily in the audible range. I generally like my sub to do more feely stuff, but also to take over some of the work of my speakers. I have my H/K 630 crossed over at 60 Hz for the front mains and 80 Hz for all my other speakers. I've found this to be pretty much the most desirable results. Although, of course, it does vary from person to person.

I'm not sure we are comparing apples to apples.
M22-60Hz. vs M60-37Hz.
VP100-95Hz. vs VP150-85Hz.
QS4-100Hz. vs QS8-95Hz.
It's my understanding that you should match the +/- 3db rating as close as possible. If an exact match is not available then the next higher crossover freq. should be used. So for my application:
Main L/R = 60Hz.
Center = 100Hz. (95Hz. is not an option. 100Hz. is the next higher freq.)
Surrounds = 100Hz.
Am I going down the right path or am I missing something?
-Tom

Well, since you've got an H/K, you can do that. I doubt that there is too much sub 100 Hz stuff going to the surrounds in any case. (or at least, not enough to localize to the sub) But I'm just making stuff up, here. Personally, (even though I've only had them 3 days), I'm crossing my M50s at 60 Hz.

TRG - welcome and congratulations. General sentiment around these parts is that you are training your ears. Break-in is not generally considered valid.

TRG,

After I got my Axioms I kept reading about the "break in period" as well and didn't know how much truth there was in it all. After reading the comments about it being your ears adjusting rather than actual speaker break in I think I have to whole heartedly agree on this comment. I have had my M60's,VP150 and QS8's for about a month now and have just recently started saying "d*mn those things sure sound good"..LOL
Last weekend I had some time to put in some of my audio cd's I used to listen to and it was like I had never heard them before. For music I usually bump up my SVS sub about 6 db's to give it a little more "punch" and it blends in just great with the Axiom's covering the rest of the range.

Give your ears a little time to adjust and you will have a smile on your face everytime you turn them on..

Welcome aboard!!
Rick

>> "When I put in a music CD I wasn't as thrilled." <<

UPDATE: I tried playing some music CD's again last night. As suspected I had a "setting" off. I had a surround mode with a DSP that was making things sound strange. After playing around for a while I think I like the 2.1 mode. I guess that's how I am used to listening to music. Once I got the right mode turned on, the M22/VTF2 combo jumped to life. My jaw hit the floor as I started to hear stuff I never heared before coming from my CD player. To quote Raymond's father, "Holy Crap!". Now it's going to take a bit more effort to get off the couch and do my normal around the house stuff.

I had a somewhat similar experience, except I started with the DSPs off. As some of you know, I used DPL2 with my old 2.1 setup, which broadened th soundstage, etc, made the speakers sound like not quite so much ass... When I hooked up the M50s, I turned off all DSPs, just to see how they sounded without them. As I suspected, they sounded amazing. I turned DPL2 back on the other day, just to see, and they started sounding compressed, with a minimal soundstage. Exactly the opposite of how my old speakers behaved... Interesting stuff. Strangely, the DTS Neo:6 which also made a similar difference with the old speakers made absolutely no difference with the M50s. On or off, it sounded the same.