Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Setting up new HT, new to A/V looking for advice

Hello everyone, I'm pretty new to A/V so please bare with me if I sound out of place. I've been reading alot of reviews on the Axiom and they're pretty impressive for the price. My concern now is what speakers to get for the room dimensions that they will be in. The HT will be in a fairly large area. I will describe the dimensions now as accurately as I can.

The room is about 13X28. If you picture the room as:
..........N
..........28
W13..........13E
..........28
..........S

And I will refer to placement in terms of NWES etc.

The screen will go on the North wall. To the right of the screen on the North wall is a 3ft opening into a large kitchen den area. On the SE corner are a set of stairs going up to the second floor facing East. On the SW corner is an opening South that is the front door and a 8X6 Foyer. The ceiling is vaulted all the way to the Second floor ceiling so it's pretty high....30ft? The second floor has a balcony on the East side.

Sorry to be so detailed but from my readings it seems that room layout and speaker placement is essential to get good sound. Now considering I will be facing the wider wall and will be sitting about 9-10' from the screen. What is the best option in terms of front speakers. I like the reviews on the M80's but I'm afraid of it being "too much speaker". Is there such a thing?

My current proposed system:
Panasonic TH-42PWD6UY Plasma
Denon AVR-3805
Pioneer DV-578a
Axiom:
M80ti
VP150
QS8

I'm thinking that I might be able to hold off on the sub. Some people tell me that it's not needed for most applications. What is your input. Thanks in advance.

Welcome, fortuneman!

I assume there is a good reason you are going to watch across the short axis of the room, but I think putting the TV on the east or west wall and viewing across the long axis would yield better results.

At the distance of 9 feet, I'm thinking you may find it difficult to position the M80's to get optimal sound. I have my M60's about 9-10 feet away, and they are about 8 feet apart, and it works pretty good. The 60's are known for being more forgiving with their positioning than the 80's.

I would not put off the sub too long, as it is pretty essential for a satisfactory home theater experience, IMHOP.

It would be a good idea for you to send the above message to Alan Lofft, Axiom's resident guru for his advice, as he knows more about this than the rest of us combined.

Mark

For real HT fun and jollies the sub is essential. In a room that size you may want to consider buying two subs (or a monster like the SVS PSB2). The M80s would probably work for you, though you may be sitting kinda close.
I have M60s in a room slightly larger than that but with 9' ceilings and they're plenty. You will need some serious subwoofers, though to fill that space.
If it were me I would get M60s, QS8s, the VP150 and an SVS 20-39 PC+.
Happy shopping!

I would love to place it on the east wall but a window there takes up half the wall....but now that you got me thinking....maybe I can get a floor mount for the screen...I was originally going to wall mount it but didn't have enough wall there.

There are huge windows in the NW corner. One on the W wall thats about 6ft wide and one directly adjacent to it on the N wall about 3-4ft wide. My NW corner is just a big window.

If you're going with a projector you could get 3 M60s across the front and be pretty damn happy, I think.

Hehe, maybe...but this whole east wall idea already has me running in that direction. I think there's a perfect setup for the HT that way. I have a ledge created by the balcony thats probably about 12' high and about 15+' back from the east wall. Looks like a great placement for the QS8's. Thoughts? Thanks mhorgel for helping me think "outside the box".

Te

Hi Te - welcome. I'll throw in my $0.02 here, and agree with what BigWill and mhorgel have already said.

Axiom has stated that the M60 and M80 are sonically very similar, and that the advantage of the M80 is in increased power handling and higher SPL (plays louder). Some users have reported having greater difficulty in positioning the M80 to their satisfaction. I own M60's in a room similar to yours and have never felt like I am missing anything.

Definitely get a good sub for that room. For great home theatre, you will want one. And given the size of the room, music will be much more satisfying, too.

I had trouble with placement in my house too. What I decided to do was somewhat non-traditional. To get a decent viewing position along the long axis, I put the TV in the window bay on the street-side of the house. Now, that window was only interesting to the dog anyway, because looking at the street activity in suburbia is not exactly high culture. So, we always had the drapes closed anyway. This is not a great photo. Ignore the clutter and the light fixture obscuring the upper right corner.



I'm pleased with the arrangement, so wanted to encourage you to continue to examine that "East Wall" scenario.

Thanks for all the great input...you guys are fantastic here . So my only other concern is with low volume audio on the M80's. Will they sound as good with the volume low? Or will they need to always be a certain level for decent sound? This is more for music audio.

Te

Te, I'm sure that the scientists among us will be able to cite some psychoacoustic paper on the topic. My understanding is that people perceive "louder" as "better" up to a certain volume point. That concept is not specific to any particular brand or model of speaker. The M80 should sound as full and rich as anything else at lower volumes; they don't NEED to be driven to high volumes to sound good, but they CAN be. My experience (not science!) is that the M60's sound very rich and detailed at low to moderate volume levels, and that they also can provide very satisfying, large-room-filling sound.

There ARE good people here - people I now call friends. You should stick around and keep us posted. I'd love to see some pictures of your room, and I'm sure you have expertise in many areas that we can all learn from.

Te, This could just be me, but because I had lesser speakers before I got my M60s, I had fallen into the habit of cranking up the volume in order to be able to hear what I wanted to hear from the speakers, i.e. balanced lows, mids, and highs.

Because of the accuracy of the M60s, I don't have to do that. I can play them at relatively low volumes, and be completely satisfied.

In fact, should you get Axioms, when they first arrive, I would recommend being careful not to crank them too loudly at first, just to give yourself a chance to acclimate yourself to their sound. They're really quite amazing. Of course, I'm a tad biased.