Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater My axioms are too bright

I have had my M60s for 7 months and have been back and forth on whether I like them for 7 months. My final conclusion is that they are very accurate and unnaceptably bright. The brightness is an issue at moderately loud levels and renders some songs unlistenable. Some songs sound great when played loudly, while other songs are harsh and painfull to listen to.


On a positive note, I do like the Qs8s and the vp 100 seems to be good as well. Also, the m60s do have a great soundstage and are pretty accurate.

This has been a hard reality to accept since I did spend 1600$ on my axioms. I bought into the hype(literally) and I regret not auditioning before buying. I had always assumed the brightness of the m60 would not affect me, but my ears are not the same as others.

Thanks for reading

i find it somewhat surprising that they seem as bright as you say, with the two tweeters in my m80's i have never once found them to be too bright and certainly never made any songs un listenable.

Perhaps you can have axiom send you those tweeter resistors to try to tone down their high freq output.

Alhough most people enjoy their speakers some dont, you can always sell them and buy something with a more mellow sound like PSB or rockets

Yes. I think that is the next step. The brightness affects me on most hip hop songs when I crank it up. The high pitched noise produced by mixing boards with the underlying bass hurts my ears at around -18db on my HK 525.

As of right now my options are open-keeping them, modding them and even selling them are all possibilities

Hawk, if you read your post isn't it clear to you that the problem is with the poor recording quality of some of the songs, and not your speakers? Bad CDs have to sound bad on accurate speakers; turning down the treble on the bad ones helps a bit.

I would contact Axiom to see if they can offer any solutions. I have an old pair of Klipsch KG 4.2's and I thought they where too "bright". I found when I moved from my previous house that had hardwood floors and lots of windows to a home with carpet and an odd shaped room seemed to "tame" the brightness.

I hope it works out for you. I know it can be disappointing spending money on something that doesn't fit your personal tastes.

Good luck.

Tom

I agree. The recordings may also be of low quality.

I find with the M80's that a bad recording sounds absoluty terrible.I didn't know how bad some disc's were till I got my Axiom's.Most of my disc's do sound really good though.

Do what I did, go with the 50's. Trust me on that one. I went down this same road except I had the 80's and decided that instead of looking somewhere else I would try something else in the Axiom line. I have zero complaints with the 50's other then they only run one set of terminals on the back. (No bi-wire, bi-amp etc)

They offer a lot of what the 80's do well and I'm guessing the 60's also but do it a little more laid back.

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Some songs sound great when played loudly, while other songs are harsh and painfull

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Hawk, Have you taken an inventory? I have 4 CDs in my entire collection that sound waaaay too bright. The rest are fantastic. I'm just curious. I love my M60s. In particular I love how they perfectly reproduce cymbals, chimes, and jet engines The tweets are only spitting out what they are being fed. Why not get an EQ? Just run it in bypass until you need it. EQ the upper end down a little. How about the treble control? Just bump it back a bit.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think the folks that record and mix Hip Hop music are looking for the most accurate reproducion of each of the individual instruments on stage. With all that over emphasized bass, they surely have to boost the high end to allow it to be heard even just a litte. Read the sub forums. Too much sub can drown out the mids and highs. Proper playback fidelity requires a good balance between them all.

My theory: You don't have enough sub, or you need to calibrate the one you have better. You are cranking the hip hop really loud to get the "thump". Your M60s are doing a better job with the high end than whatever you are using for bass. Get the bass up higher, and you can you lower the mains to get the sound you are looking for. Also, the calibration of the sub drastically affects the way the rest of the speakers sound. If the sub is out of phase, cancellation can take frequencies away from what you hear, leaving only the "bright" stuff.

Something's got to be wrong.

It sounds like the CD's where mastered a little on the "hot" side. I've noticed this with some of my older stuff. It's like the day of the cassette deck when we would record something with rec level above 0 db. The end result would be recorded distortion (saturation) that tends to make speakers sound bright and less detailed.

Just a thought..

Hawkson, I have M60s as well. Some CDs I just don't listen to anymore because they are recorded poorly. I never noticed those CDs to be crappy recordings on my old speakers. On the other hand, just as many CDs now sound great that were crappy before. The M60s are a double-edged sword, and I did go through periods of "love-not quite as in love" with them.

The resistors are one possible idea. Turning the treble down at times, or using an EQ is another. Softening the room could also help. If it is the highest registers that annoy you, then M50s probably wouldn't fix that. If it's the upper midrange, then they might.

Swapping the M60s out for a different brand of towers that will blend well with the rest of your setup is another possibillity. Would cost some bucks though. The Monitor Audio Silver 8s or 6s would probably blend pretty well, but be more forgiving with those crappy recordings. I have some little MA Bronzes that have pretty much the same sound character as the Silvers. If you ask me nicely I'll plug 'em in downstairs and see how they blend with Axioms.

Maybe somebody else has some suggestions for speakers that might blend well with Axioms, but have a little less high frequency response?

thanks for the responses guys

All of the above reasons accounting for the unnaceptable brightness of the m60s are true.
I like everything from hip hop to classical and I don't use CD's but instead MP3s off of my HTPC. This is possibly a reason for the brightness(poor recordings plus loss of quality in the transfer).

Some songs sound greater then great, and a lot of them just hurt a lot at high volumes. Classical sounds great, while hip hop/R&B does not. It is true that hip hop/R&B records are recorded hot. Unfortunately I can not work around this and just not listen to a whole genre because it doesn't sound good on my speakers.

As for the treble, I always keep it below the middle, but they are still bright. The brightness(and the clarity) goes away when I turn the treble down almost all the way.

As for bass, I can't have enough. I currently have an STF-2 which barely gets the job done but it is enough for now. As a result I do turn up the volume on hip hop more then I do on rock or classical which compounds the problem.

Finally, my room is probably not the best for the m60s. My walls are wood panels. Fortunately, I will be moving my speakers from my parents house to my apartment when school starts which might alleviate the problem.

Bigwill-how much were the Monitor Audio Silver 6s/8s?

I'm with BigWill on this one. You owe it to yourself to give the Monitors a listen. If you can swing it, try out the 10's also..................but don't rule out the 50's from Axiom either!!!!!

Hawkson, if you're changing rooms with your M60s, why not wait and see how they sound in the new environment? Maybe try the resistors or just suffer in the meantime.

The Silver 8s retail at $1499 a pair but can always be found below that - even GoodGuys sells them at 25% off regulary. When I was considering them the saleslady offered 25% off AND no interest, no payments for a year. The Silver 6s are quite a bit cheaper, but aren't nearly as good, IMO.

sounds like you need a bigass pair of jbl's....ron

What bitrate/settings/encoder are those mp3s recorded at?

Hey Hawk,

I had this issue with the m22s also. And I even stooped to trying the resistors. All the harshness I was experiencing from listening to them for extended periods, disappeared when I installed the resistors, but so did the soundstage. So I removed them. I vote for giving the resistors a chance with your 60s since it won't cost anything. And maybe, just maybe they will produce the sound you've been looking for.

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What bitrate/settings/encoder are those mp3s recorded at?

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I, too, wonder about the answer to the above question. While a lot of the other things you've mentioned could certainly explain an abrasive brightness, my experience is that low-quality mp3s can be downright unlistenable on my M22s.

Guy's, don't sweat the bitrate as far as treble goes. I have been doing MP3's since before Napster. I have stuff at 128 to 320 and very, very rarely (If ever) will the bitrate make a difference with the top end. If you have a bad disc and it gets ripped at 128 or 320 or whatever, it's still bad. If you get a cd that is bass heavy, once again it don't much matter if it's ripped at 128 or 320, it's still more or less the same. Junk in, junk out. I have been using Exact Audio with LAME for years and I have never and I mean never ripped a CD regardless of bitrate and had it come out brighter etc. That may go out the window if you start using audio levelling or digital correction and all the other junk out there but a disc ripped as is with no digital mods to it, comes out darn near the same as what went in if ripped high enough.

By the way, I'm always looking to share when it comes to MP3's! I'm sitting at 12,711 as I type this and exactly 85% of that was ripped as good as you can get at 320. If someone is looking for something, let me know!

Has anyone thought for just a minute that his speakers are bright? Maybe the next guy with 60's finds them A-Ok but if he say's there bright, there bright. Every time I see someone say something about the treble with Axiom speakers a million reasons come out as to why they are not. If there not, how come people keep posting they are????? Makes you go Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

............and before any of you purist's come out of the closet, not once did I say an MP3 sounds as good as a CD so don't go there. I do however have some MP3's that would fool 99.5% of people!!!!!

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but if he say's there bright, there bright

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Here bright, there bright, everywhere bright bright!

Sorry, lame attempt at grammar humor. Is that even possible -- grammar humor? No? I didn't think so.

hmmmmm, just to be clear, you are saying 128 = 320 ?

No, I was saying I have MP3's at 128kbps to 320kbps. I have a few at 192kbps but most are at 320kbps. Everything I have ripped over the last year or so is at a fixed 320kbps. I'm not a fan of variable bit rates or lower bit rates.

--alt preset standard or extreme to the end!



Y use fixed?

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Y use fixed?

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Cut and paste from Exact Audio:

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Bitrate is defined as the number of data points used to approximate the true wave form. Obviously, the higher the number, the more accurately the wave form is approximated.
For example, the current de facto standard is to encode MP3 at 192 kbps, or 192,000 bits per second. The CODEC takes the bitrate into consideration as it writes each frame to the bitstream. If the bitrate is low, the irrelevancy and redundancy criteria will be measured harshly, and more subtlety will be stripped out, resulting in a lower-quality product. If the bitrate is high, the CODEC will be applied with leniency, and the end result will sound better. Of course, the file size of the end product corresponds directly with the bitrate. For those that have enough storage, 320 kbps is as close to the source material as can be attained.

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I have said it before, owning Axioms is like buying an HDTV.

When you buy an HDTV, you realize that many of the DVDs one owns are no longer watchable because they are not anamorphic or just mastered poorly. However, when one watches a well mastered DVD on an HDTV, it is incredible.

The same goes for music on a pair of Axioms, a well mastered CD will sound incredible but you will realize that many of the other CDs in your collection are actually quite poor.

Hip hop is made to sound good on poor quality speakers in big rooms. By getting rid of your Axioms, you may lose the ability to hear classical music. Is making hip hop music sound better and classical sound worse really going to make you happy? What if you find that after 7 months of listening to Axioms, you do not even like the sound of laid back speakers? I know I am keeping my HDTV and my Axioms.

As they say, ignorance is bliss. Oh, and alot of Hip hop artists have Bose speakers in their car, so maybe that is what would make it sound better to you. Honestly, I am serious, maybe with a slight wink, but I am serious.

Well, I'm definitely on the VBR side of things. It just makes sense, use as much bandwidth when needed. Hell all the presets in LAME use VBR, and I trust the ppl that develop that encoder since it is the best one out there.

Sorry for the hijack, it's just normal in these parts

I'm with you INANE. I've been using EAC with the Lame encoder for a while now. Sounds good.

However, considering how cheap harddrive space is these days I'm sorely tempted at times to just rip everything lossless. Why worry about harddrive space (compressing sound) when you can setup a 500gig stripped raid array for $300.00. Shiney!
Oh wait. They are working on an MP3 codec that can do surround sound as well. How large are those files going to be? Ack!

jr

thanks for the responses guys. I think I might try to sell my m60s(not the vp100 or qs8) because most of the music i listen to is poorly recorded pop. Although I its probable I will lose out on classical recordings I would rather have decent classical and decent everything else then great classical and bad most everything else.

Good luck in your search for new speakers.In the end it is about what makes you happy.

SRV sounds pretty fantastic on my M60s! NIce pic.

Thanks Will,
I do really like his music,I have eveything he had put out.His music sounds really good on the 80's too.

Hawkson,
I would have to echo the recommendations for Monitor Audio for your needs. I have Axiom M60's in my game room (love them) and Monitor Audio Silver 2's (bookshelves) on the first floor. I love the MA's as well..but in a different way. The M60's are more accurate, detailed, great for most of my CD's. The MA's aren't quite as detailed, but for a bookshelf speaker have an incredibly full & much more forgiving sound. I think the MA's probably are less accurate and perhaps "color" the music slightly, but they sound great, especially with the marginally recorded CD's in my collection.

Good luck.

SRV's "Live at the El Mocambo" DVD is awesome. Got that one?
Ditto to Pablo's post, BTW.

Will,
I do have that.I also have Live from Austin,Texas and One night in Texas which came in his box set.Other than that I have 18 of this cd's not including the box set,one of which was recorded the night he played in Alpine Valley in Wi. the night he died.That one is called Peace in the Valley.I told ya I really like his music.

What color are your 60's? What state or country do you live in? How much do you think would want for them? I may be interested.

Wow. I didn't know he had 18 CDs.

I think I have 6-7 discs, one LP and a couple of cassettes somewhere. My personal favorite, top to bottom, has got to be "Couldn't Stand the Weather". The "Family Style" CD is one I used to not like so much, but the recording really shines on Axioms.

Here they are 1.In Step 2.Live at Montreux 1982&1985 3.Live at Carnegie Hall 4.SRV Greatest Hits 5.SRV Greatest Hits#2 6.Reseda's Blues 7.Blues at Sunrise 8.Soul to Soul 9.Peace in the Valley 10.The Essential SRV 11.In The Begining 12.Albert King with SRV 13.Live Alive 14.The Sky is Crying 15.Couldn't Stand The Weather 16.Martin Scorsese Presents SRV 17.Texas Flood 18.Texas Flood in SACD 19. Family Style and his box set.And please don't ask which one is my favorite.

the brigthness is probably why I love my 60s so much. As an old drummer my ears have heard one too many cymbal crashes. I love the high end sizzle.
Listened to the end scene in DTS version of Drumline. Had those puppies up to an ear-bleeding level, and they were at their best. If your curious to hear some serious drums, I would recommend this last scene in this movie.

there is a DTS version of drumline?? i just borrowed that movie from my mom to watch this week. everyone kept saying it was worth seeing just for the drums, so i am giving it a shot. but i think the version she has is only DD 5.1, not DTS.. oh well.. i also rented the first kill bill to watch this week.. i am looking forward to that, ansd its in DTS.

since getting my HT, i have quickly found that i prefer dvd's that have the DTS much more than anything else.

bigjohn