Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo M2i or M22ti?

cool, the 12" sound like the way to go. It never hurt to have a little more headroom just incase I needed it, now I'll have to audition the CHT 12 and see how they sound. :-)

I ordered the M2i and they should be here either tomorrow or Friday, I hope I made the right choice since I have never audition them in person before. :-) worst case scenerio....if they sound too tiny then I'll ship them back and get the M22ti instead, I also hope the Harmon Kardon HK3480 (120w x2) have enough juice to power them.

The previous boxes were some kind of high end "mall speaker". Ahh, here we go -- "10 inch digital monitors". There is a little frequency response curve sticker under the grill showing a flat response from about 35hz to over 23 KHz. Yeah, right. They did cost more than the M2i's though (no, I didn't buy them !!)

We tend to trade things around the family. The LS3s and sub went to a nephew who needed something small; we got a nice fridge and some crappy speakers in return. Don't ask.

The rec room is roughly 13x23 feet. Speakers are centered on the shorter wall. At "wall of sound" levels the speakers sound a bit strained in the midrange (a wierd doppler shift kind of effect) but at any normal listening level (including quite loud) they sound great.

There are only a few recordings where you notice problems at high volumes. The only one that comes to mind is "Mistral Wind" -- the live recording off Heart's greatest hits album. There is a lot of low frequency noise in the recording and I think that makes the woofer flap around a bit too much. Clean recordings will play more loudly than I would ever want.

[THIS JUST IN] The CD changer kicked over to "We Will Rock You" (Queen) so I walked over and cranked it up to see what happened during the stomping & clapping intro. At the loudest volume I would ever want the sound got a bit strained, but it actually sounded more like amp clipping than speakers. The receiver is an HK3270, which I thought was 35W per channel but a just-downloaded spec sheet says 65W per channel. Further investigation is required, as they say.


The sub has the ability to feed back line level to the amp with low freqs taken out -- I haven't cabled for that yet but will try it on the weekend. Right now I'm just using the M2i's natural LF roll-off and setting the sub's crossover around 70 Hz to match.

My guess is that once the low freqs are filtered out of the audio feed the performance at "wall of sound" levels will be just fine. I'll let you know...

My usage seems about the same as yours -- 90% music (all over the map), 10% DVDs, and hardly any TV.

thanks for the reply. :-)

if your HK3270 is putting out 65w, then I would assume the M2i with 120w from the HK3480 should play about 3dB louder and might not sound as strained?

DE, the M2s should be excellent for your use when combined with a sub. The info you received on the PB-10 is a bit misleading; it does in fact have a single line level input and no high level inputs for bass(not just LFE)but that's certainly usable with a receiver which has a line-level sub output. Your 3480(somewhat unusually for a stereo receiver)has a sub output and would be usable with the PB-10 if that attracts you. The Velodyne subs mentioned wouldn't have the extension of the PB-10, but are of course much lower in price.

As far as power, it's unlikely that more than 20-25 watts will be used, even on brief peaks, so don't worry about it.

oh ok, I just check out the frequency respond graph of the PB-10 and it looks just as great as the PB1 minus a few dB across the range and not as much bell and whistle, I can live with that, and it's US$200 cheaper!!

I got a chance to test with the sub's high-pass filtering turned on, ie with the very low notes filtered out of the M2s. I cabled the sub in between pre-out and mains-in on the receiver (used to be driven from sub-out), so the sub's crossover could block out the LF from getting to the M2is.

"Mistral Wind" now sounds mighty fine at the same volume as before. Nice.

Not a huge difference but any track with active bass plus a delicate HF signal (ie most of the music I like ) worked a lot better with the volume cranked. It also sounds like something is a bit different acroos the freq range but I can't put my finger on it.

Had to slightly raise the subwoofer level, maybe to make up for the LF signal from the M2s ?

Looks like the PB1 has line out signals (although I couldn't find a pic of the connectors in the manual), not sure about the PB-10.

Have your M2s shown up yet ?

JB

The different sound is definitely "different good", not "different bad".

Just finished listening to a dozen or so tracks where I hadn't been completely happy with the sound -- seemed like I didn't have the sub & crossover completely right yet -- and they all sound "right" now that I am using the sub x-over to block low notes from the mains.

Squonk and Dance on a Volcano (Genesis) now sound like I remember - seemed a bit spotty before but I hadn't heard them on good speakers for a long time.

Autumn (Strawbs) intro now sounded just right. Again, used to be a bit uneven when the bass synth was gliding up and down even after a lot of crossover tweaking and sub moving ;(

Desiree (off Airborne by Curved Air, still my favorite first album to test speakers with, no idea why) sounded "right" for the first time although there is nothing obviously challenging on the track.

Anyways, happy happy. D, if you think you might need to use the M2s in a "big room normal stereo play loud" kind of environment then please try to get a sub with line in AND line out and the ability to high-pass the line out. I don't think our receivers can high pass the mains internally, you need an AV model for that.

I received my M2i along with the HK3480 on Thursday, didn't get to test it till Friday and Today, the M2i doesn't sound as 'forward' as I'd expected, maybe it's the HK3480 but so far it appears to be kinda laid back to me, and I like it alot. I suspect the M3ti might not suit my taste since it's often being describe as more laid back than the M2i.
I cannot associate 'bright' or 'harsh' with these little jewel even with the Treble cranked all the way up, the HK3480 receiver has a minimum volume level of -80dB to +10dB max. I set them up in my living room 22' x 12', put them 6' away from each other, and 2' away from the back wall, I sat about 7' away from the speakers, then played the Enigma CD, Album - Cross of Changes, track 2 - The Eyes of Truth. I'd cranked it all the way up to about -15dB and these little M2i are very LOUD!! Female vocal is very define and powerful, I'd tried to turn it up a little bit more but it was getting unbearable loud, but absolutely no audible distortion though, and no sign of stressed or strained on these M2i either.
I think M2i can really appreciate 120wpc from the HK3480, they probably will do just fine with as little as 50w from a decent quality receiver, but I suspect it will not sound as good or as loud. The mid bass is decent and get the job done well, but I'll definitely cross them out at 80 to 90hz when I get the Subwoofer. I believe these M2i will play much louder If I high pass them at 90~100hz and feed them more power.
The M2i perform extremely well in my living room, I'm already considering leaving them the way they are now and just get some cheap PC speakers for my small office....haha.

Hello Demasoni,

Hope you are well. I am glad you are enjoying your new M2's, they really are a fantastic speaker. I have mine crossed at 80Hz, and it makes for a seemless transition to the subwoofer. Wait till you here them with the subwoofer, it really transforms them.

Here is a link to a review and the frequency response chart from the M2i review.

Review Link

M2i response charts link

As you can see, this reviewer really like them, and the frequency response on and off axis is fantastic.

Keep on enjoying your new toys.

Later,

TonyM