Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Delivered!!! First Impressions

Not quite the Mother Of All Posts but here’s a big ‘un.

Several days ago I received a pair of M60s, a pair of QS8s and a VP100. They are going to live in my basement that is about 12x35 with 7 ft ceilings, but the theater/listening area is about half of that. The sweet spot is a sofa against one of the long walls (toward the end) directly in front of my Sammy HLN61W dlp, viewing distance about 7.5 ft. The M60s are about 2.5 ft from either side of the TV, about 2 ft. from the wall behind them making them about flush with the front of the TV. There is a door on either side of the sofa, so the QS8s are about 3 ft directly to the side of the sofa on QS stands.

When they were first delivered I thought I would first simply swap the M60s in for the mains and listen to CDs while I assembled the QS stands.

Now I know what everyone was talking about regarding the differences in CDs. With some I couldn’t tell much difference from my old speakers, but others simply blew me away. There were several times I thought “Hey, the receiver is using the center channel for vocals!” even though my denon 2805 was set on stereo direct. As soon as I took a few steps toward the center it was obvious that it was in fact only the two M60s. How do they do that? Is that what is referred to as imaging? Gorgeous. In fact as I sat and listened it sounded as though there were lots of points of origin of sound, as though there were lots of speakers. And I hadn’t even calibrated yet!!!

During/after calibrating I had some surprises. I’m not sure I’m doing this stuff right, so if any of this sounds off please let me know?
1. I had to set the crossover at 60 in the receiver setup. Anything less and there would be a big hole in the Avia frequency sweep (I hope I’m using the right terminology here; I mean there would be no sound at all for a block of Khz tones). I would have thought the M60s could go lower. I can’t turn crossover off all together on my sub, so I set it the lowest it could go (which I believe is 20) before even starting the calibration.
2. After calibrating all 5 to the same SPL with pink noise, I found that when playing DVDs I couldn’t really hear the CS8s at all. I’ve since boosted the levels to be LM=1, center=0, RM=1, LS=3.5, RS=3.5 and I think I may boost the surrounds a tad more yet.
3. The VP100 is quite nice! It didn’t blow me away like some CDs through the M60s, but speech is very clear and distinct. I was skeptical based on what I read, and because I like my current JBL center (the S-centerII, a 3-way) so much. It is smaller and lighter than the JBL and I do think it is marginally better (size doesn’t matter! ). I have not done any A/B testing, just basing this on my memory from having played source material I’m very familiar with.

I’m having some problems aiming the QS8s. After some trial and error I have the flat-front face facing the main seating, which means one of the tweeters bounces off the rear wall and the other faces toward the center of the room. It is pretty good, but too directional. I can point right to where the QS8s are if I close my eyes and just listen. Maybe because of the rear wall bounce? I probably need to post some pics or diagrams of my room to get help with this, the description in the beginning of this post may not be sufficient.

Regardless, the QS8s are heads and above what I’ve ever had before. Just last night I played only the credit sequence of all 3 LOTR (the extended versions, including the 20 min. fan club list on each) just to listen to the DTS score. The rain/crickets/thunder of my DTS version of Twister. Superb. I rented Master and Commander after reading it made great use of surround channels and being enveloped in the creaking of the wood and ropes felt like really being on the ship.

Boy, if this even gets better once I get the calibration/positioning worked out I will be, um, happppyyyyy. **Sigh**

I will try to get pics up soon. Any feedback or helpful info is appreciated!!

cjucoder, congratulations on your purchase. I'm jealous!

With regards to your sub setup....did this correctly? Are you using both the crossover on your receiver and the crossover on your sub? You should only be using one and generally the crossover on your reciever is the better one to use. If you can't completely turn the sub crossover off, then turn it UP as high as it will go, not down. If the receiver's crossover is set at 60, then the crossover is sending all signals below 60 Hz to the sub (a little simplification, but you get my point). Now, when the sub's crossover is set to 20, this means the sub is ignoring everything over 20 Hz. Not what you want, right?

You want to turn your sub's crossover as high as it will go. Hopefully, this is substantially higher than your receiver's crossover. Effectively, this turns off your sub's crossover so it won't interfere with your receiver's crossover.

Hope this isn't too confusing. There will be others along shortly who can explain it better than me.

Kaid is right on the crossover, you want to set the crossover on the sub to its highest setting, basically cranked clockwise as far as it will go....that will get it out of the way so the receiver crossover setting will be in charge. I've played with various settings on my Denon 2805 for my mains small/large/lfe/lfe+main and I've found the best luck overall for HT/Music being a receiver crossover of 80hz and the mains set to small. When listening to CD's I use Pure Direct most of the time. I've also found that I only use the Auto Setup to help me with the speaker distance, polarity checks only. So far I have found the Room EQ to make my M60's sound to bright or to midrange sounding. So I usually don't turn on the Room EQ for Surround or Direct modes. I also backed down the levels that the Autosetup used. I found that it had the mains set so high, and the sub set low that I didn't get a nice blend with the low bass signals, and couldn't really hear my sub that much. After I bumped up the level on the sub, and turned down the levels on the mains, it is a whole new ballgame. Last night I listened to my Diana Krall "Live in Paris" DVD in DTS 5.1, WoWWWWWW I felt like I was on the stage with her, and the String Bass sounded sooooo good...

Randy

M60's VP150 EP350 4-Qs8's
Denon 2805
Sanyo Z2 Projector
Toshiba P.S. DVD
Samsung HD OTA receiver


My Axiom Speaker Polls

DOH! I had it backwards in my mind when the sub becomes active/passive based on its own crossover setting. Thank You Thank You kaid and sirquack I switched the sub's crossover setting to the highest it goes at 160, ran the Avia low freq sweep again and sure enough even with the receiver crossover at 40 there was no hole with the M60s. The VP100 got pretty quiet in the 50s though (didn't bother with the SPL meter this evening, just "ear-balling" it ).

sirquack - thanks for the other 2805 tips. I'll definitely try your settings as I play with this. Right now I have the mains set to large and lfe+main mostly to hear what the M60s will do. I also used autosetup only for distance. It's scary how right on the money it got those distances. I also have the EQ stuff off.

Thanks!!! This forum rocks!

Another vote for setting the sub's crossover to the highest frequency, but I might suggest trying 100 Hz crossover rather than 80 Hz. The VP150 cabinet is a bit larger than the VP100 so it plays a bit lower. If I remember correctly you get a *slight* hole between 80-90 Hz if you use an 80 Hz crossover with a VP100.

According to the published specs the QS8s are roughly 2dB less sensitive than the M60s and VP100s so it's not surprising you have to set them to a slighly higher level.

Is it possible to move the QS8s a bit further away from the sofa ? If not, could you try putting the stands on something to raise them up a foot or so ? Either should help a bit with the localization.