Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Would You STAND For This?

Love my Axioms etc. etc. but there is something that's driving me crazy.

I've got a 48" LCD, on a 23" stand, with a VP150 "perched" on top and M60ti's on either side.

What's driving me crazy is the "look" of it. The floor standing M60's seem far too low in relation to the TV and VP150, in fact the top of the speaker is 19" lower than the top of the tv.

Now I know it's just me as I've seen many photos posted here with towers siting a lot lower than the tv.

What I'm thinking of doing is making a stand (think of a low table) for the M60's to raise them at least a foot. Any thoughts on this?

Any real audible problems that I might encounter? I know the tweeters will no longer be at ear level but will that make any difference to my 58 year old ears?

For starters I'm going to raise them up on temporary supports just to hear how they sound.

Anyone else ever raised towers?



any answers, scientific or creative will be appreciated.

UGH! NO! I'd NEVER do that! Terrible Idea! Bad! Bad! Bad!

Or you could lower the TV ...

I think Ajax did something similar with his M60's out of necessity (to purposely raise the tweeters above some furniture or such). He's easily amused, but I remember thinking he was satisfied with the results.

I say wall-mount those suckers!

I always ran my old crappy towers on a couple of concrete blocks to get the tweeters up to ear level. Didn't help much with the sound, I think they would have been boomy even if they were suspended 30 feet up in the middle of an open field.

I will probably end up raising the M60s in the new HT room, depending on how high the TV ends up. As long as I have my mighty 27" the M60s are OK without stands.

Absolutely - raise them a bit. Get the tweeters to ear level. If nothing else it will eliminate the angst everytime you look at them.

Uh, most of you missed the point (unless I misread it)... Ford's talking about the aesthetics of it, he would be moving the tweeters ABOVE ear level just so the floorstanders look like a good height against the TV.

Bren R.

I just got my FMS16's for my M22's. I'm wall mounting a plasma, w/ the center at eye level. The VP150 will be underneath it, sitting on a Salamander twin. I'm having the mount installed tomorrow, finished repainting the wall yesterday. That should put the center and sides at ear leve.

I put the M22's on stands yesterday and I'm running the system as 2 channel stereo probably until this weekend when I can get everything back together (hopefully). The M22's were slightly higher before, but now the tweeters are closer to ear level. Perhaps it's just psychological because the look is different, but I can tell a difference in the imaging. It's "more there", if that's a good way to put it. I was watching some HD shows w/ DD soundtracks but in stereo mode w/ no sub. Man, those M22's are still impressive. While the bass is sometimes lacking w/o the Hsu VT2, it's still got a little punch left. I still love my M22's.

Whoops...

(backpedalling frantically)

... but YOU'RE missing the obvious point that men with bigger speakers tend to sit up straighter, which raises their ears to tweeter level and... (not helping, is it)

Jack, that's the look I'm after, how tall are those?
Bren you got the point, the tweeters will be higher than my ears.

About 13 inches roughly. I just hacked up a 2x12 to make the base, and the box, and use a hunk of 1x10 for the top plate. Not particularly beautiful, but they did the job.

You could cut the 1x10 to match the shape of the M60 if you really wanted a nice look, and you could fill the box with stone, or something equally heavy, for stability. I wouldn't recommend sand unless you're a much better carpenter than I (almost anybody is). I had visions of a beach in my living room as the sand leaked out of all my lousy joints.

Will somebody explain to me why a 2x12 is actually 1 7/16 by 11. Sure can screw up the measurements.

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Will somebody explain to me why a 2x12 is actually 1 7/16 by 11. Sure can screw up the measurements.

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"Dimensional lumber"... why, because you can get N% more good 1 3/4" wide 2x4s out of a specified amount of lumber.

Bren R.

Wood, especially if you purchase from Home Depot will vary from an eigth to a quarter depending on which type you purchase. On any project I start I purchase all I need at once. Becasue the way HD works, is they purchase large quanities from whom ever has the lowest price at the time. So once the bin/stack at HD runs out and they restock, you seldom get the same manafacturer, and even though there are standards, there are allowed tolerances. It sucks when you try to build anything more than a small project.

I have learned here the hard way, that if you run out well doing a project, you can have real problems when the same wood doe not have the same dimensions on your next purchase. Its so mych fun, especially if you don't have a full shop of wood working equipment.

Yeah, I didn't notice a planer in your garage. It would take quite some time to sand a thicker piece of wood down to where you wanted it.

I would get a bigger TV that would be TWICE as tall as the speakers. That would create a "vertical balance" between them...an "Empire State Building"-type of look. Or not.

I'll offer my 27" TV in an even trade. It makes the M60s look very imposing and is almost the perfect height. I'm guessing the best setup is to have the mains midranges roughly the same distance below the TV centerline as the center speaker is above the centerline, so the ear averages the sound out to be about half way up the TV screen.

Because they measure the wood before planing it.

Dimensional lumber is the size the tree is sawn into.
The board is green and is then kiln dried, shrinking it, and then planed.
The wider the board, the more shrinkage.

I'll ask my wife to get me a 1-5/8" by 3-5/8", and she just shakes her head!!!

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The wider the board, the more shrinkage.

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EXACTLY what I've been telling people for years!

I started and abandoned a couple responses to that quote. I'm glad someone had the balls to follow through.

Come on Peter, I've seen you post more dareing replys than that.

They hate me at HD, I have to sort through lots of thier oak to find all pieces that are exactly 3'4' in thickness. Then like the other day, I had $ 160 of 1 x 6 oak at $ 3.05 per foot, the the heplful moron at checkout can't use a tape measure, will not use mine, or take my word that all boards are 8 foot in length. He proceeds to check each one against the 14' high color coded, calibarated cheat stick, and proceeds to nick the edges on 3 of them on a floor standing air compressor.

*end of rant*

The set-up I've got right now in my not-so-good, acoustically challenged room, is an even less than idealy elevated pair of M50s. They sit 20" from the floor next to a 65" mits. in 24" wide(yuck)enclosures. The tweets are about 7" above ear level(if sittin' up)and about 12" below the tweet in the inverted M3 above the TV. I have lightweight statuary flanking the M3 on top so asthetically, things balance out fairly well. The enclosures the main speakers are in also contain the reciever and DVD player in enclosures that extend above the TV almost as high as the top of the M3 on top.

While the system dosen't sound good, it sounds better than it sounds. (Huh?)