Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Help! Troubleshooting possible loss of fidelity

Here's my dilemna, I used to own a top line JVC receiver with a Toshiba DVD player, Cerwin Vega centre channel, CV floorstanding speakers front and Sony floorstanding rears. This setup sounded pretty damn good to me, but I needed something smaller. So I "upgraded" to a Marantz SR5200, Panasonic RP56K DVD, 4 Axiom M1Ti's (front and rear), VP50 centre channel and EP125 sub. I admit, I hear things now in music and movies that I never heard before, but the overall quality of sound, in my opinion, is lower. Was my attempt at an upgrade not really an upgrade? What factors could be attributed to my apparent loss of sound quality? Do you have tips that I could use as a checklist, such as speaker placement, height, connections, and so on? Cheers!

confused,
Just offhand i would say that anytime you go from a floorstanding speaker to a much smaller one, such as the M1s, you will have a loss of overall sound (primarily volume and most likely a loss of a wider soundstage). This was my impression of the M22s vs the M60s when i auditioned them.
You stated that the quality of the M1s is better than your old speakers so perhaps this issue is more related to the size of the speakers rather than you components.
In a sense, you upgraded the speaker quality, but downgraded the speaker size.
It's just a thought.

That being said, Alan has some audio tips here:
Axiom tips by Alan Lofft

and there are some more tips on home theatre setup here:
sound and vision speaker setup/tweaking tips

I don't know if any of that information will help but its worth a read.

To be honest, my first impression is that you're used to Cerwin Vega speakers which will fill a room with noise, but not especially good noise. They're boomy and loud but they way over accentuate bass and mids, totally sacrificing highs. What you are hearing now is most likely far closer to how the engineer intended the recording to sound as CV's are not especially good speakers, but you've grown used to the "wow" effect of having massive woofers engulf the room.

But that's just a guess.

Perhaps you're right, and thank you for those articles, they were quite helpful. I could be used to the bigger sound, but not so much in movies but with music, the lows are defined, the highs are defined, but everything in between seems to get all mixed together, and the results can be disappointing. I have a question about soundstage and toe-in however, I've noticed that when I listen too music, the soundstage is focused directly in front of me, right at the TV. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear the centre channel speaker was on, but it isn't. For best results, particularly playing back 5.1 material, do you want the soundstage from the front speakers to be right in front of the centre channel? Or does that tend to mix the three channels all into one? Perhaps using toe-out would help?

The M1's and EP125 are really 'bedroom speakers' if you ask me. They sound great in a very small room but once you use them in a living room, well, they get very thin.

If you have the cash lying around and still have the 30 day trial, return those speakers and get some much better ones. I'd go with either M22's or M60's for front, QS8's for rears, and if you upgrade the center, go ahead with either an M2 or a VP150.

Hi confused,

Chesseroo and semi-on are right on the money. I'm afraid you upgraded to too small a speaker. Quite apart from commenting on specific Axiom models, an old colleague and friend used to say to me, "you can't get a quart from a pint pot. . ."

The M1 is a very small speaker. I suggest you think about replacing them (or moving them into a surround role--you could use all four) with M22ti's and you'd recover your missing midrange. Axiom does have an upgrade program.

If you are listening in stereo, the soundstage should spread evenly across the front from the left to the right speakers. Are you sure you haven't inadvertently switched your system to mono? Then everything would be focused exactly in the center, as if the center speaker was on.

Regards,

Excellent suggestions, Patchwork.

Thank you for the advice Alan and the others. First of all, could you Alan or someone else give me more information on the upgrade program Axiom has available? I've had the speakers since the fall, so my 30 day period has gone by. Secondly, I'm almost positive that it's in stereo, well.....I know the source is stereo, the receiver recognizes it as a 2 channel, stereo source, so I would have to assume it's stereo.

I'm wondering if what you are hearing is the speaker's ability to image?
Is all the music focussed in the center, or is it primarily the vocalists? On a well recorded source I often ask the kids which speakers they think are playing. Invariably they point directly to the center speaker when someone is singing even though I listen to music only in stereo.

I'll have to double check, I didn't listen to music today, but I'm almost positive it's the voice that's in the centre, and the instuments are more broad, from the centre to the speakers position.