Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Home Theater in stages

Hello good people whom are more knowledgable about HT than I (that means everyone online! heh!)
I have a budget of about $2000.00 Canadian and am considering buying my system in stages. I'm thinking of getting 2 Epic 50s for fronts and 2 QS4s for surrounds now and pairing it with a Denon AVR1505 receiver, or Yamaha HTR5740 receiver. I'd have about $1600 for spearkers after buying the receiver.
Being smart enough to know that no question is a stupid question, is this going to give me great sound for music, and basic sound for home theater? Or do I absolutely have to have a center channel and sub to get decent sound. I'm not talking wicked bass, but I'm wondering if my suggested system will work at all. If it will work, I could get the sub and center later when the bucks become available. I really do not want to be frustrated with a HTIB sound that I may regret in a year or so. Confused? Yes,I am. Advice please.
Maybe someone has been in a bind like me and has a good solution for the $2000.00 Canadian budget.
Oh Yeah, my room is 14x22x7.5 connected to another 10x15x11 room. I'll be sitting about 10 ft from fronts on the long wall.

Woo! Im the first one to read this post and the first to respond....well id better be! Anywho - Its always best to build a system in stages just like you said.
Denons are renowned for being excellent with HT applications and also being able to handle music just as well. Unless you buy a fairly high qual Yammy you may not find the music as good. usually the Yammys are the best with Movies, but unless you get the Top of the line ones, their music doesnt sound that great (this isnt meant to offend any yammy owners! I almost bought one!)
As for forgoing the center and subwoofer - Why not!? I did for a while, if you are often the only person who watches movies or tv (eg by yourself) then you dont need a center speaker immediately, the phantom sound is just as good if you are sitting in the sweet spot, the center speaker was created for the purpose of balancing the sound if there is more than one person watching tv/movies etc, Ie. If you arent sitting in the 'sweet' spot. Dont worry about a sub either, im sure the Epic 50 system...wait a minute the Epic 50 system comes with a sub...did you maybe mean a m50? Im sure the M50 will provide good bass until you can afford the meanest subwoofer youd like I myself am using a piece of crap subwoofer and I can live it for now knowing that soon ill be buying a velvet hammer.
The Qs4's - From what Ive read on the forum ( I cant say I own one...because I dont) Youd be better off buying the QS8 and forgoing the S4s.
One more thing - You said you want to build it in stages? Why not just buy excellent front speakers, listen in stereo for a while, then buy some surrounds, then a center then a sub, upgrade other parts, etc, etc, etc...
Or if you wanted, I suppose you could buy some M3s, use those as the fronts, purchase some m60s, and move the m3s to the back. There is lots of room for maneuverability!
On another note:
I was at my Local Hifi shop the other day and this older guy who had a ridiculously expensive system told me you always build up you system part by part, so you have to start somewhere, even if its piece by piece - which is true. I certainly did.
Hopefully my supposed answers are too ridiculous and I truly hope you find the help you are looking for, especially if this isnt it

Red,

tough questions. I'll have a go.

1 - all Axiom speakers are good and you can't go wrong unless you put a small speaker in a huge room or a huge speaker in a small room. I have done both so I know it's a bad idea

2 - the M50's (not epic 50's), are very good and will sound very good in your room size. QS4's the same.

3 - I am a fan of denon receivers as I find they have better power than yamaha's. yamaha's tend to put too much into their DSP chips that i never use (i.e. changing the sound setting to rock, arena, bathroom, whatever).

4 - you will get a good amount of bass, but nothing like having a sub. If you've never had good speakers before, the M50's will astonish you with how good they are and how much bass they put out. But don't expect them to shake your room. You need a sub for that.

5 - A center is very useful for making dialog clearer. You can easily watch movies without one but voices may not be as clear as with tracks that have a lot of the voices coming through the center that you will not have. I have never tried watching a movie without my center. Hopefully someone who has wil chime in. I know people have run HT's without a center.

Thanks for the replies Ravi and Freesey. You are both right on my quick error on the naming of the M50s. Had that EPIC 50 system on my mind for a few weeks now, but just spent too much on renovations, and the full EPIC 50 system is out of reach for now.

I heard B & W 603s at an audio shop rcently and liked them a lot. I recall somewhere on the forum the M50s sound similar. I may have gone with the 603s, but want the Axiom surrounds, and figure it's better not to mix and match different manufacturer's speakers.

Edited Freesey'a name spelling.

Red, you've got the right idea. Two fronts and two surrounds are adequate for an HT setup and it's better to get good quality sound in those speakers rather than stretching a limited budget by getting more speakers at once. The M50s(your budget could probably handle the M60s as well) and QS4s will give you excellent sound(no HTIB around here)with adequate bass for most purposes. The "phantom" center which the M50s will form sounds just fine for music and movies, although center sound such as movie dialog will shift to the side of a listener who isn't near the center. Deeper bass from a sub is nice, but it can wait. Either of the receivers that you're considering would be fine.

lol bathroom setting DSP That is pure gold.

I think everyone has pretty much covered the important parts. I'll just mention a couple of things I haven't seen yet :

1. Remember that Axiom gives you a 5% discount if you order 5 speakers or, in fact, 5 of anything. That doesn't make the center channel free but it does make it cheaper. Having said that, I agree with everyone else -- you don't *need* a center channel it just stops the sound from seeming to move left and right of the TV when you are sitting left or right...

2. There is also a "factory outlet" discount which gets you another 10%. The factory outlet speakers are new, fully warrantied, but have minor cosmetic defects which are pretty hard to notice. I bought my main and center speakers new before I tried the factory outlet for my QS surrounds -- one had what appeared to be a thumbnail mark in one edge of the wood, still haven't found the defect in the other one.

3. Make sure you get a receiver which can take the LF signals from the surrounds (and center when you get one) and route them to the mains. This is what you get when you "set the speakers to small" in your receiver. I'm pretty sure that Denons will do this automatically if you don't have a sub but maybe a Denon owner could confirm. I do know that HK receivers will NOT do this, at least I haven't figured it out.

All receivers can route the LF signals from center and surrounds (if they are set to "small") to a sub, but you're not going to have a sub for a while... and you're going to want to set the QS4s to "small" for best results. QS8s also need to be set to "small", BTW

Anyways, I think you have a good plan. My sequence was :

- start with M2s... don't risk too much $$ at first

- wow, nice... buy a sub, hook up the DVD player, WOW !!

- buy some M60s and an AV receiver, use the M2s as surrounds

- hook up some crappy surrounds and use an M2 as a center, find that it does make a difference... buy a VP100, move the M2s back to my stereo system

- buy some QS8s, use the M2s as mains (hey, I have a sub and I don't play movies too loud), move the M60s to the stereo system

Happy happy, only took 15 months...

John, on the point about low frequencies and HK receivers, isn't it simply that when the mains are set "large" and sub "none", that the mains get all the low frequencies, including from "small" speakers below the crossover and any LFE which may be present?

Hi Red!

My sequence was similar:

Buy M3s for mains(only pennies more than M2s!)Actually, the M2s weren't out yet, and the M3s are more to my ears and rooms' liking anyway, plus the M3s had a dozen killer pro reviews in those days-a real no-brainer at the time.

Put old HTIB speakers in back as surrounds(Luckily, the ones I had worked great and even sounded "good") Had a sub that I was using with the HTIB, that I later modified and improved.

Actually bought a pair of inexpensive speakers to use as surrounds, but found the HTIB speakers worked better-used one of the new speakers as center for a while, until I...

Bought another M3 for center(perfect match, full range across the front) Run M3 inverted. (or go phantom, if you wish)

Buy M50s for mains,(had to, moved into larger house-bought new AV receiver, with lots of new features to better match the system to the room) put M3s in back as surrounds.(What dosen't show here is the months of agonizing I went through to decide on the mains, it wasen't the money-went with the M50s due to the similarity in sound to the M3s! Turns out they're actually better than the M3s in the mids!)

Also happy happy, today, even more than Happy happy, only took oh-ma-gosh 48 months!(Actually, I was happy with my old-house set-up, in the old house, But This is Much Better!!)

I may want to upgrade my sub-not nessesary, and/or add QS8s-if I can convince myself that they are better.(Gotta have some kind of upgrade path to keep the interest up!)

But, I like your choice of M50s for mains! No surprise there, huh!
Rich.

>>isn't it simply that when the mains are set "large" and sub "none", that the mains get all the low frequencies, including from "small" speakers below the crossover

That is the desired behaviour but the HK bass manager doesn't do that... and the manual is quite emphatic that bass goes to the subwoofer but never mentions bass going to the mains.

Just looked in a Denon 2805 manual -- seems to be same as the HK but haven't read the whole thing. Yamaha RXV550 and 1500 manuals clearly state that LFE and below-crossover signals can be sent to sub OR mains OR both.