Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Will M50 speakers survive?

Well, last evening I received my M50s and QS4s. It took 4 days to get them, and I live in Newfoundland. Great service Axiom! The posts I have read are correct. The speakers look great and the finish is perfect. I am awaiting my Yamaha HTR 5860 receiver from Etronics and should get it within a week. But arrg.... the wait to hear these Axioms is killing me.

My question is this. I have an old (circa 1986) Toshiba 35 watt stereo receiver. Is there potential in me damaging the M50s by trying them out with this low powered amp? Am I flirting with danger by hooking up the Axioms (I note the M50s are supposed to handle 10-200 watts amplification) Anyone with suggestions?

Congrats on the speakers.
Fire em up. Then you'll be really happy when you connect them to new receiver.

it will be fine. just leave the volume low.

if you're concerned, do this:

put the volume at 0
start playing something
slowly but surely put the volume up a little
if you hear something funny (which i highly doubt you will), turn it off. unplug it.

as long as you keep the volume reasonable, no damage will occur. 35 watts is enough. some people use 10 watt tube amps on similar speakers.

That's a good idea. Use the old junk amp and I can compare the sound to the old Toshiba speakers (one of which is blown)Then I'll really be able to see(hear?)what a more powerful amp can do for the Axioms.

Also thanks to Ravi for suggesting I keep the volume low for the 35 watt amp. BTW, I had a room mate in university with the name Ravi, around 1985 or so. Interesting that now is the first time I've heard the name since. He was a smart, nice guy from India doing a Masters degree in Engineering.

yet another Indian doing his masters in Engineering.

I'm only half Indian, so I'm allowed not to

>>My question is this. I have an old (circa 1986) Toshiba 35 watt stereo receiver. Is there potential in me damaging the M50s by trying them out with this low powered amp?

The *only* danger is if you try to play them as loudly as you could with a more powerful amp, drive the amp into clipping, ignore the distortion, and damage the tweeters. Just don't turn it up so loud you hear distortion and you'll be fine.

I found an old cheapo 10W amp in the garage and hooked it up to the M60s to see if it worked. Sounded surprisingly good and could play as loudly as I normaly want without distortion... but the HK630 definitely sounds better.

Remember that percieved loudness has a logarithmic relationship with power -- a 70W receiver will play a bit louder than a 35W receiver but not much louder.

I did hook up the M50s to my 35 watt Toshiba receiver and am pleased with the sound. I would not turn it up past 4 on an "up to 10" dial, and volume was close to as loud as I'd go anyway.

My 14x22 ft room is very reflective since I just installed laminate flooring and the rug and furniture have not yet arrived. This should immprove sound a lot I'm thinking/hoping.

I wonder, will the new Yamaha HTR 5860 receiver make much difference to the sound? what do you think?

good stuff!
so how good do the M50's sound compared to your old speakers?

Well, there is a major difference in clarity. The M50s tweeeter is much sweeter, and cymbals sound like my son's do when he plays his drums. I haven't had much time with the speakers yet, but initially the bass semed about as deep as the old Toshibas, and I sort of expected more. Nonetheless, the more I listen to the M50s, the more I like them. The M50s also play louder, and without strain, even though I will not push them until I get my new receiver this week. That's also when I can try the Qs4s!

>>My 14x22 ft room is very reflective since I just installed laminate flooring and the rug and furniture have not yet arrived. This should immprove sound a lot I'm thinking/hoping.

Yes... the main thing you will find is that the stereo imaging / "soundscape" will be much improved. The rug is a no-brainer -- make sure it covers the reflection points between your speakers and your ears -- but the wall reflections take a bit more creativity.

If you can't do anything about the first reflection points on the side walls but you have a wall behind you then at least hang a big fuzzy wall hanging behind where you sit...

Are you familiar with the trick of using a helper with a mirror to find the reflection points on walls & floor ?

Hi Red,

I see you hear about the same thing I hear with my M50s; less bass than expected. I was blaming my problem on poor room accoustics, anyway, I'm cheating and sneaking in a bit of "Bass Boost" to flatten the bass out up to the sub.

The other thing I've noticed is something I can tell about my 10 yr old grandson. He was playing playstation and a character in the game shattered a glass window; My 6 yr old grandson came running to me to rat on his brother!!

That reminds me... I forgot to ask what your room sizes were for the M3-friendly room and the room you have the M50s in now.

For the M50s:

16.5x27 with a fireplace to the left and a large open area behind the couch to the right. Doorways and hallways are kinda fixed so there is only one place for the 65" Mits with the speakers(unfortunately)located Inside vertical cabinets(which also contain the electronics)to either side of the TV. Even the sub has a bad spot, sitting in the corner next to the left speaker "Cabinet" firing right toward the side of the fireplace.(It's a cobbled up old 1946 theater speaker box I up-converted into a sub, has sentimental feelings, can't part with it at this moment, but due to WAF, can't move it to a spot where it can be too obvious. Not that I can find a better spot for it anyway, even playing the sub-crawl game)

For the M3s:

12.5x28, The narrower room was laid out in such a way that I could set up the system with much more latitude. We still had the vertical cabinets next to the old 31" TV, but the M3s were to the ousides of them, on stands. The sub sat in an ideal corner where even it, and the Wife, were happy!

The old house was better, but now with four Grandkids to raise, we needed more room!!
Rich.

Re: "Are you familiar with the trick of using a helper with a mirror to find the reflection points on walls & floor ?""

No, am not really familiar with the mirror trick. But thinking about it, I would assume you are just finding angles like a pool/snooker player would.

In reply to:

---

Are you familiar with the trick of using a helper with a mirror to find the reflection points on walls & floor?

---

I would be interested in a more detailed descriprion of this procedure as I will need to probably perform this procedure in my new house's greatroom.

Details, man...we want details!

WhatFurrer

I imagine it's just like the pool/snooker thing although at my skill level knowing exactly where to aim wouldn't help much anyways.

It is pretty simple -- you are just trying to make sure you put the absorber/diffuser stuff in the right place to catch the reflections. The most important points are the "first reflection points", where the sound from the speaker bounces off floor or wall and right into your ear.

Sit in your normal listening position and have someone slide a speaker along the wall until you can see the tweeter reflected in the mirror. Mark the spot with a post-it or something. Do the same on the floor (again looking for the tweeter), another post-it. Then have the helper do the same thing for the other speaker.

Your rug needs to cover the two post-its on the floor. Arrange moose heads or wall hangings (or big poofy furniture) to cover the post-its on the wall.

If you have a shiny coffee table, you need to see if you can see the tweeter reflected in a mirror sitting on the table -- if so then cover the table with nachos or something with similar acoustic properties. Wings are quite good too, isn't this a great hobby ?

EDIT -- if you care about the sound anyone else hears (or if they don't let you have the good seat) then you should repeat the procedure in the other seating positions. You will end up with clusters of post-it notes and that will tell you where the moose heads go.

In reply to:

---

Sit in your normal listening position and have someone slide a speaker along the wall until you can see the tweeter reflected in the mirror.

---

Jeez, John, you better edit that post again before someone gets a hernia!

Good catch. That should read have someone slide a MIRROR along the wall, of course.

D'oh !!