Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Need some advice, soon to make some big purchases!

Hello everyone, first of all I want to say thanks in advance for all the expert info. this forum provides, it has helped me narrow down some choices for my HT/Rec Room. Now onto the important stuff...

First, here is a brief description where I am at, I'm closing in on the home stretch for finishing my home theatre area in the basement of our newer home. The overall room size is about 30x35ft. which will consist of a HT area in one corner that will be about 20x16ft. I will have 9ft ceilings, and I'm currently looking at some 2x2 Accoustic ceiling tiles so I can easily get to any wiring if needed. The rest of the room will consist of Bar area with pool table and near the walkout will be a retro 50's theme with booth and checkered flooring (wifes idea, gotta make her happy).

I first found out about Axiom on AVSforum. The overwhelming positive responses I've read have got me interested. Some speaker questions:

1) I'm currently looking at the Epic 60 setup, I would say I'll be using about 65% for HT and 35% music listening. Will the 60's be adequate for a room that large when listening to music in stereo from accross the room, or should I consider the 80's? I think either will be great for HT purposes.

2) I recently auditioned some B&K 703's and 704's and a local AV place that has been around for 30 years in my home town, can anyone comment or compare these to the 60's or 80's? The Kevlar based midrange and woofer's were interesting and the sound was very good to my ears. These had a freq. range (-6dB) of 30hZ and 50kHz, the Axiom's show 22kHz, is this a big deal, I didn't think the Human ear could distinguish much past 22kHz? Also the cost on these is much more, I could get 2 M80's for the price of one of these.

3) The Qs8's have me very interested, but I'm confused as most of the salespeople I've talked to at 3 respectible AV stores don't understand why you would use this type of speaker for surrounds or rears. I'm not sure if I can quote them exactly, but the basic thing I'm hearing is that you would not want the surround/rear speakers dispersing audio in various differant directions, rather, you want them Mono or directional towards the listening area. I was planning on 4 Qs8's, two for the surrounds and two for the rears, or would I be better off in buying 2 way type bookshelf speakers for the surrounds and rears?

Receiver questions....Almost done
Based on my budget, I have been reading a lot of posts regarding the Yammy 1400, Denon 2805, and the Pioneer Elite 53TX (soon to be 54TX) I know the Auto EQ is favored by many and not-favored by some, I'm not using that as my only basis for these recievers, however, I think it might be a nice option as a starting point. I have not heard the Yammy, but when I auditioned the above B&W's mentioned, I listened to various music and DVD movies on both the Denon and Elite. I was leaning towards the Elite before the audition, but now am thinking the Denon might be my choice based on what I heard....

1) If I end up getting the M80's will either of these two units drive these 4 ohm speakers or should I stick with the M60's. I've heard Alan mention that Denon is no problem, is he referring to all Denons?

2) What is all your opinions on THX certification. The Elite has it, but the 2805 does not. The local sales people say I should not use that as a basis of my decision, however, some people on the forum boards say it should be?

3) Will these receivers be adequate to drive all these speakers? I've heard some people purchase a seperate Rotel amp to drive the mains, and have the Denon drive the rest?

4) And finally, what is your opinions on purchasing from Online retailers. Denon and Elite are specific in saying warranties will not be honored from unauthorized retailers. There are so many online/Ebay that have great prices, but it worries me on the Cust. Serv. type issues down the road. I can get the 2805 locally for $740 bucks which is about $160 lower than your Crutchfields, Ultimate Electronics, etc...but a little higher than some of the so-called Online sellers.

Sorry to be so lengthy, and again thanks in advance for any advice you can give.....

Randy

The Epic 60 Would do u fine an Dandy the QS8's are phenomenal i love them suckers , i can tell u this my room is smaller than yours but the QS8's round the Sound out so it jus fills in an doesn't sound like it is coming from one place which i really like, Since u have a room that Size may i recommend an SVS Subwoofer ? i have the 25-31+ but u might wanna go up to a bigger one even though mine rattles the Windows an the Bass is just Awesome. The Reciever, i have heard both the 2805 an the Pioneer 53 TX to me i thought the Pioneer sounded better. THX Certification well it is one company paying to have the logo on their equipment it is not that important i own a Harman Kardon an haven't found the need for it so i do like the H/K sound i have the 525 series maybe u wanna look at the 7200 i have heard that it is a smokin piece of equipment and as for the Axioms, call them up an talk to them they are really nice people an will not over sell u , also call SVS an talk to them too gosh i love the Bass offa mine lol it is jus Solid an u gotta love Bass that u can feel hope that some of this helps u , an others will chime in to help u taoo Latraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Sirquack,

Yes, all Denons will drive the 4-ohm M80s without any hassles, and so will all H/K receivers. Yamaha in the past has been iffy re 4-ohm loads and I'm unsure about the 2400 and 1400. Ask Yamaha, and be sure to ask, "Will the Yamaha 2400 drive a 4-ohm load at full output, without current limiting?" Stay away from Pioneer if you want to drive 4-ohm M80s.

You will likely need to run two subwoofers, given the huge room volume (9,500 cu ft.). The subs don't care where you sit. They simply have to pressurize the total room volume they "see". Anyone I know with a room that large is running two subwoofers.

Auto-EQ is a crock and can make good speakers sound bad. Turn it off. Use the auto-level setup, etc. THX has certain requirements for power amps which are worthwhile but in receivers I don't think it's worth it.

If you are male and over 30, it's extremely unlikely you can hear above 16 kHz, unless you grew up in a forest with no horrible noise-making leaf-blowers and other such devices around. Besides, there is very little music content of importance above 15 kHz-- a few harmonics of violin, piccolo, and cymbals.

I think you mean B&W, not B&K. The B&W 703 is comparable to the Axiom M60ti. As to the QS8s, you can explain to the salespeople that a dipole/quadpole/bipole surround is used to mix movies in mixing studios, because the whole point is to mimic the ambience of reflected sounds generated in large cinemas by rows of surround speakers that line each side wall. In the relatively small rooms in homes, if you used direct-radiating surrounds, there is not enough reflected information to effectively mimic the soundfield of a large cinema. But if you use a multidirectional radiator, you generate a rich soundfield of ambience that will extend to listeners who are not in the sweet spot. Direct-radiating surrounds are fine if you never move out of the sweet spot.

I even prefer QS8s for multichannel music reproduction as well.

Regards,

I think Alan about covered it for you.
Regarding the QS8s, to the best of my knowledge nobody here that has QS8s (or QS4s for that matter), would go back to directional surrounds. Totally superior for surround movie effects, IMO.
And I have had great results with supplementing my Denon 2802 with a budget 2 channel amp.
Good luck.

Thanks a lot everyone for your comments, I feel a lot more comfortable now, and yes Alan, I was just testing you on the B&K slip-up.:)

As far as mounting/location of the Qs8's, I know for the side surrounds you want them slightly behind, and I believe like 3-6 feet above the listening area on each side of the room. I have a Sanyo Z2 projector and am planning on the back seating row to be elevated behind the front row. Would I want to place these slightly behind the back row, or besides the back row which would be slightly behind the front row?

Also, I curious how much actually comes out of the rear channel, and would I be justified in purchase 2 more Qs8's or mayby Qs4's versus smaller bookshelf type speakers?

I plan to mount the Qs8's from the ceiling, and am still trying to figure out if the FMBracket will work to hang them low enough, or if I will have to come up with some DIY design so I can hang them far enough below the ceiling, without blocking the top/bottom drivers? Not sure if this would be a good idea, but my wife was wondering if anyone has used a heavy netting material, not fish net, but something heavy with large enough holes to allow the speakers to breath and not cover/restrict them. It would seem you could hang them down to a desired position, and the speaker cable would kinda be hidden through the center of the material upto the ceiling?

Thanks again ehhhh.

Just one more bit. A few of us have compared the M60s and the B&W 703s. Almost identical sound, with the B&Ws being 3X the price.

I suspect the folks who were confused about the QS8s have never heard them . They are truly special speakers.

Finally, the 2805 is an excellent choice ( I use the 3803).

Well Alan, I emailed the owner/sales man of the local AV store in my home town about the whole surround topic, here is his email to me...I thought I was lengthy, above, Can you say I'm more confused now then I was....Randy

Here is my 2 cents in response to the speaker mfg's comments. As a hard core hobbyist with 30 yrs experience particularly in regards to speaker design, I apologize for the length!

At the core of the debate is whether special added effects are more important than accuracy of reproduction. The surround dipole/bipole speaker originated during the Dolby ProLogic days when no dedicated rear channel signal was available from the recording process. The surround signal had to be matrixed from the left and right channels with the resulting limitations.

In some people's minds, by using surround dipole/bipole or similar speakers, a certain amount of added "ambience" could be added to the rear channels helping to hide this limitation. Solving the problem this way was a lot like putting on cologne to cover up body odor instead of taking a shower. However, no shower was available until Dolby Digital and DTS came out. Now the ability to record 5.1 independent channels full range 20hz-20khz meant that the
surround signal could be manipulated any way the recording studio wanted with all of their hundreds of eq and processor knobs! Cologne in the form of dipole/bipole speakers was no longer needed! Recording studios began to
change....

If you don't believe that the fidelity and accuracy of the sound is severely compromised with surround dipole/bipole speakers try this comparison. Take any brand of dipole/bipole speaker small enough to be wall mounted for
surround use (excluding large Magnepans/Martin-Logans, etc), wall mount as per THX specs where the tweeters fire down the walls away from your ears and where the speakers are located directly to the left and right of your head.
Feed them the FRONT channel left and right signals using music you are familiar with. Take a similar priced pair of direct firing speakers, from the same brand if you like, and place them underneath the surround speakers on stands and point them in directly at your couch. Now listen to
the music. It's unlikely you would give .20 on the dollar for the dipole/bipole even if they are the same brand. There is no treble because it's pointed down the walls, and there is no bass because it intentionally cancels on dipoles. All that is left is a extremely colored midrange from wall reflections and a grossly distorted tonal balance. Even with bipoles that don't cancel bass, packing 2 drivers in a cabinet already to small for one means the bass that is there is boomy with no extension.

If the recording studio really wanted you to hear no treble, no bass, a highly colored midrange and poor tonal balance, they could have recorded it that way in the studio with the independent channels that 5.1 offers and all
of their hundreds of eq and processing knobs! So ask yourself, why come up with Dolby Digital/DTS full range 20-20khz bandwith recording capability to all 5 channels only to recommend using dipole/bipole surround speakers that
can't begin to reproduce it?

The speaker mfg. defends his position by claiming that all recording studios use bipole/dipole speakers to record their mix. Many studios do not and the number is growing because careful listeners prefer the accuracy and freedom
from coloration that direct radiator speakers offer. Even if all were recordings were mixed using dipole/bipole speakers the way the speaker mfg suggests, I still believe he is missing the point*. The goal for the system
isn't to sound like a movie theater** with all of it's coloration, the goal of the play back system is to accurately play back what's on the recording and direct radiators due this radically better than wall hung
dipole/bipoles. Although it may be sensible in a commercial movie theater to trade away freedom from coloration for coverage, consumers can come closer to having both using rear channel direct radiating speakers because they can easily define a listening sweet spot in their living room with proper speaker set up. This is especially true with the addition of 6.1 and the rear center speaker. Add to this adjustable time delay settings plus endless user adjustable A/V receiver DSP modes enable the user to change the ambience to ones taste. If you want more echo and coloration just punch one of these sound modes.

Try the demo I suggest. I think you will find that although I'm a militant hobbyist, I'm not wrong. After that any input you would like to give back is welcome.

Thanks for your time. John

* I believe he has fallen into the faulty logic trap that Bose uses. Research Bose did in concert halls claimed that 8 parts of sound reflected off of the walls for each part that hit your ear directly. Bose then designed the 901
model to fire 8 drivers at the rear wall and only 1 driver directly at your head. The flaw in this reasoning is that the ratio of 8 to 1 reflected versus direct sound is ALREADY ON THE RECORDING and that the 901 was adding
this to the recording a second time!

**If you've listened to the sound carefully at theaters, you would probably agree that even a modestly priced home theater sounds better.

I actually think the guy has a point. Many dipole/bipoles do NOT sound as good as direct radiators.

However -- and this is very important -- he obviously has never heard Axiom's quadpoles. To my ears, they don't color the sound, even when wall mounted.

In reply to:

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...because they can easily define a listening sweet spot in their living room...

---

For those who have a dedicated HT room, this might be true (I can't say.) For those of us with the "HT" in the living room, it rarely is. Living rooms share this with movie theatres: Most people sit outside the sweet spot. Like a movie theatre, my goal in my imperfect living room is to spread out the sound as democratically as possible, not to create a single sweet spot for a single individual.

YMMV.

I don't know. It sounds to me like he's contradicting his own argument. First, he states that bipole/dipoles are no longer needed to enhance surround effects, because the studio can now do that in the mix.

"Now the ability to record 5.1 independent channels full range 20hz-20khz meant that the surround signal could be manipulated any way the recording studio wanted with all of their hundreds of eq and processor knobs!

Then he says, to prove this try sending front speaker signals to bipoles/dipoles wall mounted, and to direct radiators just underneath the bipoles/dipoles and you'll see how badly they sound.

"Take any brand of dipole/bipole speaker small enough to be wall mounted.....Feed them the FRONT channel left and right signals using music you are familiar with. Take a similar priced pair of direct firing speakers.....Now listen to the music. It's unlikely you would give .20 on the dollar for the dipole/bipole even if they are the same brand."

Wait a minute! First don't use music to test surround speakers. They are intended to provide ambient surround for movies not music. Having said that, I find the QS series surrounds fabulous for music in a 5.1 or 6.1 configuration. Yes, direct radiators might be preferred for SACD and DVD-A, but you aren't going to suffer with QS series speakers when listening to either format. Ask BigJohn.

Wait a minute, again! Of course, the signal intended for the FRONT speakers will not sound right on surround speakers. That signal is INTENDED for direct radiating speakers. Seems to me the correct test would be to send the signal intended for the surrounds to both sets of speakers to see which does a better job of functioning as surrounds. After all, he claims the bipoles/dipoles are no longer needed because the studios now can mix the surround sound themselves. Again you should be using movies, NOT music, for this test.

Next he claims "There is no treble because it's pointed down the walls, and there is no bass because it intentionally cancels on dipoles." The QS series surrounds have the tweeters angled, not "pointing down the walls." The loss of bass when using dipoles may or may not be true, I simply don't know. And, frankly, I don't care, because the QS series surrounds are not dipoles. They are bipoles x 2, which = quadrapoles. Regardless, you have a subwoofer to carry the bass, and bass in nondirectional. (Did I say that right?)

I agree with Peter. I doubt this man has ever heard the QS series surrounds. IMHO, they provide the best surround experience I've ever heard.