Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Beatles on Axioms

One of the great attributes of my M22 Axioms is the great stereo soundstage that they provide - pretty wide, with a solid center image.

Yesterday (no - not the song!) I played Rubber Soul - and was pretty surprised that there was basically no stereo image. The sound seemed to come directly from the left and right speakers - very localized. I also noticed several sounds, whispers,vocal harmonies and such that I have not heard before - but once again coming directly from the left and right channels. I found as I increased the volume, it did sound somewhat fuller. The vocal harmonies on Here, There and Everywhere were impressive - many intricate vocal pans that I had not noticed before, including some Lennon vocals on that track!

The cd tracks are certainly not compressed, but my initial hypothesis is that since the left and right channels were recorded with different sounds eminating from each channel (ie - vocals on right side, guitar on left, etc.), I am not getting a good stereo image. Anyone have similar experiences?

I have the M22's set as an eguilateral triangle, slightly toed in. I played Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and immediately the stereo image/soundstage reappeared from the Axioms. Perhaps if I move the M22's in closer I would get a more cohesive image, but it's not too practical to move the setup every time I want to hear Beatles....

I will pop in Sgt. Pepper's tonight and see what I get.

That's probably exactly right about the Beatles. They weren't using real stereo, just dropping the different tracks on separate channels. It'll be worse with Sgt. Pepper.

IIRC in my college days, if you played a track from Sgt. Pepper's Lovely Rita - towards the end of the song if you played just the left (or was it right?) channel - there were all moans and breathing - with no music. The other channel contained the music.

I know the mid 60's to late 60's Beatles experimented with different tracking and recording effects - but were the early albums only in mono - and then re-mixed to stereo?

Same with Hendrix.

It's typical of studio recordings. If they do not mix to use phased stereo, you can get some pretty weird result. Even more so if you try to use something like PLII/Neo:6/Logic7.

One time I was doing a speaker comparison and thanks to the Beatles I realized I had one pair hooked up backwards. On all the other speakers the vocals were coming from the right, until I switched to the one set of speakers and the vocals were coming from the left. D'oh!

I had Abbey Road on yesterday (listening with a Scott 222 tube amp, M60s, Velodyne sub, Dual 1219 turntable with AT 440ML cartridge), and I commented that imagined that it had to be very close to what they actually heard in the studio given the tubes and the state of speakers in 1969. Amazing what you can hear with these speakers! The bubbles on Octopus's Garden make me giggle.

That sounds like a fun set-up, Zoe! You're gonna give me an itch to look at turntables. . .like I need another thing to spend my money on.

OK, I just finished listening to Van Morrison's Astral Weeks on vinyl with the above mentioned system. Unbelievable. Actually, I've loved this album for a long time, but I just don't think I have ever heard it until these speakers. Unreal. I'm truly blown away right now. I had to come over to the computer to find out more about how it was recorded and the producer. Amazingly, it was recorded in only two days, from what I've read. I'm speechless. Doesn't happen that often.

Look at turntables! I highly recommend my Dual 1219. It's an idler wheel, like the Thorens 124 only less than half the price. I doubt I'd hear much of a difference if I A/Bd the two, but I hope to try that one day. Do some research on them and you'll soon learn they are sleepers. IMHO.

I'm planning on ordering an Audio-Technica or a Technics turntable this week...

I haven't had a turntable since I was in high school and spent $300 on a Pioneer/Shure combination that costs as much as my car!