Alright, I've been in the throes of moving into my new house, and one day after unloading the truck I had to get on a plane and spend a week in California. So now that I'm back and the computer is finally hooked up, I've got 1,000 posts to wade through. Ain't gonna happen. So let me see if I picked up on the important points:

• The picnic was a blast, but relatively few folks from the board actually attended.
• There's a pair of über-towers that will join the Axiom product line in the not too distant future.
• simboticus and I have the same DVD player, and apparently the crossover points for SACD/DVD-A material are absurdly high.
• ICBMs are neat, and I think I need one right away.
• Ken wishes people could spell.
• DoubtingThomas has a sweeeeeeeeeeet setup.
• Anyone who has the inside scoop on Axiom amps is staying mum.

For my own part, the new house is coming along nicely and I spent a few hours today running speaker cable in the attic and hanging my QS4s. Calibration was complete around 5pm, and I popped in "Master and Commander" to hear what my Axioms can sound like in a larger room with hardwood floors and no apartment neighbors to worry about bothering...

Holy smokes.

Man, I am not kidding when I say it sounds like I have a brand new system. I'm not listening at crazy volumes (mid 80s-90db), but everything is hyper-articulated and the bass from the EP175 and VTF-2 is just super detailed and shaking the walls. So this is what I've been missing by living in an apartment? Wow, wow, wow. I can't imagine what an upgrade to a pair of 60s or 80s would sound like. My M22s sound superb. The cats were a little freaked out by the flying cannonballs, but otherwise everything's great.

I think there was something about Diana Krall as well, but it couldn't have been very important. Something about her legs...

Glad the acoustics are working in the new house, congratulations !!

Right on about the setup, dude. Congrats!

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über-towers

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Hey, how did you get the little dots to appear over the "u"?

Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in Axiom's new towers as well, but. . .

You know, I thought whoever posted that was joking. Or maybe it was a dead-end prototype. I wouldn't get my hopes up...

All the better. Couldn't afford it anyway.

I need a second job so I can afford all this audio stuff.

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Hey, how did you get the little dots to appear over the "u"?

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If you're running Windows, go to Program Files > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. I'm sure there's something similar in Macs, but I'm not the guy to help you with that.

On a Mac, hold option and press u. Then press the desired vowel.

ü

tadaa!

This also applies for chapeaus (ô) and the down and up accents (é è).

Thanks, Ken and Mike. I can't speak German nor can I write it, but I do like saying über.

Welcome back Mike.
Congratulations on the move to your new house. I'm sure you'll really enjoy the system, now you don't have to worry about the neighbors so much.

oz

Thanks! And congratulations on the concert tickets.

Lucky @#$%.

Could we please get back to Diana Krall's legs?

>>Man, I am not kidding when I say it sounds like I have a brand new system.

This should be a scary lesson for all of us. How much do you think you would have had to spend on equipment to get the same improvement in sound ?

And how much would we have to spend to custom build a home theatre room?

You know, the funny thing is the entire time I was in Santa Monica I was thinking, "Hmmm. Okay...larger room, hardwood instead of carpet..." and running through a dozen different concerns in my mind. How do I minimize reflections? Do I need to scrape for a set of M60s or 80s? Is my receiver up to the job? What about a BFD? Do I need a separate amp? I bet I could swing a Rotel or maybe a used Parasound...

And I came back to Nashville Friday night and hooked up the M22s and the subs and didn't worry about calibrating. I poured a drink or three, popped in some CDs, and you couldn't have ripped me from the couch with pepper spray and a tazer. It really sounded that good. Saturday was spent doing more mundane things like buying a lawnmower (there goes my ICBM) and a washer & dryer (my M60s).

Sunday finally rolled around and by the end of the afternoon everything was in place and the Avia disc was in the DVD player. It turned out that my Friday night guesstimate on the subs wasn't too far off -- I'd set them 2-3db too high. But after everything was measured and dialed in correctly -- wow.

The question about spending more on equipment to achieve a similar result is certainly valid. I can think of dozens of times at my old apartment when I gave serious thought to what would be the biggest bang for the buck impovement. But what I've come to realize is:

• You really don't need as much speaker as you think you do.
• 90wpc is plenty for my room (25 X 14.5).
• A little extra volume goes a long way -- this starts to slide into the "loudness = improved sound" illusion, but we can tackle that in another post.
• The room itself makes a HUGE difference.

I still want a pair of M60s, but that's a mixture of upgradeitis and the desire for a slightly "fuller" sound that only large cabinets are capable of delivering. In the meantime, though, I couldn't be more thrilled with the performace I've discovered in my M22s. Cheers to Ian and company!

I think the most profound thing I've learned about this hobby is that, next to the speakers, the ROOM has the most to do with how a given system sounds, and it's influence cannot be overestimated.

Chapeau?!?

You mean the circumflex?
é - acute
è - grave
ç - cedilla
ë - trema/umlaut/diaeresis
ñ - tilde
ả - hook
ā - macra
ċ - dot
đ - stroke
ĕ - breve
ę - ogonek
œ - ligature
å - ring

(can you tell who is a typographer?)

Also (no Googling) everyone knows this * is an asterisk, but the typographic name for # is? (Not pound, or number sign or "hash")

Bren R.

octothorpe, dear fellow.

Oops, I had to Google it... I would have misspelled it "octathorpe."

Bren R.

Yes, the prefix meaning "eight" seems to go both ways:

octagon
octopus
octothorpe

Our language is so imprecise.

In la française, it is a chapeau. So there. Thbbt. And you call yourself Canadian.

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I think the most profound thing I've learned about this hobby is that, next to the speakers, the ROOM has the most to do with how a given system sounds, and it's influence cannot be overestimated.

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Amen to that. It is unfortunate that a lot of people do not have the opportunity to redesign their homes (let alone apartments) to accomodate a proper home theater installation (let alone a proper listening room).

In a lot of instances there is a lot of EQ'ing required to get the best sound (as the example of the Behringer Feedback Destroyer and dual EP-600s displays very well).

I have found that if the room is built (dimensionally) correctly to reduce nulls and peaks, as well as being acoustically sealed to retain the energy then smaller subs can definitely be employed to provide a spectacular sound. The system overall can be relatively small (for a typical room in a home) and get great sound given quality equipment.

That is why I am trying to spend the time in carefully designing the room (with a limited budget) that will become the new media room. I wish I had the square footage to have a dedicated home theater room but that will be in the next house. Many moons from now .

Sorry Ken, but in french it is accent circonflex, and not chapeau. Chapeau is perhaps a slang that is used by English folk.

Ya, I was the one who posted about the new tower prototype at the picnic. No drivers or anything, just the speaker cabinets. Joe's words were something like "Prototype for something bigger than the M80s"

Hope I didn't rattle any feathers at Axiom for posting about this.

You are right, it probably was a dead end prototype

Flippin tall enclosure however.

Fine, well, that's what I learned in French class grumble grumble...

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In la française, it is a chapeau. So there. Thbbt. And you call yourself Canadian.

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En français, c'est un accent circonflex.

Bren R.

I surrender!

Boooo.

Bren R.