I've been using the Axiom QS8 speakers as side surrounds and M2i speakers as rear surrounds for a couple of years now. The QS8 speakers at the side are OUTSTANDING! But - I think the M2i speakers at the rear leave something to be desired. I was wondering if there would be a noticable improvement if I were to purchase another pair of QS8's to be used as my rear surrounds? Has anyone tried this? Or is there anyone who is using QS8's as rear surrounds who can comment?
Thanks, Bill
Ohhhhhh Nooooooo Mr. Billlllll
Hey Bill,
A lot depends on your room situation. Can you provide the size of your room? If you have lots of room behind you, then Qs8's might be nice. I have 4 Qs8's and love them, for both music and movies.
I have a single QS8 in the rear, 2 as side surrounds and they work great, no tonal differences when listening to music in 6 channel to match my M22's and VP 100. They all seem to play equally loud as well.
Just wondering why you say the M2's have something to be desired or is just upgradeitits? Remember in 7.1 the rear channels really don't receive much information to use during movies, at least not as much as the sides, so you may not notice the rears as much.
Well, as mentioned above, there are very few movies that make use of the rear channels, however, if you receiver has decoding like Dolby PLIIx, the rears will get much more attention. Also, I'm curious if you have the 22's angled towards you? Bookshelfs will not be as forgiving as Q's, but should still work well, especially in PLIIx mode.
You mentioned a meter, so I assume your talking about the Radio Shack SPL meter? Have you run the manual test tones from the receiver and calibrated all speakers to 75dB?
Have you listened to your qs8's as rear surrounds yet? I would try that first before ordering another pair.
Swap the m2's(use them as side surrounds) and qs8's then calibrate, and listen to a few movies with Pro Logic IIx. Do the qs8's(as rear surrounds) sound anemic? Are they fuller sounding?
Nice idea, I can't believe I didn't think of that.
One thing I noticed looking at your HT room Mr. Bill is that you have very bare walls/floors. The sound would be dramatically improved if you had some room treatments. Heck, some nice throw rugs on the floor would help with reflections, or even some wall diffusion or absorption items would help.
I'm a big fan of the QS series as rears.
Tried an M22 back there, and a 360 audio pan just didn't sound right transisitioning into and out of the rear centre.
Bren R.
I’m running M3’s as rear surrounds. I don’t find them lacking at all. For 7 channel music they sound great, better than the QS8’s. My only bitch is that they are simply too big for the space they occupy and I’ll be swapping them out with another set of QS 8’s. You might want to try a set of M3’s. In either case, if you swap out those M2’s, you ought to try running them in parallel as your center. I think you will like them more than your VP100.
Personally, I think my Qs8's do an awesome job in the music category...
BTW - The QS8's I ordered are "V2". How do these differ from the QS8's of a couple of years ago?
They are essentially the same, Axiom just decided to go with V2 on all of the speakers as the line is getting dated, but has under gone mild changes here and there, ie. QS4's now have same tweeter as the rest of the line, and I believe a few components on the crossovers have been changed, just very mild adjustments, I would guess to still hit a price point, but enough changes that they added the V2 designation. I know there was a thread earlier about this but it has eluded me.