M60's, VP100, and QS8's in Boston Cherry coming our way. I couldn't be happier.

We did an A/B comparison of my M22 with reference level bookshelves (Monitor Audio "The Monitor 9" MK II Gold) that my dad borrowed from a guy from work who wanted to sell them. It was clear that the M22's delivered full, rich sound. Whenever we went back to the MK's, something was missing both vocally and instrumentally in the midrange. Now, mind you, these speakers had just one 6.5" woofer which obviously was outdone by the M22's midrange 5.25" woofers. The MK's tweeters was a bit more effortless and less "sparkly" than the M22's, but didn't have the impact and energy the M22's had with cymbals and guitar strums.

It was great seeing how the M22's stood up for themselves.

The source was FLAC songs and straight CD audio from my computer via SPDIF to my Yamaha Receiver.

It was a good father/son bonding moment finding CD's around the house to test, fun too!

If you didn't know earlier...my dad bought...some other speakers...you can read if you want here: http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=187233#Post187233

Since he liked the M22's so much...I pointed him to the website, pointed out the holiday shipping deal, pointed out the 30 day money back (if he wants to still "shop around"), pointed out how good my speakers sounded, and also pointed out that nothing in the price range really came close. Needless to say, he was sold and handed me his credit card faster than you could say Supercalafrajalistikespialodocious!

We may end up keeping a 10" Klipsch Sub or replacing it with an HSU or SVS sub (depending how much Best Buy lets us return), but we will definitely have the HK AVR 247 driving everything - that should work out ok...right? From what I know M60's are easy to drive.

Anyways, I'm excited :-)

Nice work!

Now does that qualify as an audition and do you get the 5% 'thank you' gift certificate?

The H/K will work very nicely.

5% thank you certificate?! I would guess it counts as an audition...I brought my speakers home partly because i wanted my dad to hear them set up in my room.

Very good, Dan, and yes I'd think that it certainly qualifies as an audition to your credit.

We'll have two full home theater axiom systems rocking the house...we could have...movie sound wars (while watching star wars)...my room upstairs vs. the basement...:P

Dan, way to go. I can't wait to bond with my son like that .

Congrats to Pops, make them take back the sub too. The Klipsch sub won't hold a candle to the other ones mentioned. You should have brought home the STF2 for Pops to hear.

STF2 is home...he knows it can rattle the room and be heard throughout the house. :-) I turned it on and off with the A/B testing of our M22/Monitor MK shootout. I have a wooden panel floor in my room. With the downward firing woofer the wooden floor bumps and shakes with the music. :-) So, it's awesome to feel bass at higher frequencies you usually don't feel.

We haven't unboxed the Klipsch yet - I didn't know it was *that* bad compared to HSU and SVS subs. We haven't discussed sub options quite yet because we wanted to make sure Best Buy would take back the Klipsch (my dad got some chunk of change off of the receiver/sub/bad klispch speakers) with the rebate, or what. On top of that, I was pushing him to make the Axiom Holiday shipping cutoff, which was today.


I was thinking a VTF-2 MK 3 would fit the bill quite nicely. :-) Haven't looked at SVS yet, but I love my HSU sub so I'll probably go with them.

I'm convincing him that he's got one shot to make an awesome home theater and settling for crappy stuff is a no go :-).

Thanks for the comments, guys, I'll be sure to post updates.! It's really weird having a huge TV and digital cable TV in our house - before we just had plain 'ol antenna.

You're doing good work, Dan.

Congrats on having your Dad realize his money is being well spent.

The H/K will do more than fine, I use to run a H/K AVR110 and it easily drove the M60's to clean levels higher than I required. Of course my room is 10x20x8 and opens to a hallway and small office 8x8 or so. If your room is much bigger you may need some extra power but I really doubt it...

The distance to the TV is about 12', with the back wall being around 20'. From the left edge of the TV all the way to the right wall is 12'. From the left edge of the TV to the left wall is 8' of open area that goes to the rest of the basement.

So, essentially the "room" size is 12x20 with 8 feet of wall missing on the end of one of the 20' sections.

Ceiling is 7' tall

Think an STF-2 would work well in that size room?

Yep

If the STF-2 was the one I heard, it's a good choice for movies. For music I remain skeptical because it just didn't blend like the 400. I kept getting confused as to whether I should listen to bass or the rest of the music. It was that noticeable. But like Rick said before, maybe Jason and I just didn't have it set right. But the 400 blended in right off the bat from what I can remember.

Tex, that was a STF 3 you listened to.

Thanks. I wish Hsu would come up with easier names .

I agree with Mojo, ctown's STF3 was very powerfull and it didn't blend as nicely, it became disracting after awhile. I am sure if we had taken the time to make some more adjustments, rather than just pink noise calibrations, we could have gotten it to blend nicely, maybe along the lines of how you(Mojo) setup your sub recently, which I am looking forward to hearing this week. Now if you can just haul it over to Greg's(framer2180) for a comparison to the EP30v3 we won't have to wait on Robb

The speakers hath shippeth! - Thanks noreen for the e-mail.

We decided to try my STF-2 in the room downstairs when the axioms come to see how well it does. If it does well, then we'll get that, or the next bump up.

A guy at work convinced my dad to get an SVS subwoofer.

He went with the lower tuned 16-46 PCi subwoofer. Since our room is smaller I'm pretty sure it will work fine for our application. We'll see how well the STF-2 holds up to it.

Most interesting, keep us up to date on the comparison.

Nice to hear a comparison with the MA Golds. I seriously considered those when I looked at Axioms. Granted I would've only been able to afford a stereo config...

I really liked the MA sound too. Hmm, maybe my Xmas week should be spent A/B'ing my M22's and Von Schweikert VR1's...

Yea, it was obvious the MA's were "better" speakers. But, guitars, cool electronica sounds, and instruments just didn't have any impact. The highs were more "velvety" and if you sat there an listened things kind of came to you...but it was like when you switched to the MA golds from the axioms, it was like something went missing and you had to re listen for it.

They didn't sound bad by any stretch, it's just that...the axioms were more fun, I guess. I'm pretty sure if any audiophile reviewist sat down they would "prefer" the MA's because of the quality therin (again, the transperancy of the highs was a lot better, it didn't feel as "in your face" as the axioms) but sometimes it's just the overall sound of the speaker, not how good they are. It was just a different sound.

I'm sure if we put on some classical music everything would sound a lot more pure on the MA's...sometimes when switching to the Axioms, things sounded a little bloated.

There was one defining characteristic I loved about the axioms that wasn't the MA's - separation of instruments. I was playing a band that has a pretty crazy studio recording style where they add a lot of cool distorted sounds and effects in with the music. With the axioms, I could pick out the accoustic guitar right away amongst all of the sounds and instruments (drums, electric guitars, violin, etc). With the MA's, I couldn't pick out the guitar as well, besides the "clickity click" of the guitar pick hitting the strings (the mic was probably very close to the strings). The sounds of the actual guitar strings were almost lost in the recording.

My dad also pointed out that he liked the vocals much better on the axioms than he did on the MA's. I preferred the MA's a little bit more.

The Axioms were a LOT more in your face than the MA's, and the axioms had a lot more midrange.

Overall, it felt like the MA's had a bit more "upper shelf" where the things up there sounded a little more pure, which is why they sounded like an expensive speaker. But, the midrange was really a disappointment. I'm sure if I listened to them for long enough I would find lots of little things that the MA's did better than the axioms...but that isn't my listening style.

I didn't pay much attention to the sound stage. I did notice that the sounds from the axioms sounded about a foot behind the speakers, while the MA's had much more depth where the sound was coming from way behind the speakers. However, that isn't important to me, especially with my setup. If I had two stands in the middle of a room where the speakers were about 10 feet apart, the difference would probably become a lot more evident and I would care more about the sound stage.

I probably could have spent a lot longer listening to them, but I thought an hour or so was enough :-)

To me, a speaker should just sound good, and have a fun impact to them when playing music. The axioms had that more than the MA's.

The Fed Ex Man came today and delivered boxes

The M60's can shake the room with the bass. It isn't as hard hitting as a sub, but man. It's like M22's with a great bass line. I love the M60's...great speaker!

Ok...time to set up everything.

Good times. Pics! We must have pics!

The M80s are even closer to the M22s, almost the same mids and highs with all that bass.

Ditto the pics.

I got a call from UPS yesterday saying the sub is *supposed* to come today. I'll post pics once I get the sub all set up :-).

Now I have to mount the QS8's...need to get some screws for the wallmounts.

As promised, pictures.

Pardon the mess...we have water leeking in to part of our basement so we've had to pull the carpet up, and as a result have piles of crap all over the basement. And, the coffee table probably has 4 phases of audio projects with all the wiring, speakers, TV, receiver, and cable TV accessories and manuals on it :P

I've pretty much spent all day setting everything up, calibrating, drilling holes, running to the store, stripping cables...etc. I'm glad it's done!

So without further adieu...






The system as a whole is amazing. Everything sounds so good. HD programming in 5.1 sound is stellar, just incredible.

The SVS 16-46i sub is incredible, blends with the system perfectly, and you can FEEL the low bass. With the smaller room I don't think it's going to lack the "SPL punch" that the smaller cylinders tuned to higher frequencies would have, since it really doesn't have a huge room to fill with sound. More on that later when I have time.

I don't like the interface of the HK AVR at all...even with the OSD menu. My yamaha is easier to set up and it doesn't even have a menu for it. The yamaha has much more extensive sound field programs that really make a difference to my ears. But I guess plane jane Dolby Digital does fine for movies.

Well, there you guys go. Two Axiom setups now rock our house :-).

Very nice. So what's playing tonight?

Yeah man I like it.

Most importantly, how does your dad like the system?

No, no, no, it's most important how we like it

We just watched behind enemy lines...incredible. My dad thought it was awesome, he was all smiles.

Having floorstanders just adds to the dynamic of the movie, it just sounded great. I mean, it was close to what my setup has, but everything was just more...beefy.

I'd like to point out how incredible the QS8's are. For a while I only had L/C/R hooked up because I was still measuring, measuring again, and drilling and mounting and wiring for the QS8's. When I finally fired them up the soundstage went from pretty flat to incredible. They just envelop you in sound!

Never underestimate the VP100, it kept up just fine with the M60's.

Behind Enemy Lines is really a great surround sound movie...lots of great booms and some awesome "spinning around" sound effects. I forgot what a good movie it was and how great it sounded.

The only problem with the setup is the left side is open. The left wall is further away so the left QS8 doesn't have as much to bounce off of and the left M60 doesn't sound as full. The subwoofer is set up to the right of the setup so that is probably distracting my ear. If I just sit down and watch and not over think everything it still is amazing.

A successful HT setup. May there be many more to come.

Very nice, Dan. Glad you and your dad like the new system. Yeah, I agree about the QS8s. Now that I've got 'em, I wonder why I waited so long to get them?

You were hoping someone would give them to you?

Dude, I kept asking for an Axiom gift certificate every Christmas and birthday! Even provided links via email. All to no avail.

I gave up counting on others. *sigh*

Ha ha, that's kind of bittersweet. You had to give up on others, but now you're enjoying your QS8s. I suppose it was worth it.

I sold my friends and used the money to buy QS8s.


Totally worth it.

Good stuff... Thanks for the great updates and review. I may have missed this, but what equipment is your Dad using for:

- A/V
- TV

I apologize in advance if you have already covered this topic ..

A/V is a HK AVR 247. The TV is a 52" Sony Bravia - I don't know the exact model.