First I have to say this forum totally rocks!

Building a new theater room. Currently have W22's and W150. In the new home I think I can increase the size of my screen quite a bit by placing the speakers behind an acoustical screen. Seems if I spend enough I can get a screen that will not affect the sound enough to worry. Plus i can always turn up the channel leves a bit on the speakers.

Question is this. I think In considering all the scenarios I will be able to afford to trade in the On Wall speakers for the M60 floor standing speakers and a VP150 Center. Would it be worth the extra expense or should i just mount my On Wall behind the acoustical screen?

Aaron

PS This forum is going to totally hook me up! My new theater is going to Rock! Probably 4 to 5 months out but buying stuff little by little makes it less painfull!

How big is the new room compared to the current room ? Unless the new room is deeper *and* significantly larger in volume I guess my first thought would be to stay with what you have.

Then again I imagine there's a few db of loss going through the acoustical screen, so if you're playing near the volume limits of the current speakers it might be worth going to M60s in order to get some extra headroom.

In other words, I don't know either

I always prefer floor-standers over in/on wall speakers because with floor-standers you have more flexibility. You can move them around to get the best sound stage.

My vote also goes to floor standing models. However, I don't think you'll regret it if you buy in-walls and build your theater around them. Either way, you will have a superb sounding HT.

ok thanks. Is there a big difference between the M60 and M80?

A couple inches in depth and height and a couple more drivers here and there

There isn't a huge difference and if you never do a direct A/B comparison you might not realize there is a difference. I did do and A/B and IMO, the M80s have better bass and the highs are crisper. The M80s had better detail at lower volumes but the M60s were slightly more forgiving with less than optimum music sources, YMMV.

As Jake points out, the 80's do have an extra tweeter and midrange driver in each cabinet. I can't testify to the differences between the two like he can, but I can certainly boast about the M80's ability to produce outstanding detail. My normal seatin position is 17 feet away from my towers and in the center, right in the 'sweet spot'. However as of late I have been sitting at the end of the other couch which sits about 6 feet from my left main channel speaker. And let me tell you, sitting this close, the things I hear in my music... it's jaw dropping how well they reproduce sounds. And for some strange reason I have come to really love the sound at this angle. The right main channel speaker is about 12 feet from that seat, and the effect of having the signal from each speaker reaching my ear at different times expands the sound field to unimaginable levels. It's truely amazing. All this time I figured I had it best in the sweet spot, but now I'm really digging the exact opposite!

You have to hear this for yourself, it's totally insane how good these speakers are. Try em for 30 days, I'll bet you a case of beer they'll never get packed up and shipped back. You'll love them!

17 feet away is quite a bit further than i will be. My theater room is 18x18x8 with 2 rows. first row center would be my personal seating position. I probably wont ever listen to music on these. purely a theater room. I suppose my first row will be about 10 feet from the screen and the speakers will be mounted behind the screen on a recessed stage. The center speaker will also be there and probably on a stand to place it at ear level. I was worried about the M80's being a bit taller and sitting above floor level by a few feet. That is one of the reasons i was looking at the M60's. Of course price is also part of the reason. I will have an ep350 sub and figured that would run all of the base. Can I run base through the sub and the fronts? I worry that the base will vibrate the screen since they will be behind the screen.

If you go with a good sub like the ep350, you will most likely want to run your main speakers as small, thus leaving all the heavy bass under 80Hz for the subwoofer to handle. After all, that's it's job.

The M60s are fabulous speakers and you will be amazed how they sound. I can't imagine mine sounding any batter than they do already but they claim the M80s are M60s+1. However, neither should vibrate the screen on their own unless you turn them up to extremely unhealthy levels.

I doubt very much that the subwoofer will vibrate the screen unless the driver and port is very close to the screen material. I wouldn't put it back there if it was nearly touching the screen. Also, they are designed to move large amounts of air in all directions to produce smooth bass sound. It will likely perform a lot better if not in a small enclosed space. I personally would leave it out somewhere in the room where it sounds best but sometimes we all have to make sacrifices.

Other than that, because they are omnidirectional, if you crank it so loud that the screen would actually vibrate, it is likely that it's position just won't matter. It can vibrate things equally in all directions. I just wrote another post about my ep500 and my poor drywall.

Thats great insight! Thanks. I'm worried now about the space they fronts and center will occupy. Best guess right now is area designated will be a recess about 2 feet deep into a wall. there will be some space in front of the speakers and some behind but not more than 6 inches i would say either way. Above and to each side they will be several feet from the nearest wall.

Just a side note to my previous comments, I was also coming from owning a set of M22Ti's and the M60s were not as clear at my usual listening levels as the M22's were, my wife picked up on it right away, and if she could tell, i knew I was in for more work. This is what lead me to audition a set of M80s and the full out comparison is here.....

http://axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=207481&fpart=1

Really? That is kind of shocking to me. BTW what is the "Ti"? I see the M22 on wall which is what i have now and am thinking of trading in for the M60. I cant find any M22Ti on the site. I will read your comparison and chime back in later. Thanks

Ti was the original designation before v2 came out.

Wow I thought there was a much bigger size difference between the M60's and M80's than what it show's in that picture! According to that pic there is only an inch or two between them... interesting. I love the white, never seen a picture of white Axiom's before. Sweet!

The M22 that i have is the on wall. the review you wrote compared the bookshelf. do you think the bookshelf and the on wall have much different sounds?

Micah here is a pic I took using one M60 as a center flanked by the M80s and yes it is surprising how close the M60's are in size to the M80s, really not much difference.

I guess I am struggling with keeping my on walls or switching to M60 and VP150. If I keep on wall I will have a smaller screen. If I switch to the M60 and VP150 I will place them behind a larger acoustical screen. My ideal situation would be the larger screen as long as I feel confident I would be happy with the sound coming through the screen and visual on the acoustical screen. I will run the Panasonic AE4000U projector which folks are boasting as a fantastic new product. Finding a screen should be a reasonable enough task. Just totally worried that I will be losing a bunch of sound quality from behind the screen. I know i can return what i purchase and exchange if im not happy but the entire design of the room will depend on this decision. Besided i hate going through purchasing, unpacking, repacking and shipping items this size and this value. Somebody lead me to the light!

I don't know about the visual of the screen - but I can't imagine you being disappointed with the M60s. If you are placing them behind the screen, you should have no hesitation with the Factory Outlet.

Any way you could get your hands on some sample sizes of the screen? This way you could drap them over your W22s and see how much it affects the SQ. If it doesn't affect it much, I don't think it will, you can feel more confident in moving forward with the M60 purchase.

BTW, I beleive the M22 actually sits about 6-8db down at 60hz, which would also explain some of the lack in mid bass, and I suspect the W series is even farther down than that due to the lesser volume of the housing. Try bumping up the crossover to 80 on the receiver and see what that does for you.

According to Axiom the W22 is still within 3 db at 60 hz (researching for my own knowledge today) but I doubt they're as good as M22's, as you say.

aspicer, I faced the identical decision a few months back. I went with the slightly smaller screen and wall mounted setup, mostly for aesthetics, and it was cheaper too. I don't have a giant room to fill either, how big is your room?

my room is 18x18x8 two rows of seats 1 elevated.

Thats a pretty decent size room. Personally I would go for the M60's in this scenario. JohnK has been enjoying his M22's for several years without the need to upgrade. But I don't think you'll get as good midrange as you will with the bigger, floor standing models.

I can't comment intelligently on the screen issues having no experience with any of that at all. I'll just say that if it were me contemplating this project, I would probably consider the fact that those specialty screens are specifically made for exactly what you're wanting to do, so they can't sound too awful bad. I wonder if you went down to a store that sells them if they would know of anyone who has one that you could demo? Seeing is believing.

In that size room I think you would be better with the floorstanders as well.

Thanks guys thats a big help! Ill try to find someone who can demo the acoustical screen for me. There's gotta be a company locally considering i'm near DC metro.....

I'll let you all know how goes.

The +- 3 db means it can be a total of 6 db for the rating, the graph clearly shows it down 6 to even 8 db. At 60 hz it shows the line crossing at 80db while the rating of the speaker is 89 so that would actually be 9db, but I am allowing for some variance in readings to give it a 6-8 db low at 60hz.