I just purchased 3 QS8s for my 6.1 setup. I haven’t gotten them yet and was wondering if someone could clarify for me what exactly they do in layman’s terms? I understand that they fire from 4 directions, but why would I want sound coming out of the top of the speaker? How will quadpoler speakers envelope me more than normal surrounds? I figured I have the 30 days so I went ahead an ordered them, but I would like to understand them more.

Thanks
JLunden

They are more enveloping simply due to their design. With conventional direct-radiating speakers, the drivers all face the same direction/axis. With the Q's, you have 4 seperate directions/axes of sound coming from a single cabinet. You have the direct and reflected sound from each one of those sources adding to the overall effect. They made a huge improvement to my system over conventional bookshelf surrounds.

Would you guys side mount these speakers or mount them flush to the rear wall? My seating area is against the back wall, so I can put them like 6 feet above and to the side or 6 feet above and to the wall. I will have a center rear that will be above me and flush against the wall.

-JL

JLunden, I ordered a QS8 and it will get to my home tomorrow. I will have a 6.1 setup. The two surround are flushed against the wall 5 feet high and the back surround will also be flushed against the back wall. I have a thread open right now (6.1 setup). I have pics in that tread. You can see how my speakers are on the walls.

I'd say you should be fine either way. The Q's are pretty forgiving of placement, so it comes down to user's preference.

AFAIK the multidirectional sound makes a difference in two major ways :

First, it somehow makes the room seem much larger... switching between QS8 surrounds and M2 surrounds in my 13x23 room gave you a slightly creepy feeling that the walls and ceiling were closing in.

Second, in a well set up room (I don't have one yet, so I'm going on others comments) you have far fewer "gaps between the speakers", ie the sound from moving objects seems to move fluidly around without being so tied to the location of actual speakers.

You ain't helpin' none, John!!




We NEED some QS10s in the Axiom line-up!!!

(........wonder if I could take TWO pairs of M3s, and......)

We just have all kinds of suggestions don't we.

More IS better!!!

layman's terms - they rock.

I wouldn't even consider another surround speaker.

Hi JLunden,

Here's the technical rationale for the QS8's design. Our ear/brain hearing mechanism depends on delayed lateral and vertical reflected sounds (plus the sounds that travel directly to our ears from a source) to "tell" it how big a space we are in.

Cinemas and movie auditoriums and concert halls, etc. are much, much larger than normal domestic living rooms and home theater rooms. In all of this, remember that sound travels at about 1 foot per millisecond, so in your living room, the relected sounds from the side walls and ceiling are only delayed by a few milliseconds because the room is relatively small.

In big cinemas, auditoriums and even outside, your ears are constantly receiving spatial clues provided by reflected sounds that have traveled hundreds of feet in many cases, and hence are delayed by 50 to 100 milliseconds or more. These reverberant delays tell your brain you are in a much bigger space.

In a big cinema the surrounds speakers on the side wall and rear wall are some distance from you, and distances to the ceiling and other surfaces are much greater than in your living room, so natural delays are part of the experience. Additionally, Dolby inserts digital delays into the surround signals to further "trick" your ears into believiing you are in a bigger space.

Axiom's quadpolar approach mimics what takes place in large cinemas by having drivers fire in different directions, so that when the reflected sounds reach your ears (plus the digital delay inserted by your AV receiver DSP decoder), it simulates a much larger "space" and delivers a plausible illusion that your home theater room is, in fact, an outdoor scene or a big room, or whatever the mixing engineers intend.
As I write this, I'm thinking of a scene in the The Bourne Identity, where Matt Damon is in a marsh and someone fires a shotgun (the villain?) and a flock of ducks takes off. The QS8s and the sound mix deliver an uncanny sense of space that's extremely believable in my modest living room. There are lots of other examples in different movies.

Similarly, I've often found that with some well-engineered DVD-A or SACD recordings that use the surround channels for "hall ambience" really open up into convincing replications of concert space when played back using QS8 or QS4s in the surround channels. Many CDs played through DPLII(x) or Harman's Logic7 also greatly benefit from this effect.

Regards,

Great post Alan. Thanks for the information.

BTW I just recently watched Bourne Identity for the first time in my theater and I remember that sound distictly. It was Matt Daemon that fired the Shotgun to flush out the sniper. I agree the QS8's (4 with Logic7) sound fantastic. I also liked the scene in his apartment in Paris, with all the percussion and sound effects.

Now I need to see the Bourne Supremacy (haven't seen it yet). And I guess Bourne Ultimatum is due out in 2007.

Hi,

Thanks. It's been a few years since I watched Bourne Identity. So it's Matt who fires the shotgun to flush out the sniper (and the ducks or geese). I picked up a copy in a sale recently, along with "House of Flying Daggers" and "Hero," both of which have some terrific surround mixes. But I haven't taken the time to view "Identity" again. I do recall the apartment scene and the amazing effects you describe. "Bourne Conspiracy" is also fun, but it's not as good as "Identity", or I didn't think so when I saw it in a theater.

Regards,