I am looking at buying some Axiom M3ti speakers to go with a Kenwood 80W KA-6100 amp. It is for a small bedroom (9x11). Is this a good combo? Should I be looking for a different (newer or more powerful) amp? I plan to play them farily loud. Also, will they sound good if I build shelves about 5 feet from the floor and put them there? They will be about 5 feet apart from each other. I plan to set them horizontally also, is there a right and wrong way to set them (tweeters in or out etc) or will they sound better vertically? I don't plan on getting into multi-channel and don't think I'll ever want a subwoofer.

My set-up right now includes a PlayStation 2 as my CD and DVD player (though I don't really care as much about the sound on movies), a Sansui turntable (gotta love the sound of vinyl), a Sony TC-FX25 tape deck, and... that's about it. I don't really have any speakers right now. Well, I have a couple of little Koss ones on my headboard that I use to watch TV. Tin city.

Oh, and when I get the speakers, what kind of cables do you think I should use? Right now all of the systems in the house (Sansui 30W amp with Bose 301s in the living room and Nikko 60W amp with Sonys in the back that have no high end and Akais in the front with no low end in the basement) have cheap RadioShack thin speaker wire.

Welcome Modest Cargo

The KA-6100 is built like a tank, a beautiful silver faced unit with twin meters, levers, knobs and dials. I have a KA-9100 which sounds great. Should be a very nice match with your M3Tis. When you're ready to give up the KA-6100 you may want to consider a nice 5-10 watt per channel SET tube amp which can really make the M3Tis sing.

I'd find a friendlier forum for a discussion about speaker wire or interconnects. Folks get a bit hot on the subject here, and the local consensus is go with lamp cord.

One thing though, if your KA6100 has those weird little speaker wire cage terminals, you'll have to go with some pretty thin wire. I'd recommend Mapleshade Audio Clearview Golden Helix speaker wire.

Thanks for the info--can you recommend a good SET amp for Axiom speakers?

Hi Modest Cargo,

Below is a link to an excellent article on the subject of speaker wire.
The author is Roger Russell, who was the director of Acoustic Research at McIntosh Laboratory and the original designer of McIntosh loudspeakers. I wish you all the best in your purchase; the Axiom M3s are an excellent speaker for the money.

http://home.earthlink.net/~rogerr7/wire.htm

Regards,

Dan

Hi Mr. Clean

I use an Antique Sound Labs MG S1 15DT, 5 watt per channel SET integrated. That and a nice little sub and a pair of M22s or M3s is pure magic. Sweet music.

my low end kenwood receiver (vr-407) will drive my m2is "fairly loud" probably at least 85dB average with music. its got decent power of 100Wx2 stereo .7% thd. your amp probably has enough juice. adding a subwoofer would be the easiest way to squeeze more volume out i think, but a 200W amp might get you more headroom also.

Thanks guys... Any advice on the shelves though?

MC,the general idea is to place the speakers so that the tweeters are about at your ear level. If for some reason they have to be higher or lower than that it's a good idea to tilt them slightly so that the tweeters still point at your ears. They're designed to be placed vertically, not horizontally, and have the best dispersion in that position. If you have to put them on a shelf, be sure to leave at least 3"-4" of space from the wall behind so that the port on the back has some room to "breathe".

I drive my M80's with a Pioneer Sx-1280. Fantastic. The build quality of that era is fantastic. Just make sure the kennie is perfroming like it should. Check DC Offset, bias, clean pots with DeOxit or similar product and you should be very happy.

That's a well built amp.