I just got everything in my HT upgrade hooked up yesterday. Speakers are M22 for the front, VP100 center and QS4 for surround as well as an HSU VTF-2 for bass duties. Well I was trying out some stereo listening last night and noticed the the M22 didn't really sound good with rock or heavy metal. They sounded really nice with some classical, country or jazz thrown at them, but just didn't cut it with the harder stuff. And I'm not referring to bass either. Just the general sound. Are these really not that good for the rock/metal/alternative???

As far as I am concerned, there is no such thing as good "rock" speakers, or good "classical" speakers. If a speaker is accurate, then it is accurate for all music. I would suggest that many rock CD's are poorly mastered, whereas more care is taken with mastering classical and jazz. Your M22's may simply be revealing the shortcomings inherent in your CD's.

Mark

Valid point mhorgel. Guess I never looked at it that way.

Having heard a bit of rock/metal on these speakers, I'd say it is the mastering that is the problem. For example, the rerelease of Master of Puppets sounds fantastic, but St. Anger sounds worse than it does in my car.

There is nothing that could make St. Anger sound good with the exception of it being completly rerecorded. The DVD sounds better. I have actually been tempted to record the audio of of the DVD to listen to.

Hmm. I've never tried the DVD. Maybe I'll give that a shot.

BTW, I absolutely agree with you on the rerecord thing. Maybe in 20 years someone will fix it...

Axioms are not nearly so forgiving as some other speakers (ones with bloated bass, absent midrange, rolled off highs) so some cds I just don't listen to anymore. Page/Plant "Unledded" (No Quarter?) sounds simply awful. Black Sabbath not so great. But Robin Trower, Joe Satriani and Jeff Beck sound tremendous. Jazz, classical, blues, reggae, and just about everything else sound much better on my Axioms than my previous speakers (oh, Alannis Morrisette sounds like do-do as well).
If you listen exclusively to rock/pop M3s, M50s, or speakers from another company might be the way to go.

I've found that Led Zeppelin sounds pretty harsh on my m22's as well, but I know it's because of the mix, not the speakers. What do you expect when you record your songs in a stairwell and other odd places. I just turn the treble down a little and it's all right. The DVD sounds great though! Dave Matthews sounds incredible. So do the Beatles. These speakers are definitely not forgiving, but play with the settings on your receiver. You can usually get something pretty satisfying with enough tweaking.

I've noticed that electric guitar stuff on my Radiohead doesn't sound like I thought it would on my M22's, but I had my hopes set very high. They are better than expected on everything else I've listened to, though.

Part of the problem may be the low volumes I've been listening to (Stupid apartment). I think it will sound more alive and exciting with higher volumes.

And don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade them for anything, except M60's!

mhorgel hit it right on the nose. Good speakers will make
good mixes stand out. Bad mixes will stand out very badly...
When your listening thru a crappy system everything sounds of the same quality, so even the bad mixes can sound up to par with the good ones. If you can start telling the quality difference in your cds, they are probably good speakers.

Yeah, what Mark said. I discovered after getting my Axioms that there are some horrifically mixed popular albums out there by major artists. It's kind of like the realization of that disclaimer they used to have on CD's - this format may reveal shortomings in the original program material.

If you have time and a little slack in your speaker wires, try moving them around a little. I'm not talking much, maybe 6" to a foot in any / every direction you can.

The room my speakers are in is empty (painting) except for a 65" Mits and a loveseat. There are 2 walls about 75% covered with curtains. I had 5 CDs in my CD player, and I was unable to find a spot where all of the CDs sounded good. In some placements I just couldn't believe how absolutely horrible things sounded. Rush's Roll the Bones sounded extremely thin and tinny. Almost like an AM radio out of a 55 Chevy. While Stevie Ray Vaughan sounded incredibly full with a very nice soundstage. I moved the speakers about 8" apart, and 5" closer to the wall, and now Rush was awesome and Stevie sounded like I put him in a can.

As an experiment, I just hung an old blanket from the end of one of the curtain rods over to my Mits, and held it in place with the not connected VP150. This effectively covered about 25% of a third wall. Now all 5 CDs in there sound beautiful. That is actually a huge understatement. It sounds like I'm sitting in the front row for both Rush and Stevie. It is just absolutely amazing to me that the room, speaker placement, and furnishings can make so many differences. Even right up close to the speaker, I can hear the differences, and the blanket is hanging about 12 feet away. It also allowed low volume listening, which is now smooth and silky where before it was tinny.

I sure hope that I can ditch that old ripped up blanket once I get the furniture back in the room. I love the way the speakers sound with it in place, and I'll live with it if I have to. Nothing is going to take this sound away...

Well I change my opinion a little. I dropped a few Pink Floyd CDs (remastered) in the player the other day and the sound was incredible. And this is with an analog signal. Also put in some techno and that sounded really good too. Had to turn down the VTF-2 though and it wans't even up that high. Maybe these just are not that great for metal and hard rock. I'm honestly not that worried about it anyway as this is mostly a HT set-up.

You didn't mentioned what AVR you were using, but if you have an HK, you will absolutely want to try the regular Dolby Pro Logic (not DPLII) processing mode with your older rock music. On about 80% of my CDs it makes a huge difference. I had a friend over who immediately noticed the same thing that I did.

Over the years, I've had a few radios, boom boxes, and car radios that had a Dolby switch. The only thing it ever seemed to do was reduce the volume a little, and make the sound more "compressed". Not on my HK630 - it actually works the way it is supposed to. It appears to increase the width and depth of the soundstage, boosts the midrange, and "cleans up" the highs at the same time.

Personal tastes aside, I played Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind last night using only my M60s. It sounded damn good without DPL, but it was absolutely incredibly with DPL enabled. (As incredible as any band who's lead singer's nickname is "Air Raid Siren" can sound. hehe...) The m60s did a great job of recreating that magical mixture of the dual guitars that makes Maiden stand out amongst the other metal bands. The bass guitar was strong, clear, and easy to follow. Man, now THAT guy has fun playing bass. I never wanted to be a bass player, but I'de give it a shot if I could play with them.

I've also played some AC/DC Back in Black, and From Those About To Rock. The cannons scared the @#%$! out of me even though I knew they were coming. It sounded like I had real artillery in my living room. WOW!!! Im pretty sure Angus and the boys were talking about Axiom when they said:

Weeeeeeeeeee saluuuuuuuute yoooooouuuu!!!

---- FIRE! ----

My answer Monster, Yes. Axioms are good rock speakers. But it took me a lot of screwing with the room, speaker placement, equipment connections, and DSP modes to get them there. So I guess the answer is that they ARE good rock speakers, but they might just not be "easy" rock speakers.

I wonder what the criteria for a "rock" speaker is. Can someone give an example of a "rock" speaker?

Good point.

As someone that worked with sound and lighting for about 10 years with local musicians, I use the same criteria that the musicians use during sound check.

Listen to the snare drum. Does it sound sharp, crisp, and not tinny. Then listen to each tom (drum) for nice, short controlled thumps of the proper tone with no ringing or dull sound. Then the kick drum. It should be a very solid, dull, but powerful thmump. Cymbals should sound bright as hell, especially when nothing else is playing. ANY music with a lot of cymbals in it should be very bright. Stand within 2 feet of one when a pro bashes it and tell me it's not bright. Phooey on you, I say...

Then I just listen to each instrument at a time, checking to see that it sounds just right. It's easy to do once you get the hang of it. Look at the CD case to get the # of musicians, and the type of instruments that they play if you don't know the band. Concentrate on each instrument as you listen. If I find that the bass sounds muddy or too low in volume, I move the speaker a bit away from or closer to the wall to fix it. Eventually, you'll find a spot where all of the instruments sound correct in their own right. Of course, none of this is specific to rock music, so I can say that a good speaker should be able to play all types of music well.

The one thing that a good "rock" speaker needs is the ability to play loud. The M60s have a point where once you feed them a certain amount of power they just really liven up and seem to demand more. The more power I feed them, the better they sound. Unbelieveable. I ran out of power way before I ran out of speaker...

I'm going to peform the absolute test of a speaker. I have a friend, Ben who has a few VERY nice CDs out now. (Yes, that was a plug - the man is a great guitar player - buy one of his CDs - I'll call him to let him know the MP3 links are dead...). I'm going to invite him over to listen to his own CDs on my Axiom setup. I've heard him play live a hundred times. Indoors, outdoors, acoustic, electric, and on his own stereo at his house as well. I can tell you for sure that MY setup sounds exactly like he does live. Amie better write that $20 check to me now, because I KNOW Ben will be buying some M60s soon. At any rate, he is also on a few harder rock CDs from a few other bands as a "hired" guitar, so we'll have some other stuff he knows as well. His own stuff is very jazz / classical oriented guitar. The ultimate test would be to have him plug his guitar into my AVR and have him whip out his PERFECT rendition of the White Cliffs of Dover through my Axioms. He plays it better than Eric Johnson himself... I'll let you guys know what he thinks after he listens to "First Light" over here.

I guess I'll chime in on this one. First of all, my music tastes bounce around. What I play on my M22's ranges from classical, jazz, progressive rock (Dream Theater), mellow rock (Pink Floyd, Porcupine Tree) to hard rock (Opeth), and even some swing. My impression is that it only sounds as good as the recording. Thus far, all the things I've listed sound nothing short of amazing. Dream Theater's new cd is VERY hard and I thought it wouldn't sound all that great on Axioms at first. I put it on and BAM!! It was great. The mids and bass were so thick and I could still hear the distinct notes and all of the details. The odd thing is that the music even sounded natural and balanced.

I've also listended to Pink Floyd's Pulse and it sounds just as good. Another example is Porcupine Tree's cd In Absentia (which is a great cd). It's a very dynamic album. The first track is rather hard so how does it do on the Axioms? Just as great *wink* In contrast, take the track Heart Attack in a Layby which is very mellow and contains a lot of vocal layers. The best way to to describe this song on Axioms is immersive. So are axioms good "rock" speakers. I'd say yes as long their playing well mixed "rock" music. (or is that a paradox?) Anyway, sorry for the long post.

Now that I have everything set up I tried some more of my collection. I must have some really badly mastered metal CDs. Nothing sounds that good at all. Metallica, Iron Maiden, Anthrax, Disturbed, Mushroomhead as well as many others all sound pretty bad. Put on some Shania Twain and Gordon Lightfoot and it sounded incredible. Especially on PLII. Also The Crystal Method, Prodigy and Lords of Acid sounded pretty damn good as well as Zeppelin. Guess I'll kee the harder stuff for the car.

Allright! Another Porcupine Tree fan! I was beginning to think I was the only one. They're the best band nobody'e ever heard of, IMHO. They definitely have taken the torch of Progressive Rock from Pink Floyd and Alan Parsons.

Mark

Mark.

Porcupine Tree huh?? Never heard of them but now I'm interested with comparisons to Floyd and APP. What would be a good CD to get to give them a try?? I always like giving different bands a try. Someone recently turned me on to Iced Earth. Being a long-time Iron Maiden fan they are right up my alley.

WOOHOO!!! I'm not the only prog rock fan in here i see. Yes it's VERY sad that most people don't know of Porcupine Tree. They're the "Brit band" (i.e. Coldplay, Travis) that truly deserves more radio play. I have heard Blackest Eyes (from In Absentia) on the radio in Austin and once when I was at school (La Tech), but never anywhere else.

Monstermile...I highly recommend their entire collection because each cd is different, but most people start with In Absentia and work their way back. Personally, I listen to Lightbulb Sun most often and it sounds SO sweet on Axioms (M22's). There's some many suttle details in that album. I'm still dying to see PT live and i think that i missed possibly the best show ever from their last tour. Opeth and Porcupine Tree toured together *sigh*. Well, hope you enjoy their music. It's really great.

http://www.stereostone.com/


The best rock speakers you can get.
sorry..couldnt resist

LOL! Awesome.

LOL! I knew it was coming but I expected it from Peter (pmbuko).

Hehe. Quite a... 'natural' soundstage for rock music. Perhaps a bit 'hard' sounding.

a bit rough around the edges, and the sound quality tends to erode over time....

Its funny 'cause they look like rocks!

Monstermile, get the song "Hail Ceasar" off AC/DC's Ballbreaker cd. You will truly be impressed at the quality of the recording.

Actually, the entire CD sounds fantastic. Since there were no "hits" on this one, you should be able to pick it up used pretty cheap. It's standard AC/DC fare, and although it is not their best work, it IS the best sounding AC/DC cd I have.

Shawn

Give em a little time, I got M60 front VP150 center 3 QS8 surrounds Klipsch 10" sub. I definetely heard a difference after about 100 hours of play. I even left music on while away. I didn't hear much difference when moving them around but after breakin I definately heard a difference and I have an inexpensive receiver, a Dennon AVR 883 80X6 Watt at 8 ohm. I must say that I had 1970's equipment Technics SA-5460 65X2 and Pioneer HPM 100 speakers that didn't need a subwoofer. I would have to call the 2 systems close to equal for music. What is amazing is that I tried the Pioneer speakers with 5 different 2 channel and surrround receivers ranging from 75 - 110 Watts per channel and none of them could poduce the bass from those Pioneers like that old Technics receiver.

I was wondering what happened to Monstermile and his rock and roll collection. You still out there, buddy?

I'm dying to know if you have broken in, gotten used to, or found the proper setup yet?

I found my old Sony CDP405 5 CD changer/player last week (I moved - OK 2 years ago, I just didn't unpack all the way). I loaded it up with: Iron Maiden - Piece of mind, AC/DC - Back in Black, Ted Nugent - Great Gonzos, Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon, and Supertramp - Breakfast in America.

I hit the "random program" button and let it run most of the afternoon while I was working around the house.

All I can say is... WOW! Who let the musicians into my house? Where are they hiding all of their junk?

The only thing missing is the bill from the trashed hotel room.

Angus! Quit diving off my Mits!

Michael: I did a little bit of a retraction a few posts up. I have pretty much come to the conclusion that it is just badly mastered metal CDs. I filled up the changer with Floyd last weekend and sat back and relaxed. Put in some Zeppelin, Skynyrd, and The Doors and they all sounded sweet. Even playing a few of the music channels on DirecTv sound pretty good as well. Like I said in the previous post I'll just save the heavy stuff for the car.

i havent followed this post, and its too late to read everything but i just gotta say...

I bought AC DC back in black today, whoa that cd ROCKS on my system. I had it turned up to, just past loud., which is best for this kind of music. oh man it was awesome. Hells bells and back in black. the electric guitar is the best!

If there was ever a speaker that could rock, its the M80's lol! i never was really into that "hard rock" before but after listening to this cd i really like it! very good sonics too for this kind of music, i must admit!

Funny you mentioned that CD. Just picked up Back in Black a few weeks ago. I played it at 98+db on my M60s the other day. I still had more receiver power, and the speakers showed no signs of fatigue. I swear they just keep getting cleaner and louder as you feed them power. You can hear them screaming "more power!" Where's Scotty when I need him? Warp 10...

Anyone else try Supertramp's Breakfast in America? Now that is one album that can really show off those clean mid / upper highs. Incredible.

I have that one on the shelf...haven't listened to it in years. I'll have to get it out and blow the dust off it.

Mark

Can you recommend a Porcupine Tree CD to start out with?

With Porcupine Tree you have some great options for where to start. It really depends on what type of rock you prefer. Here's how their albums break down.

The Sky Moves Sideways - "Floyd-ish", psychedelic
Signify - Psychedelic, trance, ambient
Stupid Dream - song writer, pop like, British rock
Lightbulb Sun - British rock, ambient, a tad epic
In Absentia - some hard rock, "Floyd-ish", dark, layered

Personally, there's not a bad cd they've put out, but most fans start with In Absentia and work their way back. They're working on a new cd this year and so far Steven Wilson has used words such as dark, heavy, and long epics to describe the new songs. I can't wait to hear them. Hope you enjoy their music.

Jason

ha! what a coincidence. i tried the st. anger album on my axioms today and i thought, "blah, this sounds awful."
i'll have to pickup that re-release of master of puppets. the cunning stunts dvd sounds awesome.

alice in chains unplugged - killer.

another album that was poorly recorded IMHO is chilli peppers californication. some of the songs sound terrible. there's a lot of sibilance on several tracks.

dave matthews sounds really good on the m60s. clapton unplugged rocks.

kenny wayne shepherd sounds great. the black sabbath reunion album sounds good.

i've definitely noticed, as many have mentioned, that the axioms will let you know when you're listening to a poor recording.

I'll point out, as someone did quite some time ago, that the DVD that comes with St. Anger is significantly better mastered. It's worth a watch/listen. If you can get over James being flat on 3 or 4 of the songs...

Have any of you folks seen the Napster Bad Metallica series from Camp Chaos? Hliarious if you think Metallica is a bit over-the-top in its "rebel against authority" + "music downloaders are lowlife thieves" rhetoric.

Maybe not hilarious if you don't think that.

hilarious if you jumped on the bandwagon.

what's wrong with standing up for something you've created? if i was a professional musician, i wouldn't want people downloading my songs for free w/o my permission.

The problem with that is that they're "not" the musicians songs. A large percent of the time the record companies own the rights to the songs. The record companies are money grubbing jerks, who at least IMHO deserve to go through some finacial hardship if it makes them realize they need to change things.

On amazon.com I can buy "Oops...I did it again" for $15 or I can buy "Two Towers" for $20. Can you tell me which of these two productions cost more to produce (by several hundred million dollars)? Which physical storage media costs more to manufacture? Which physical media takes longer to produce? How about packaging? Which is advertised more on television? The cd should cost $5. (And I still wouldn't buy it, although a good cd I would buy.) Also, when I buy "Two Towers" Mr. Jackson gets some of that money. When I buy "Oops...I did it again" do you think Britney sees anything?

That said, people still shouldn't download songs from the net in place of going out and buying music. But if the record companies want me to go out and buy music, they should slash cd prices drastically. At present, I buy maybe 1 cd a month, because it's a complete rip off but I need to feed the addiction. If cds cost less, maybe even $8, I would feel like I wasn't being robbed and would buy *a lot* more music.

Here's a link about a study done recently by Harvard

And here's an excellent article by Orson Scott Card on the whole issue.

At the risk of repeating what others might have said before as I have not been following the thread but the two articles you posted really caught my attention and I vehemently agree with a lot of the points.
What I do not understand is that why consumers are not protesting more about the exorbitant amount of money music cds cost even today in the age where tech makes it so much easier for reproduction.
And I've come acrossed many articles and friends/people who complain about how expensive cds are and yet have no choice but pay the money. Under $10 would be a reasonable price to pay for a cd. Correct me if I am wrong but I think its a sad realization that the major percentage of the money goes to the corporation rather than the artist himself.
Will there never be any real effort towards slashing cd prices, I've been hearing that for years and it hasn't happened yet.

i wonder if those are the same stories users held up when they were subpoenaed?

they're not the downloader's songs either. so what if i make a song and i don't want anyone d/ling it? it's MY song! contrast something to the 'singles' that artists released. many artists allow you to d/l a song or two on their site and that's awesome. it's their choice, not your's...because it's not your song.

the record companies are a different issue. what's the solution if CD prices are too high?

Andrew
Well I do agree with a lot you say, I'd like to make an argument for my specific case, and I'm sure the same argument of many others. My point is what option (other than Kazaa, etc) is there for me to hear new music in a market devoid of anything other than top 40 radio stations? There are no rock stations in Winnipeg that play anything other than the latest-greatest from Nickleback and Default. The only way I have to hear some different music for the first time is by downloading. I own nearly 400cds and I've probably bought 100+ in the past year. Of those I'd bet 80% were artists that I had previously downloaded music from to get a taste for it. How can any reasonable person involved in the music industry expect me to spend $15 on a cd without hearing it first???? They're nuts!

Some reps of the Candian music industry actually just lost a case in Federal Court that was brought about online music sharing. It found that the 29 defendants had not infringed on copyright laws. I personally applaud the court's decision.

Here's the CBC article

allow me to introduce you to internet radio...

http://launch.yahoo.com/launchcast/

I agree that they are not the downloader's songs either. (Granted I emphasized it less than my other points, but I do feel that way.) The thing is, the music industry has to change. If the only way people can fight the RIAA is by stealing from them, then my vote goes 100% to "steal from them." I would personally love it if we could convince a large portion of the population to altogether stop buying cds from any major record label for 6 months, but I just don't think it's a feasible protest. They will keep trying to sell cds for insane prices until people revolt against it. The more people that revolt the better, and the sooner the revolt the better. If there's a way to do it without breaking the law, that would certainly be ideal. The articles I linked don't say "steal your music" they just provide evidence that "all is not well" in the recording industry. And finally, the whole point is that the song *does not* belong to the artist who made it. In some cases it does, but in the *vast* majority of cases involving the record industry, the record company owns all rights to the songs. So it is not "your song" even though you wrote it and performed it. When talking about bands not signed to major record companies, I 100% wholeheartedly agree that nobody should ever download their music without permission regardless of cd prices. (Unless they either then go buy the cd or delete the files.) But the RIAA doesn't care about those bands at all, and the suits they file do not involve those bands at all.

but will it give me the exact song i'm looking for? Or multiple songs from the same disc? No. It's a wonderful idea, don't get me wrong, but I want to make sure I'm going to like the entire cd, not just one or two of the singles. I just don't believe radio is the answer. It can be a great method of discovering new bands, but won't allow me to hear a cd in it's entirety.

When I can buy CD's for $12 I will buy another CD. Until then I will continue using IRC, BitTorrent, and whatever other file sharing programs that I care to, to get music.

you guys want some cheese with all this 'whine'?

i suppose next we'll be going to movie theatres demanding a viewing before we pay to see the movie? this goes round and round guys.

everyone is in some sort of business around this issue and the bottom line is the bottom line. like it or not, someone is going to make money.

your either part of the problem or part of the solution. if you don't like it, don't buy it. if you want something different, start developing.

i'm in the same boat as all of you. everyone wants more for their dollar. why else did we buy axiom speakers?

what's the solution? i'm really not sure. that's not my 'business.' i would say that things are changing (hopefully) for the better. take metallica's st. anger album as an example. i don't know anyone who likes the songs. but, they did include a FREE DVD with the purchase. that's not bad for $13.99.
who knows what else the record co.'s should try? maybe a line similar to pepsi where you open your product and you have a chance to win something? sounds feasible to me. chances to win an autographed guitar, CDs from warner bros., a poster, movie tickets, etc. the biting truth is that sooner or later CD distribution will need to change by offering more and changing its technology.

Personally, I'm not buying any CDs from any of the labels that are part of the RIAA. I am buying independant label CDs, and I could certainly buy used CDs. I agree that the artists deserve to make money, as do the variuos people involved in production. However, I dislike the RIAA's tactics of suing their customers and concealing the fact that music sales are actually going up. (see arstechnica.com.)

It's pretty simple for me...I've just decided the vast majority of CD's aren't worth it, so I don't buy them. If I don't like the whole album, it's not worth the $15. So, there's only two ways I will buy for the rare times I do (1 CD a year I'd guess). Reason 1, it's from a band that I know and love and am relatively sure I'm gonna like the entire CD (example being the upcoming NIN album coming out later this year...I'll buy that the day it comes out). Reason 2, there is the rare radio song that I just love so much and can't get out of my head that I'll go out and buy the rest of the album. In this case, I'm not as sure I'll like it all, but I generally do when there is one song I like that much.

Other then that, I'll stick to the sidelines and hope prices drop. If more people did it this way, sales would drop a lot, and prices would need to follow. I don't see anyone convincing the masses to stop buying music anytime soon though....too many people just accept that the price is the price and buy it anyway.

Ken,
you're right (at least in my own little world). Since I've been able to download music files, my cd purchases have increased. This is due to having access to all different kinds of music and different artists I would never have dreamed of hearing. I'm also a little more willing to drop that $15 knowing that I will enjoy the entire cd.

I'm doing the exact same thing kcarlile. No cent of my music purchases goes to the RIAA.

I tried to keep my first comment value-neutral, but if you want to talk about this...

Where does copyright come from and what is its purpose? The power congress has to grant copyrights comes from Article 1, Section 8: "Congress shall have the power ... To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"

If we accept what the constitution says, copyrights exist not for the artist, but our society. You only "own" a song you wrote because that might encourage you to make more songs. This is actually the only place (to my knowledge) that they included the purpose, or aim of how they gave power. Maybe they were afraid of the crazy (in both scope and duration) copyrights and patents that happened anyway in our time. There has been a lot of bad stuff pulled by the RIAA (and the MPAA, but less so now), but that's another lengthy post.

I'm not against you getting your investment back in creating songs, but I think we can get a little overboard when we try to 'own' things like ideas, songs, phrases, and so forth, as we would 'own' a house, a piece of land, a fence, et cetera.

The supreme court has ruled that Copyright Violation is not equatable to theft. That we keep calling it that is mostly due to RIAA propaganda.

I'm not aiming to convince you that downloading copyrighted music is above any sort of criticism, or that you shouldn't have rights as a creator (I would say the constitution gives the reason for the rights), but I would like people to recognize that the issue is not a closed book. Far from it.

If you want to rip the audio from the dvd that sounds better I found an easy to use program called DVD Audio Ripper:
http://www.imtoo.com/dvd-audio-ripper.html

It rips them to .wav or .mp3 so you can make a cd of it or put it on your mp3 player. I used this for some of my concert dvds that didn't have cd counterparts.