Hi Guys,

Just joined on here and am in the middle of transforming my downstairs room into a dedicated theater room and am looking for some advice on which speakers would do the job for me.
Ive been reading a few posts and have been taken a back by how positive people have been talking about the Axiom speaker range.

I am looking to have a set of main speakers, center speaker and a pair of rear speakers. Ive read a bit about the QS 8s and am wondering how they would go as rear speakers or are they predominately used as side speakers in the setup.

Your advice is much appreciated.

The QS8s can be used as both side and rear surrounds.

Can you give us a little more detail on your setup? What is the room size? Is this strictly for movies or music as well?

You'll find better advice from people other than me, but what would help is to get room dimensions as well as details about what gear will be running your speakers and what obstacles there may be in regards to speaker placement. Since it's to be a dedicated theater, I assume that won't be a real issue. As for the QS8s, many people seem to like them just fine as rear surrounds. I have to ask, however, why you're not mentioning side surrounds in your setup.

Firstly the room size is 21 ft by 15 ft (7mtrsx 5 mtrs)approx.

I will be using the system for movies,music snd have foxtel connected.I will be using a 50" flat screen Plasma which is mounted to the end wall. My previous setup which hasnt been upgraded in a while was using a Denon receiver ( avr-1801)
Bose speakers and Tannoy Sub. I am moving them all on for a new setup. Im in the process of searchingfor a new Receiver - must have a few HDMI inputs and atleast 1 output.

So really I still need to settle on a receiver , main-center-rear speaker setup and a sub.

I feel you guys will have a heap of experience with all types of setups so could probably pass on better info than the man from the shop trying to make a quick sale!!

I havent mentioned side surrounds as I dont think the room is big enough for mains , sides and rear speakers. Its about 7m from front to rear ( Im in Australia ) sorry about the metric speak!! Ive never had side speakers in any of my setups before so I wouldnt know how much space is required for them

Rizzo welcome the forum! Where in Australia are you?

I would be more inclined to run the QS8s as side surrounds and not worry about a rear channel unless you are able to keep the seating away from the rear wall by a couple of feet, in which case you could then run a 7.1 system, your room is plenty big enough for a 7.1 system or just 5.1 with side surrounds. The QS 8s give a very enveloping sound and they can be mounted in the rear or to the sides as desired but the usual way is to have them to the sides and slightly to the rear of the seating area, but as I have said this isn't set in stone.

So far as a receiver, pick one in the price range and with the features that you like. Onkyo, Yamaha, Denon, Harmon Kardon are all very common HT receivers, well around here anyway. You could even go with a Sherwood Newcastle from Axiom as the S/N's are very good HT receivers as well. I had an older Denon 1804 and I recently upgraded to the 3808 which is a very good bang for the buck with network connectivty for audio streaming and firmware updates.

Just ask any questions and I am sure someone on this forum will be able to answer.

Thanks for the responses guys!!,
To answer a few of your questions, I live down the South of Australia in South Australia ( suprisingly enough)little place called Mount Gambier.
To be honest I hadnt heard of anything from Axiom before starting my research and had been leaning towards a Klipsch system.But from what I have been reading I have been blown so quickly towards the Axiom gear with the reviews and comments I have read so far.

With the size of the room I have I like the idea that has come up of dropping the rear speakers as I dont think I can push my viewing couch too much away from the end wall and go for QS 8s on the side wall. I really like the Denon receivers as they have given me fantastic listening and viewing over a reasonable period.

What main speakers is everyone using..I see a lot are using M80s, would these go well in this size of room or would they be oversized for the area ( power wise).I think vp100s may easily be enough for my center speakers and for the sub would it be best to go for the biggest grunt of the 500.

Thanks

None of the Axiom speakers you've mentioned would be oversized or undesized for your room. There is definitly no such thing as too much sub.

Welcome Rizzo,

A lot has to do with your budget and listening habits. If you could provide a drawing or picture possibly of your room, it may help. You could also consider the m22's or m60's as well, or go for the gusto and get the 80's.

I love my 60's when I owned them, but currently have the 80's due to pressure from other members.

The Qs8's are great, and if you could position them along the side walls, to the side or slightly behind the listening position, that should work great.

The 350v3 sub is also a great sub, if budget allows, you might consider two 350's from the factory outlet, which would be close to the price of one 500. This would give you better overall flatter response across all seats. But, 1 500 would rock S. Australia.

Welcome Rizzo!

What is your budget? This will give us a better idea on what to recommend for you.

Cheers,

Dr. House

Rizzo, here is a link to a thread of a comparison another forum member and I did last year on the differences we heard between the M22, M60, M80, it may help in your decision on what to get for mains. I will also say that the findings we had on the M22 are not the norm as I have no thinness issue with them in my own home and they sound great. The M60s I found to be a very nice speaker once I stopped comparing them directly to the M22s and ran them on their own after we did this comparison. Personally I think that anyone of the 3 would be a great speaker for your room size.

The EP500 sub or even the EP600 would be the way to go for your room, as was stated you can never have too much sub. It all depends on how much you are willing to spend.

My Budget will run along the lines of spending half my money on a speaker system. Remembering 1 US dollar only equals around .65 Australian dollar at the moment.( nearly twice as much )

This is the range I will be looking at

Flat Panel screen $3,000 Aus dollars
Receiver $1,300
Blueray/PVR/HD Tuner $ 1,300

That leaves me looking somewhere in the range of $5,000 Aus dollars for speakers etc, so something like $2,700 US dollars.

Im hoping our dollar will go up a bit..It was worth .95 Aus dollars only a month a go before the financial crash!!!

I can describe my room briefly which is 15ft wide with the underside of a staircase sliding down the left front hand side. I have recently cut the storage area out from this area opening the room up dramatically.I have restructured the supports for the stairs. The room is 21ft long with a sliding door on the left hand side near the rear. The only problem I see is if I push my couch which I want near the back wall forward at all it will be blocking the sliding door on the left hand side. But to mount side speakers into the room , they will also be infront of the door on the left hand side. This is the one point of the room I will struggle with.

At what height should the speakers be mounted , or should they be on stands to be at head height when sitting.

Hi Rizzo, I am in Perth Have you got your TV yet? If not take a look at the Samsung Series 6 Full HD 52" LCD, I just bought it and I got them down to $3500 and a 6 point Surge Protection thrown in ($150)with very little haggling from Retravision. As for the Blue Ray the Samsung BDP 1500 is pretty good and I got it for $340 from JB Hi Fi.

Graeme

Jason, welcome as another addition to our Australian contingent. Just a brief comment on surround speaker terminology: the first set of surround speakers are in fact "side surrounds" even if they're mounted slightly behind the listening position on the rear wall. They play the sound information from the side surround channel material, and are connected to those terminals on the receiver, not the back surround terminals.

Thanks John,

Im still getting used to the setups on some of these..Ive only ever had 5.1 channel receivers .
I have probably got a leaning for the Epic 80-500 system even though I wish I had come across these speakers a few months earlier when the Aussie dollar was at it highest.I would love to invest in a 7.1 system but I dont think I have the finances to match at this stage(the extra QS8 speakers). Can you run a 7.1 system ok with only the 5 speakers connected ( Main , center and rear ) until another purchase can be made on the side surrounds, has anyone got any comments on how it sounded.I would love to not limit myself to 5.1 channel at the moment and buy a 7.1 channel receiver for what I want in the future!! I hope that makes sense!!

Jason, of course a 7.1 receiver can be used with a 5.1 speaker setup. The receiver will be set to show no back surround speakers and won't send any sound to the back surround terminals. So yes, you can certainly use the side surround speakers without back surrounds. Unless you have a significant distance behind the listening position(say at least 4')for a rear sound field to develop, a 7.1 speaker setup may not be of benefit.

Jason, as John pointed out a 7.1 receiver can be used in a 5.1 setup, you just don't hook up as many speakers and your receiver will show no rears for now.

Just so your clear, in a 5.1 setup you don't have "rears" you have "side" surround speakers. You would not hook up the rear channel speakers for a 5.1 setup and your "side" speakers would be to the side of the listening position, not behind you.

Rizzo, the epic 80-500 would be fantastic for that room. My basement HT room dimensions are similar and am just using basically a Epic Grand Master with HSU sub because I will wall mount the M22's.

Alan from Axiom suggested that setup to me(with EP500) back when I was asking and told me if I wanted to sometimes play music at "E-LEVEN" to go instead with the M80's.

The QS8's are great surrounds and in the future I may just put 1 or 2 M2's for rear speakers if I ever want 7.1 but I doubt I will even do that. 5.1 HT is enough for me.

Just a few minor questions on home theater setup that someone may be able to help me with...looking at the cable side of things If I run a hdmi 1.3b cable inside my viewing wall to my rack will it be afffected in any way by using wall plate f/f connectors at both ends instead of direct connection.
Im also looking at speaker cable and have read many topics on this and im looking at the blue jeans type 10awg. Now this is pretty expensive cable so has anyone had any experiences with it and is it comparable with a few cheaper options.
In my basement room I have 3 of the 4 walls concrete and the viewing wall is timber, will this have much effect on the audio and if so is there something easy to do to it besides framing it up and compromising the room size, I have read a few reports from people that concrete walls can affect the low frequency of the subwoofer.
thanks.

The Blue Jeans 10 awg is very nice speaker cable. I bought 100ft not too long ago. I also purchased their locking Banana plugs which are awesome. If you want something cheaper Monoprice would be a good place to buy your speaker cable. There will be no difference in sonic quality between them. I chose to buy from Blue Jeans because I like to support their business. If you buy a thicker wire, I higly recommend the locking Banana plugs. They are expensive but they make a nice solid connection to your equipment and speakers.

Jason, as long as an HDMI connector fits the output and input devices at the ends, the connection works.

The Blue Jeans 10ga wire is fine, but would appear to be much thicker than needed for your room size. Good info on speaker wire in general and a table of suggested sizes in particular is found in this explanation by a veteran audio professional. 16ga would probably be plenty for you, and also less expensive and easier to handle.

Yes, the effect of a concrete wall is that the energy in low frequencies is absorbed less than with more flexible wall materials.

Hi Guys,

just in the middle of some pre-wiring and im trying to find some info on wiring up the Denon 3808 network circuit. I want to have a dedicated controller at my viewing area so would i have to firstly run an ethernet lead from my Pcs router to the Denon the output to the controller via the Denons ethernet output ( im guessing they have one ) to the controller. I want to get this right along with the rest of my wiring as Im not going to be destroying anymore plasterboard walls any time soon. I think I have most other wiring under control - just have to splash out with a bit of cash , so I can start putting the room back together again. So if anyone with a Denon or other networked Receivers can give me a bit of a heads up it would be really appreciated.

You just need one ethernet wire from the router to the Denon. You control the playback of songs through the Denon's GUI.

If Jason's previous answer doesn't tell you what you need to know, you might want to try restating the question.

Unfortunately I don't totally understand what you are asking based on the quoted question. Are you talking about running Ethernet cable from Router to -> Denon to -> ?Controller?

Apparently Jason is much more perceptive than I am. If so, just take his answer.

Jason

That was how I read it. It sounded to me that he was trying to run a second ethernet cable to some sort of controller from the Denon, which is not required with the use of the router.

Rizzo, you simply plug all the items you want networked together into the router, that is what they are for, to link all the equipment together, daisy chaining is not required.

Sorry for not coming across clear, but you have all pretty much let me know what I was asking..For starters I didnt realise that the Denon 3808 had its own GUI, but after reading the specs again, I dont know how I missed it!! I was thinking that I could run an ethernet lead from router to receiver then run one to a seperate controller via the receiver or router.
Hope I didnt waste too much of your time but I definately appreciate the quick response of you all.

No waste of time at all. If you think this is a waste of time you haven't been here nearly long enough to see all of the crazy things we respond to.

The Denon GUI is in my opinion is a nice plus. You'll definitely enjoy all that you can accomplish through the GUI.

Jason

Hi Rizzo,

Just a couple of answers to questions you posed. Re the QS8s and what height to mount them: per Dolby Lab recommendations and my own experiments, I suggest anywhere from two feet to six feet (a couple of meters) above your ear level when seated. It is NOT critical; the QS8s don't have to be at the same height and may even be positioned asymmetrically, as my own are. Just don't put them too close to a ceiling. If the room has a cathedral ceiling, then put the QS8s higher up if you want. You can experiment with height by using a couple of stepladders to temporarily position them before you drill any holes.

In passing, 12-gauge speaker cable is more than adequate for runs up to 60 feet or more. I call 7.1 vs 5.1 a "modest enhancement," depending on the room size. For big rooms, using four QS8s will certainly give you better coverage and envelopment of the surround field over all the seating areas.

Regards,

Alan

Thanks Alan and Jason,

Your input has been great, Im learning heaps about all aspects of home theater on this site and it has been fun slowly moving through the construction of my room step by step.

With the Denon 3808 there is 1 pre-out for the subwoofer , what would be the best type of cable to run to the Axiom 350 sub. I was trying to get a clearer upscaled picture of the back of the 350 to see what connections they have on there.
If I want to install a Buttkicker ( the kids want it for game play ) that also needs a pre-out from the receiver. They say it comes with a Y connector, will this impede or degrade the signal in any way by running two components from the same pre-out.

Hi Rizzo,

What you need is just a coax cable with RCA terminations. I use this variety in my home theater. It's cheap and does the job quite well. (this link is to a 25' length, obviously buy the length that fits your situation). Another good cable manufacturer is BlueJeansCable. Either one will be fine for you and as long as you are not making an incredibly long run from receiver to subwoofer, you won't notice an audible difference between either company's cables.

The Y-connector is something like this... it just splits one RCA connection into two. One cable will go to your buttkicker, the other will go to your sub.

Jason

May have to drop the Buttkicker. cant find any resellers here in Aus..Must be US and UK only device. Will keep searching, something may pop up

Don’t know if this will help but you could try contacting The Guitammer Company and ask them directly if they know of any resellers nearby.

http://www.thebuttkicker.com/contact_home.html

Cheers,
Dean

Do you have any friends in the US or UK who could purchase it for you and ship it down there?

Surely somebody would help you get your butt kicked.