I have some Boston Acoustics VR950 towers ( and whatever their center is ) that I bought around 10 years ago, and was wondering if anyone was familiar with that speaker and how they would compare to the M60?

I know the gold standard is just to try out the M60's at home in my own listening area, but I'd rather not do that unless someone is familiar with what I currently have and thinks the M60's will produce sonic nirvanah for my ears

I'm 99% Home theatre usage at this point.

If it matters, I've got a Denon 2310 for my receiver and a Velodyne SPL1500 sub.

Welcome, Shizz....
I'm not familiar with those particular Boston Acoustic speakers, but wonder if you're near enough to anyone else hear to get in a little listening session? Where are you located?

It's next-best to listening to them in your own home....

I'm about 45 minutes north of Atlanta, Georgia. I saw a list of willing people to audition that there were a couple of people in Georgia willing.

But honestly I'm not sure I'd remember what mine sounded like when I was listening to the M60's, and vice versa when I get home and listen to the Boston Acoustics again

Long shot here, but I was hoping someone had my speakers, then bought the M60's and did a comparision.

Your best bet then is to order a set and do a listening test. I've never heard BA home speakers.

Yeah, I guess I'll probably end up doing that.

If you could find a willing M60 owner in your area, maybe they'd be kind enough to let you bring your own speakers(towers) to the audition as well. If not, you would need to make sure you use demo material that you know inside out. It's the subtleties that separate the better speakers imo.

BTW, when I bought my Axioms, I intended them to be used about 80% for HT much like you, but I find myself listening to and buying a lot of music again...50/50 music/HT.

Ever think about getting the m80's? Just had to throw that out there...

Yeah I thought about the M80's, but I'm unsure if my new receiver, a Denon 2310 would handle it. I usually listen to it at the -28 to -25 DB range.

I don't think you'd have any problems with the 2310, others have used "lower" Denons with M80s at much louder levels successfully(I have never had a prob with my 2809 at much higher levels).

The 2809 is in fact, the next one "up" in Denons line(last year), but I've cranked it up to levels my ears can't take before the amp has any prob's.

Hi Shizam,

Yes, you are correct, our acoustical memory is quite short, a matter of a few seconds, especially listening to different speakers in different rooms.

I have heard Boston Acoustics speakers over the years, as well as reviewing them for AV magazines I've edited (Sound&Vision Canada, Sound Canada, Audio (New York).

What you will find is that the Axiom M60s or M80s (or M22s) are more neutral and transparent (a smoother, more linear frequency response) and better balanced than the BA's.

The most neutral BA's produced were the early A40, A60, A70 etc. The Boston floorstanding models were never as good, in my experience, and a private audition of some BA's with aluminum woofers was disastrous (this was long before I worked for Axiom).

Try a home audition at your place or someone else's place. Axiom's neutrality and natural quality will convert you. Try and use well-recorded CDs of music you know well.

Regards,
Alan

Thanks Alan, It sounds like it's worth a shot. Of course with the new receiver that means re-running the Audyssey program before I start listening, and that makes doing an A/B comparison impossible, unless I disable it.

Just wondering, because I've never used a receiver with Audyssey, but can it store multiple settings? My Pioneer has 6 memory slots which each can store completely different MCACC configurations. So it could be run once for the first set of speakers, and again using a different memory setting for another.

Shizam,

I'd suggest that for comarative listening tests you leave the Audyssey EQ program switched off. You could use it to do the initial setup, but leave the EQ function off for comparisons.

Also, you can zero in much faster on tonal differences and colorations between speakers if you do the A/B tests in stereo.

If you run Dolby Digital 5.1 o4 7.1 and try to do comparisons, it's almost impossible because there is so much going on in the room with multiple speakers that it's very difficult to isolate tonal nuances.

Alan

Tonal nuances.

Definition:
How you tell when your wife is angry at you.

Thanks Alan. I'll scrape some dough together and order some soon.

Just out of curiosity, do you think the Denon 2310 is beefy enough to handle the M80's in case I want to splurge?

The Denon won't have any problems with the M80's 4-ohm load, provided you are not trying to fill a huge "great room" with high-volume sound or use plus 100-dB SPL playback levels all the time.

Run within their output limits, all Denon AV receivers have been very stable with the M80s. However, understand that 4-ohm loads draw a lot more current through the output stage, so your Denon will run hotter than with an 8-ohm speaker. Make sure the Denon is well ventilated--4 or 5 inches of air space above it--and you should be fine in normal sized 2,000 to 3,000 cu. ft rooms.

My H/K's auxiliary cooling fan kicks in and roars like a banshee when I run my M80s really loud (it doesn't have enough ventilation above it--only an inch) but it has never shut down.

Regards,

Neon, on my 3808 I can not store multiple audyssey settings...

However, With the network interface on the 3808 you can save your entire config file to you computer including channel levels, source names, audyssey setting ect. These can then be reloaded at anytime. So, I guess in the case of the denon 3808 (or other receiver with this ability) the answer is yes in a round about way.