hey ya'll...new to the forum. been lurking here for a few days and been reading lots about axiom's products. i'm not familiar with the brand, but I'm no stranger to the Canadian brands....i own a full Paradigm Monitor system and love the way it sounds.

we are in the process of building a home (we move in a few weeks) and i'm looking for a new system as the room will not accomodate the Paradigm system (esp the towers). I will also add that even if the room did, the wife would not allow it

i've been looking at SpeakerCraft and RBH in-walls and hanging around audioholics and that's where i read Axiom's being recommended because of the built-in enclosure on the m22 in-walls. but, when i came to this site, i saw the m22 on-walls and showed them to her and she really liked them because they are so thin.

so, short of buying them both and sending back what i don't want, i'm looking for anyone that has experience comparing the two. my main question is: do the m22 on-walls sound a little better or a lot better than the in-walls? i like that the in-walls will be more stealth and it's worth giving up some sound quality, but not a ton of it. i will be using a Paradigm 12" sub and the room is large....around 19x19 with a 19' flat ceiling, open balcony on one side and a game room on the other. i listen to 75% movies/tv, 25% music. any help is appreciated.

jeff

If you are going for sound quality, I would go with whatever has the biggest box. If the in-walls have a bigger box for the speakers, it would probably sound better than the smaller box on-wall speakers.

I have both the on-wall M22 and the bookshelf M22. The on-walls sound good, just not as good as the bookshelf because of the bigger box size.

The in/on-wall has a bigger box than the on-wall, but the on-wall is much, much easier to install.

I also have the regular m22's as well as some onwalls. The onwalls sound very good when a sub helps pick up the lower end. The In-walls have a little bigger internal cabinet, so I'm guessing they might be a bit better in the bass area, but the onwalls are much easier installation.

For that room I would go with a bookshelf or floorstanding speaker, if it was me.

thanks guys. there are bookshelves on either side of the fireplace so it is "possible" that i can talk the wife into letting me go with the m22 bookshelf speakers for L/R. But for the center, the fireplace is 9' high, all stone, with an LCD above the mantle, so no room for a shelf speaker. the pre-wire is just above the top of the stone (yea, kinda high, i know)...so that will either have to be an in-wall or on-wall (i'm thinking VP100). As for the surronds, i could do the m22 in-walls or on-walls as well. i don't think i can sell her on the QS's

i'm curious now though....if the in-wall m22's sound as good or better than the on-wall m22's, then why wouldn't one go with the in-walls for a "heard, not seen" sound environment? is it because of the drywall cutting and extra installation time? in-walls always get a bad rap but i've listened to both the rbh and speakercraft and they sounded good. in can only imagine that the axiom's sound better since they have their own enclosure.

For surround effects in movies it will be hard to beat the Q surrounds. They can also be wall or ceiling mounted. If you don't use a center channel, the left and right speakers will simulate a center (called phantom center) which works very well. Otherwise, you might be able to slighly angle the center towards your ears which will help.

Hi Jfabes,

And welcome. I do many of the double-blind listening tests at Axiom and did do blind comparisons of the on-walls vs the in-wall/on-wall hybrids vs the in-walls. As Sir Quack noted, the in-wall hybrids on their own with no sub do sound a bit "fuller" with better bass than the on-walls and it's because of the larger enclosure.

By the way, you can get the QS8s in a paintable finish, so you can match them exactly to the interior decor. When that's done, you won't even notice them higher up on the wall.

Regards,
Alan

I couldn't help but notice that you were thinking about bookshelf speakers in the book shelves to either side of the fireplace.

This would probably not work bookshelf refers more to the size of the speaker. A book shelf itself would probably be a bad place to put one. These bookshelf speakers require a flat wall behind them for a place for the rear port to sound off of for bass extension.

Also, at 9 feet high, you would want to point them downward to the listening position, it would be difficult to impossible to do these without using the bookshelf speakers.

I was just wondering, it this particular case if the SQ8's might be a good selection for the L/R?

thanks alan....but what about the pure in-walls? if i'm going to cut up my walls, i'm going with the pure in-walls over the hybrids. so besides the bookshelves, i'm looking at the in-walls vs the on-walls comparison. I don't ever plan on running the system w/o the sub, so i'm not really worried about anything lower than, say, 60-80Hz

Hi,

OK, the pure in-wall 22s vs the on-wall 22s are about the same; we rate them to 70 Hz. The on-walls benefit from the boost of the wall itself, but not enough to regain the 10 Hz, whereas the pure in-walls use a sealed enclosure (no port).

All of this becomes kind of irrelevant if you are using a subwoofer. With the pure in-walls or on-walls, you can still use an 80-Hz crossover frequency with the subwoofer, which will nicely fill in and extend the bass output.

I wish you could use a pair of the standard M22 bookshelf speakers mounted on the wall with the Full Metal Brackets, which would let you angle them down towards the listening area. Those have an amazing amount of bass because of the wall reinforcement effects. In the blind listening tests, I thought I'd been listening to floorstanding speakers. I realise the spouse acceptance factor comes into play, of course.

Alan

I say get M60 or M80 inwalls then.

thanks again everyone. i attached a pic of the room with the shelf niches. if you notice inside the upper part of the niche where the arc is, there is a white plate for a pre-wire (whci is too high). since there are no horizontal obstructions behind the drywall, i was planning on brining that wire down to just above the cabinet area and putting the on-wall or in-wall or bookshelf speaker there (so its closer to sitting height). the cabinet height to the 1st shelf is about 25". the plate above the fp is for the center. so, i can bring down the L/R as some have mentioned, but about all i can do with the center is aim it.....that's why i was considering the on-wall with that fancy $40 bracket

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Personally, I'd try to find a different location because 9 ft up for the bottom of the TV just seems way to high. I like it so that the middle of the TV is at eye level when sitting.

Edit: I sent this just after you sent your picture and explanation, which pretty much voids my comment.

For that open (high) room, your going to want a decent sub and speakers to fill that space.

Randy, you don't need to hear bass up near the ceiling. You don't need to "fill the space". The only space you need to fill is in front of the speakers.

Forum doesn't accept HTML, which is why your link to Ugg Boots didn't work.

what is this nonsense and what do ugg boots have to do with speaker selections?

it's spam.

Ham, or turkey spam?