I've been looking into a new pair of tower speakers to replace my Energy RC-30s. I'm generally happy with the sound of the Energies; the problem is, I think they are a bit "wimpy" given the size of our room: the main floor of our house is practically completely open. That is, nearly 30x60 with 10 foot ceilings. The main living area (i.e. listening area) is about 23x27.

Further complicating things are placement: the floorplan of our living space is kind of awkward, and the only thing that works visually is corner placement of the TV, flanked on either side by speakers.

Here is a link to a drawing of our floorplan. (Note: many people suggest moving the TV+speakers over to the right wall, where "Sofa 2" currently is. This won't work because there are huge windows running the whole width of the sofa on that wall.)

Finally, I'll add that the room isn't treated, and the flooring is entirely hardwood.

While we use this setup for both music and movies/TV, I want to emphasize music (stereo/2.1 only, no multi-channel).

What I'm looking for is a huge, detailed soundstage. I realize that I'll ultimately be limited by my room and placement with any speakers. But I'm trying to create a shortlist of speakers to audition that are hopefully less sensitive to placement.

For whatever reason, there seem to be a number of reports on the 'net suggesting that the M80s are "bright"; some people even go so far as to call them fatiguing. If there is any merit to this, I'm worried that it might happen or even be exaggerated in my room, given that it's untreated and therefore very "live".

My amp is a Harman/Kardon HK-3490, although I have a QSC RMX 2450 on the way. When I receive this, the HK will become a pre-amp.

Thanks!
Matt

The Axioms are very detailed and have a forgiving/huge soundstage. Like you said, your room is going to determine most of the sound, not the fault of the speakers. The m80's are not bright, this false rumor has been floating around for years by Axiom bashers. They are true to the recording, so if you have crapping engineered/recorded CD's they will sound like crap, not the fault of the speaker again. If you have a correctly recorded music cd, your jaw will hit the floor in amazement at the sound. My recroom/ht is 31 x 30 x 9, so pretty big. And prior to carpeting it was pretty bright sounding, but still sounded great. If you have furniture, a couple of throw rugs, things will be fine.

Hi Matt,

The Axiom speakers are not bright even far from it. They are accurate, revealing and faithful to the source material. Brightness most of the time will be related to the room acoustic or source material.

Your room having harwood floor and large windows might be lively and emphasize high frequency energy. An area rug might be an easy and acceptable solution to tame it down. You can also use the tone control on your preamp or receiver to adjust it to your taste if need be.

Matt, you need a bbigamp and bbigsub to complement those bbigspeakers in that bbigroom of yours.

Doc has developed a sstudder!

Matt, you may also reduce reflections by use of curtains when playing at higher spl levels.

Matt,
FWIW the layout of my 25' X 15' room dictates corner placement of the TV also. Lots of windows on one 25' wall and fireplace and more windows on a 15' wall. My M80's are on either side of the TV seperated by about 8' and they sound stunning.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I appreciate it!

That is a big room. Are your couches really 20' from the TV?

Do you have a bbig screen tv or do you use opera glasses.

You're going to be using a little more than 1 watt to get to 85db at the listening position.

Yes, the couches are really that far away. I have a 65" TV, which looks huge up close, but sitting in the couches, it looks "normal". We used to have a 50" TV, and that practically required opera glasses.

I just received a QSC RMX 2450 power amplifier. At 4 ohms, this thing puts out 650 watts per channel, so, should I go with the M80s, I should be okay in terms of power.

The room really kind of sucks---all that space, yet, an awkward layout, so there's really only one visually acceptable place to put the TV and speakers. The place is a rental, so we can't make any major modifications. But if I owned it, I would extend that stair wall (lower left on the drawing) out a bit. Then I could place the TV directly across from the east wall (rather than in that south-west corner). That would also allow me to place the speakers farther apart.

That QSC should give you enough power to listen comfortably, from outside, with the windows closed, from the far side of your neighbours yard...

I think you will be very happy with the M80s.

Edit: for what its worth, I was playing with a power calculator and it looks like 68-70w will do you if you want to hit peaks of 90 db at the listening position. If you like crazy loud, 95 db pushes that up to somewhere around 150w.