My listening position has my head about three inches above the top of my M80's. I am quite sure I'm not getting the sound benefits I should unless I either lower my position (which I won't do) or raise the speakers up. Has anyone suggestions on what to purchase to do this? Some kind of booster or stand that would match the dimensions of the M80's would be great. At what height in relation to my listening area should the M80's be? I assume there will be consequences in terms of loss of bass or a different balance of other frequencies if I do this. Your "sound" advice is much appreciated.

There's the infamous Outrigger thread that gets resurrected, zombie-like, a few times a year....

Lee, the tweeters(midpoint between them)should be about at ear level. You say that you're "quite sure" that you're not getting the benefits that you should, but have you actually experimented with different ear/tweeter relationships? It generally isn't really all that critical, but you can certainly place the M80s temporarily on stacks of any convenient material to try out the results.

But make sure the "stacks of any convenient material" are oxygen-free and have the latest 1.4 handshaking capabilities.

And are turned the right way.... Arrow out!!!!!

When seated in the back row of my theater room, I am above the M80's at ear level as well and they sound fine.

I have my M80's sitting on my subs and they sound terrific.

I might try that on my ep350 twins.

Charles, do you have your M80s on top of dual EP800s?

Ha ha, I could barely do it in my current room, and I wouldn't be able to do it in the basement. Time to try it outdoors.

Let me be more precise...I feel I am missing the transient highs...triangle, snare drum, tambourine & cymbals. I haven't experimented with my position yet to confirm this. I will do and report back.

Hello Captain,

How far away are you sitting from your M80s? The dispersion of the M80's tweeters and midrange drivers should be sufficient to supply all those details you believe you're missing. All of this makes me wonder if you've checked the "bi-wiring" gold links at the back of each M80 to ensure they're connected, secure, and that all your tweeters and midrange drivers are working.

Play some pink noise or musical selections with lots of cymbals and percussion and put your ear close to each driver to be certain it's working.

Regards,
Alan

Hi Alan...I'm not sure what you mean by "bi-wiring gold links." I have checked all the individual speakers by ear and they are all working. I do hear an improvement when turning up the treble control. But then the violins become harsh. I am sitting equidistant from the speakers...about 12 feet from them and they are toed in at about 20 degrees. One other possibility may be that I hear better with my left ear than with my right and I occasionally I have to adjust the balance to favor the right to compensate...but it is a very small margin of difference. Having been a percussionist most of my life I may have some hearing loss in the high range (I really enjoy playing cymbals). I would consider this serious had I not heard all the highs I wanted with my other Speakerlab speakers...but maybe they added some coloration that the M80's do not. Another issue may be that my old Denon only puts out 55 watts although I am unsure what wattage is operational with 4 Ohm speakers. I know John K would say no. Others may say yes, What say ye Alan? Would the addition of a super tweeter help?

Oh...one other issue may be the speaker wire I am using..they're pretty thin and were originally used with a cheap Bose satellite/sub system. I plan to get 12 gauge (I have my sub hooked up with 12 gauge) but haven't done this yet.

I would start with some thicker gauge wire first and see how that goes. The Axiom bulk speker cable is working very good in my room.

Yeah, if the speaker wire is 18 ga or less, that could be playing into it.

I just reserved 50 ft of 12 gauge wire from monoprice (it is on back order). I am looking forward to hearing the results when the wire is once again available.

Alan is talking about the gold clips between the speaker terminals on the back of the m80's.

Captain,

At the rear panel of the M80s, where the speaker cable connects to the positive and negative terminals, there are two sets of speaker posts linked by gold straps. These must make electrical contact between the upper pair of binding posts and the lower pair in order for the crossovers to function properly. You only need to connect the speaker cable to one pair of the binding posts. Please check those carefully.

In recent M80s, the v3 series, we've eliminated the dual sets of binding posts (except on special order) as they may cause malfunctions when the links are knocked out of place. We only added the "bi-wirng" sets of terminals as a marketing tool (both Ian and I believe there are no audible benefits to bi-wiring) and we had enough problems with customers not realizing that the two sets must be connected for the M80s to function properly that we decided to eliminate the extra bi-wiring set of terminals.

No super tweeter should be required for the M80s. They have extended and very detailed treble response that is highly praised by musicians, enthusiasts, and other owners. Clearly, there is something malfunctioning in your setup. The thin speaker wire should not affect the high frequencies; it just wastes power because of increased resistance. If it were ridulously thin, it could affect response, but I do not think that is the situation.

Regards,
Alan

UPDATE: My M80's are the v3 series so I guess there are no gold straps connected to the binding posts (that was confusing until I realized there were no dual binding posts as on v2 models). In any case I bought 12 gauge wiring...one thing I didn't mention before was that I still had the old Bose subwoofer hooked up to the system as well thinking it would increase the lower midrange with the Axioms for a synergistic affect. When installing the new wire yesterday I eliminated that sub and found quite a difference in sound and wow...I discovered that was the issue. In the Bose setup wires from the receiver connected to the sub's input and then another set of wires went out from the sub's output to the speakers. I think something was lost along the electrical pathway that limited the reproduction in some way. I can't really explain it technically (or maybe even possibly psychologically) but that solved the problem for me. My thanks to all who have assisted me!

The pos bass module probably has a crossover built in. That means that your M80s were receiving only the frequencies meant for the pos cubes--not much.

Yeah Lee, you should have mentioned the Bose Bass Module. It'd be hard to find speakers of a quality so low that the BBM would have a synergistic effect upon them. Now you can really enjoy that great classical music.

Glad you solved the problem. Enjoy your Axioms!

Well I am amazed...I'm currently listening to Dvorak's 7th Symphony (Vienna Phil/Myung-Whun Chung on DG) and it sounds marvelous. Yesterday I tested the new set up with a SACD recording of Capriccio Espagnol & Russian Easter Overture with Dorati/London Sym on Mercury. These pieces have lots of percussion (Rimsky-Korsakov was a master in his use of orchestration and he is a master in scoring percussion effectively). This recording made in the 50's sounds like it was recorded yesterday and is the most exciting and sparkling recording of these pieces I have yet to hear. The Axioms really shine however the tweeters in the right speaker seemed to break up at a certain point in the overture and then recover. I am unsure of the cause. I checked the wiring and tightened them down and have not heard any break up or any kind of distortion in the same passage since. Could this have been caused by my old 55 watt Denon? All other drivers were working even when the tweeters sounded like they shorted out briefly. Any thoughts?

Sounds good, Lee, I'm listening to Ilya Murometz at the moment. My only thought is that if you can now play the same passage without experiencing the same problem maybe those Russians at Easter loosened up a connection which hadn't previously been quite tight enough to hold them. You're right though that it should have affected all the drivers at that moment, not just the tweeters.

Edit: however, just in case something is loose internally in the right speaker, if that ever happens again, switch the speakers around to see if that changes the result.

It's kind of handy to have a CD around like the "Rives audio Test CD 2". It plays through several frequencies from 20 hz to 20,000 hz. The last time I played it, I noticed a rattling sound coming from one of my 7 tweeters. I tightened the screws on it and that helped a lot.

Hello Captain,

I'm delighted you solved your M80 problems, no thanks to the Bose "subwoofer". It was really bothering me that you weren't getting the stunning performance the M80s are capable of.

By the way, I love Capriccio Espagnol and lots of Rimsky-Korsakov. If you like that, you'd likely like Capriccio Italien by Tchaikovsky, which has lots of percussion and rythmic drive. I first had the latter on vinyl in the late '50s, with Dorati conducting the Detroit Symphony. It was also on Mercury. I've never replaced it on CD.

Some of those 1950s recordings did suffer from occasional tape saturation on orchestral peaks, and that can't be removed by re-mastering. I doubt that is what you're hearing as breakup but there's an outside chance it might be. You could verify that if you have a good pair of headphones and listen to the same passage on the headphones with the speakers muted. If the breakup was in the source material, you'd hear it on the headphones (this is assuming that your old Denon doesn't have preamp overload on the input). That's also a stretch, but I've seen it happen occasionally.

Regards,
Alan

Hi Alan et al: I've had this SACD for several years and also had it in vinyl, cd and SACD and know it intimately. Not all transfers to a different medium are successful. This one is "almost" true to the original vinyl. This is the first time the tweeter cut out (I have played this recording on two other speaker systems). I don't think it is in the recording. I did notice in this one place in the overture when the tweeters in the right speaker cut out (just for a brief moment) and as the orchestra was building up to crescendo...they came alive again. I don't know what this means technically...could there be a loose connection to the tweeter that briefly cut out due to a response to vibration from source material? I can certainly check that, but that is what I suspect since I haven't experienced it since and I've played the piece at least twice since. I couldn't tell if only one of both tweeters cut out, but it sounded as if both did. It may also be, but I think unlikely, the cd player I was using a 90's era Technics 5cd changer that has it's poor tracking bad moments occasionally.

By the way Alan, I don't believe Dorati ever recorded with Detroit in the old Mercury days, it was Paul Paray who did. Dorati took over the reins of Detroit well after Paray in the 80's and when he did he recorded for Decca. I believe he rerecorded the Tchaikovsky caprice then. Dorati did initially record Capriccio Italien with the London Symphony in the 50's on Mercury and was part of the classic "1812" Overture album which also included Wellington's Victory (Beethoven).

Hi John, which Gliere were you listening to. I favor Stokowski with the Houston Symphony(old Capital but now EMI). The latest Telarc recording of this work with Botstein (CD & SACD)is in much better sound and although not as dramatic or interpretively intuitive as ole "Leo Stokes," it seems to be a great favorite of many, but some would argue. Have you heard or do you have his 2nd? It is quite good...less mature and less complex than Ilya (it isn't a programmatic piece like Murometz), very 19th century Russian sounding and to me quite enjoyable. You can get it for a "song" on Amazon...recommend Macal with the New Jersey Symphony on Delos..a truly idiomatic performance in great sound and has much better detail and drive than the popular Chandos recording with Downes conducting. Thanks again for all your comments. I like CatBrat's suggestion...where can I get the test cd?

Hi, Lee; just finished listening to Jim Svejda on the KUSC stream as he finished with the Kalinnikov 1st that Svetlanov did. Re Dorati/Detroit/Mercury, I believe that you're correct.

Yeah, if the tweeter briefly "cut out" rather than continued in a distorted fashion, it would indicate a loose connection rather than an inadequacy in the source material or the amplification.

I've listened to all the Gliere 3rds available. Fortunately, by way of access to two statewide college and public library systems I'm able to borrow nearly any CD online. I like Stokowski, but it's far too short. My clear favorite, somewhat surprisingly, which I bought, is the Johanos. I also borrowed the Downes and Macal 2nds and preferred the Macal, but wasn't quite enough impressed with the piece in general to buy for my collection.

I've used a Stryke Audio test CD(apparently no longer available)for about 10 years and its a good idea to have one. The Rives CD is available on the Rives Audio site for $21, and there are others of a similar nature.

Hi Captain,

Oops. Failing memory. . .you're absolutely correct. It was Paul Paray who led the Detroit Symphony. I'll have to find that old LP and check it to see which version I have.

To check the tweeter connections (check the two midranges while you're at it), just undo the four Allen screws for each driver on the front baffle, and carefully remove the driver. The connections are push-on, so make certain they're firm. Tighten them with needle-nose pliers if necessary.

Re-install the drivers and don't overtighten the Allen screws--snug is sufficient.

Sometimes rough handling in shipping can loosen the push-on connectors. We'd use soldered connections but that would defeat the self-servicing and easy driver replacement which the push-ons enable. Besides, learning to solder well and avoid cold connections takes some skill and time to acquire.

Regards,
Alan

Thanks Alan I'll do that. I appreciate the easy push-on connectors...when I first ordered Axioms I bought the M60's and one speaker had a faulty tweeter...it was easy to replace...but I ultimately upgraded to M80 and I'm not looking back. Since removing the Bose module I've enjoyed a greater sound stage and openness that I heretofore had missed. I am very pleased now.

Hi John, I've read good things about the Naxos recording with Johanos. I've now subscribed to Rhapsody. I listen to many versions of a wide repertoire but it isn't complete by any means. It's always a "shot in the dark" when one buys a recording based on other's reviews. I liken the Gliere 2nd to Kalinnikov in terms of style & structure although Kalinnikov is more rigid while Gliere had a freer composition style...they're both very idiomatically Russian. For Kalinnikov I have Jarvi's Chandos 1st & 2nd...a pretty energetic recording & the Kuchar recording on Naxos...this recording has too much reverb and the sound is muddled and distant but the performance is very good. I enjoy Jim Svejda very much...his reviews and presentations are always interesting and add to my enjoyment. I seem to listen to the music being presented with different ears when presented by him and his voice is terrific for classical radio. It would be great to have access from the KUSC archives of all his work over the years... Since I am local I listen most mornings to the station on my way to work. L.A. used to have three classical stations (when I was a kid). Then it was down to two and now only KUSC. Internet streaming has broadened everyone's access to the world and I often listen to BBC 3 and various other stations across the USA and internationally.

Yes, BBC Radio 3 is probably my favorite internet stream. I assume that you're aware of the Classical Webcast site?

Yup! That's exactly the site I use to guide my internet selections while at work...a kind of a centralized clearinghouse for classical streaming. I'd also say that the European streams, for the most part (UK excepted) are more conservative and traditional in their program selections than those in the USA which present more modern and contemporary works along with the traditional classics. But I do enjoy trying to figure out what the Germans, French (and occasionally the Australians) etc... are saying about the pieces played. Since I lived in England for a couple of years I am used to the "Queens English" so no problem there. But even the British have a curious musical vernacular that can throw me off occasionally and they are unabashedly pro- British in their musical selections.