Dear Axiom and Axiom Friends,
I have been eagerly awaiting and putting aside cash to purchase my first set of Axiom Audio M80 v2's for weeks now and they finally arrived a few days after xmas. I am having a slight issue with the speakers, but I am sure it has to do with my setup so let me explain. (Please excuse the non-audiophile terms)

I am using a Creative Xfi Elite Pro as my pre-amp processor for movies, music, and gaming which outputs to a Luxman MX-100 Amp. The amp is about 20 years old and has a rated stereo (non bridged) power output of 140 X 2 at 8 ohms, or a bridged power output of 300 X 1. The AMP is most definitely an 8-ohm amp and I know the M80's are 4-ohm.

That is the setup. Now the issues. First off, there is an RMS wattage monitor right on the Classic Lux amp. When I am listening to music at low volume levels (less than 20 watt stereo bass peaks) the sound I must say is much different than anything I have ever experienced. At first I thought there was a problem with the audio track, until I listened over and over again to the songs and realized these were just instruments that I have never heard before in the songs. I am truly impressed and find a wonderfully warm and bright feeling to all of my music. Makes you want to just sit back and smoke a nice cuban cigar, drink a glass of cabernet.

Back on topic, as soon as there are any Bass Peaks of more than 45 watts, the low and mid drivers start "farting" and it is a violent fart sound. (excuse the non-audiophile lingo), so I have to immediately turn the audio down on my pre-amp. I can tell there is a lot of potential to be un-tapped on these speakers and I am hoping this is the issue because I have noticed after a good 5 minutes of usage the Luxman amp runs so hot you could cook an egg on top of it(where-as it never did this on my old polk 8 ohm setup):

I am hoping that this is just a slight issue with the 4-ohm load of the M80's clipping the power output on the 20 year old luxman 8 ohm amp.

Please someone verify!!!

Very kind regards,

Dominick V. Strippoli
Owner, SVTSnake.com
http://www.svtsnake.com

Hard to say, but if there's some way you could try them with a different amp, I'd do it. I'm not sure how the speaker in and of itself could produce that noise, unless one of the drivers is loose. Can you reproduce it with a single speaker, or does it definitely happen with both?

Hi Dominick,

The speakers cannot "clip the amp"; if you overdrive the amplifier, it will clip and send a distorted signal to the speakers.

Are you listening at very high volumes?

My sense is that the soundcard you are using may not be providing the right voltage to the amplifier, requiring you to overdrive the amp. I strongly suspect a pre-amp configuration issue rather than something wrong with either the amp or the speakers.

Hey Dominick,

I'm sure one of the more technical guys will jump in here in a minute. Not sure about the "farting" sounds, that is a new one for the 80's. And yes, they can handled more power and play louder than you can imagine when driven with compatible equipment. I'm sure your pre and amp are great equipment, but the heat you describe sounds like what happens when some people use lower end Onkyos, Yammys, etc..

Do you have access to another receiver just for a test? Maybe a neighbor or friend could bring one over...

Thanks for the responses guys. Tom, what you said in the last sentence in your paragraph has also been on my mind all last night.

Well, I have an Emotiva XPA-3 coming to me by the end of this week which is beefy enough to supply a 400 X 2 stereo load at 4-ohms. So, if it is still making the noise I am definitely going to suspect a pre-amp configuration. Any other ideas?

I'm kind of assuming that the unpleasantness you're hearing is either cone distortion or port noise.

I like Ken's idea about verifying the source of the noise (cone v. port, both speakers?).

You either have a defective product (somewhat unlikely, especially if they sound excellent up to a certain volume) or you're feeding the speakers a highly distorted signal.

The XPA-3 might very well solve the problem, if it tolerates a wider range of input voltage than the Luxman (quite possible). However, I still suspect something wonky with the sound card; to really screw things up requires a computer I would try to find (or borrow to test) a solution that offloads the audio processing into the component realm; just send the digital audio (either optical or coaxial) from your computer to a receiver or other processor and control it from there.

The key to solving your problem is to simplify the path from the signal to the speakers, and to remove the sound card from that equation to ascertain whether it is the culprit.

WAIT!!! I remembered that I tried a different pre-amp signal also. I used a standard I-Pod Nano 4GB with a line out to dual RCA plug and it still farted under higher volumes. I have a HUGE feeling it is my luxman amp right now. If you remember, the amp NEVER got as hot as it is now, ever. Period.

Wow, the response time is incredible on this forum. This looks like a solid bunch of guys over here. Thank you!

"Solid" sounds like "dense". That's about right.

The IPod experience is not compelling, to me. "Line Out" signals are still a different voltage than a proper pre-amp might provide.

OK, what else do you suggest I try before I get the Emotiva?

Thanks again!

do you have an old receiver laying around your not using anymore?

Do you use some sort of equalization at the pre amp? If yes, try to bypass it and hear if you get the same distortion. I google your amp, it seems to be more than capable to run your M80s, unless you really want them loud .

At sirquack: unfortunately I have been using this Luxman with much success over the years. No other receivers laying around.

At JaimeG:
I have been running all equalization on flat. Lowering db's in the lower end of the spectrum seems to eliminate the noise, but ruins the fullness of my sound. I am 100% sure the speakers shouldnt be distorting like this at 40 watt bass peaks.

Hmm, if the eq. is flat or even a little hot on the lower freq is fine. Do u have access to a decibel meter or sound level meter? I'd be curious to know at what dbl the 'fart-distortion' appears.

Perhaps they are from France and they are simply choosing to "Fart in your general direction?"

OK Monty Python isn't helping, is it?

Personally, i would borrow a friends receiver and maybe even his/her dvd player as a source. If it still occurs, you know your next call is to Axiom. If not, hook the new DVD player to your old amp and see if it occurs. If it does, you just justified your new Emotiva to whomever you might need to justify it to. Wife, your conscious, annoying 'Great Gazoo' like angel that sits on your shoulder and complains.....

If all else fails, and you don't want to buy another AMP.....you could return the M80s, and order the M60s. They will do fine, and provided there is not another problem....no more egg frying Amp.

Hello

Here’s something you might consider trying, provided you have a 1/8th stereo male mini jack to a stereo RCA pair male cable and a portable CD player or Mp3 player.
First and foremost – turn power amp OFF, OFF,OFF!!! Turn volume down to zero on whatever player your using. If the amp has a level control, turn that down also as a precaution.
Now connect to player to the amp’s inputs and turn player on, then turn amp on.
Find a piece of music to test system with and SLOWLY bring up volume on player. (and amp if applicable)

Good luck.

Remember to shut power off on amp before any connections or disconnection of cables.

Hello Dominick,

Congrats on getting the M80s. First, let me say that your Luxman is nearing or at the end of its useful life. That said, Luxman amps back in the old days were well designed and yours should drive a 4-ohm load without difficulty. Do you still have the specs on the Luxman? Does it have power output ratings (RMS) into 4-ohm loads? Older stereo amplifiers were quite robust and could drive 4-ohm loads easily.

The M80s should not be doing what you're hearing. I suspect it's sound card related or perhaps the Luxman has aged and its output section is having trouble with the 4-ohm load of the M80s.

By the way, despite Emotiva's claims, some of their amplifiers have also shut down driving M80s. Axiom M80 owners have documented the Emotiva problems on this forum.

The brands of AV receivers that have no trouble driving the M80s include Denon, Harman/Kardon, Sherwood Newcastle, Rotel, Outlaw Audio and NAD. Even entry-level models of these brands will handle the 4-ohm M80s.

Regards,

Thank you everyone for the responses. As of right now, I am going to wait for the Emotiva XPA-3 to arrive and test out prob by Friday of this week. If that doesnt work I am going to borrow a friends different pre-amp/processor and use a standard DVD player to test. I will keep everyone posted.

I dont think its the speakers because they both distort, either right or left. Personally, I would think that would be highly unlikely to have both speakers distort.

Dom

Alan,
Thanks a bunch for the information. I have searched all over the internet on information on my OLD MAN amp, but the only thing I can find is RMS 8 ohm ratings of 140w X 2.. Other than that, I am unsure if this amp would have a problem driving a 4 ohm load.

The ideal scenario for me would be honestly that the Luxman amp is getting very old, running out of steam, and having trouble driving a 4 ohm load. I am keeping my fingers crossed that when the Emotiva comes in, all of my problems will magically go away. I plan on keeping the Luxman for driving surrounds.

Thanks again for your help!

Dom

Please excuse my excitement throughout the rest of this paragraph! lol

Well, the verdict is in! It was my Luxman Amp!!!!!!!!!!!! I hit the nail on the head with this one. It turns out the 3 to 4-ohm load of the M80 v2's was too much for the 20 year old amp to handle. I plugged in my Emotiva XPA-3 this morning and have been running the amp for the last 5 hours straight without a hiccup!!!! These speakers are absolutely stunning! It is a night and day difference now with this new amp. The bass is extremely tight and powerful, you can definitely notice that there is NEVER a lack of power during any peaks and you can basically go as loud as humanly possible on the volume. No distortion, no problems with sound whatsoever, just clean increases in volume! sick!!!! Let me go back to my music. Talk to you guys later and thanks a bunch for the help!

Dominick

Thanks for the update!

Wonderful! Excellent news for those people considering the (often controversial) pairing of Emotiva and M80's.

My MPS-1 worked as well for many days until all of a sudden, lights out, during certain movie explosions and cranking the Denon to 0 (reference) or beyond. It is a little comfort though.

Sirquak,
I notice in all of your posts you seem to be very anti-emotiva. ON AVS forums I have seen mixed results when pairing the XPA line of amps with M80v2's. Some people have positive results, and some like yourself have had negative results. Maybe this issue was resolved in the newer XPA models?

In any event, if this amp EVER shuts down you guys will be the first to know.

Dom

Not really anti-emotive, just be cautious-emotiva. Lonnie and I worked on this for 3 months before he put his hands in the air and gave me a full refund . I told him that day I would most likely be a customer some day again. One look at their amps, the quality seems top notch. I think the MPS and RPS just had issues with the special limiter circuit. Not sure aboutthe XPA series.

In reality, it seems crazy to me that many receivers and amps have issues with the m80's, especially seperates.

Most separates don't. What other amps have shut down with the M80s?

Not that Randy needs anyone to stick up for him, but I think he's been pretty fair considering the long, drawn-out issues he had with his Emotiva amp. He just posted the other day that he might give future Emotiva products a try down the road.

Lets face facts though: Some people report problems with Emotva amps and M80s. It would be foolish for him not to warn people about his experience with the combination. I don't remember him trashing the company, and he's not an Axiom fanboy either.

He just shares his experience to maybe help someone else from having the same frustrating issues.

Well....... thanks, Mark he he

Rick, I know that Tharkun shutdown Outlaw's and Parasounds before he went to Halos.. We all know that some receiver brands have issues, at least in the past..

I guess some speakers are meant to be driven by amps with big guts.

lol.. i figured the emotiva had BIG GUTS!!!
Well, all I can say is I hope you are wrong guys. Like I said, I will definitely keep all of you posted and I am definitely not the person to skimp out on anything so Emotiva would be notified and I would also warn the forums as well.

Dom

I'm sure you'll be fine. knock on wood.

He was shutting down Outlaws multichannel amp not what I would consider separates. He did not, as far as I know, shut down a Parasound amp. He also ran them with a Sony receiver for a while with no problems, go figure.

Also, Tharkun was running, what, a 7.4 system composed solely of M80s and EP600s or something? Poor thing was being treated like a stick welder.

Bren R.

No lie.

lol

I've been running my M80's to uncomfortable levels with my old Sony ES1000 without any shutdown issues. Who woulda thunk it?

I thunk once

Then what happened?

Nothing good

I hear ya there Rick.

Here's a question I've been meaning to ask and would be nice to see someone from Axiom chime in.

WHY are the M80's a 4ohm speaker in the first place? It seems highly unusual, from the small amount of research I have been doing, to see any other towers in a 4ohm configuration.

From Alan


" The 4-ohm specification is simply a result of running six drivers in parallel. With all those six voice coils in parallel in a multi-driver speaker, it's electrically impossible to get the impedance any higher than 4 ohms without imposing power-wasting resistors in the crossover circuits or making other design compromises."

From my very limited knowledge on this subject I do believe that each individual component sould have been made with a different impedance to be able to come up with an 8ohm cab.

A guitar speaker can be made in 4ohm, 8ohm, an even 16ohm with what I believe is no difference in performance when each is driven by its appropriate power source.

Yupper, also Bob if you run two 8ohm speakers in parrallel, you get 4 ohm. People that run 2 vp150's in parrallel get 3 ohms.

And if you run and VP100 and a VP150 in parallel you get 3.43 ohms.

What not the answer you wanted?

you pretty much hit it on the head Rick.

Hello Bob

What’s important to remember is that the 4 ohm impedance rating is nominal.
Music is dynamic, as is the impedance of any speaker; a loudspeaker’s impedance will fluctuate at different frequencies, high at some and lower at others.
Use the impedance rating as a simple guide to amplifier requirements. By the way, impedance has no influence over the sound of a loudspeaker.
There are a few manufactures of loudspeakers, (KEF comes to mind), which have built a purely resistive loudspeaker. “X” ohms at all frequencies.

Regards

And every change has a pro and con. A higher impedance speaker is easier to drive, but results in less volume at a given power level.

If you mean guitar cabinets, they're wired internally in both series and parallel to obtain the desired impedance, but wiring speakers in series opens a whole other set of sound quality issues, not something that's necessarily a big issue with lo-fi stage gear, but not something desireable in home audio reproduction.

Bren R.

Yes I mean guitar cabinets and often the SAME speaker is made in 4ohm, 8ohm, or 16ohm speaker to use in differnt quantities of speakers in different applications.

http://www.usspeaker.com/jensen%20index-1.htm

From your link, I see that the Jensens max out at 16 ohm. Hooking up 6 drivers (like the M80) in parallel assuming all the speakers are 16 ohm gives 2 2/3 ohms. You'd need nominal 48 ohm speakers throughout the cabinet to get an 8-ohm speaker. OR you can add in some resistors and waste some power from the amp as heat. OR you can start hooking up in both parallel and series, but wiring speakers in series does some bad things acoustically.

Bren R.

I believe that crossovers are factored into the equation when multiple drivers are used. I wish I knew the technical aspect of all of this but I believe that if the windings were adjusted that you could have an 8ohm cab without much problem. There ARE other audio speakers with a 6 driver configuration that are 8ohm.

Playing with the number of windings changes the strength of the magnetic field in the driver. You can't change that without fundamentally affecting the sound of the speaker.

I will be looking into why guitar and any other musical instrument speakers (including PA) can have the SAME speaker made with different impedances.

Because they don't care as much about how it sounds.

Don't say that to a guitar player with a loaded guitar.

OK, try this one: because they're either a single driver or multiple of the same drivers.

Oh, you're GUITARDED... I'll speak slower then.

Old industry joke.

There's tons of them once you cut through what the musicians are trying to say:
"It's got a good growl" = "I'm driving the amp into clipping"
"It's punchy" = "I could only afford a 2x8 cabinet"
"That mellow part" = "The part where I turn off one of my chained Co Pro Rats"
"I play guitar" = "Just ignore me"
"I play bass" = "I handle the money and the band hates me"
"I play drums" = "I'm homeless"
"I sing" = "Mommy didn't love me"
"I'm the sound guy" = "I downloaded Audacity"
"I'm an audio engineer" = "I pirated Pro Tools"
"**** you" = "I'm the actual audio engineer"

(tongue planted firmly in cheek)

Bren R.

To be more specific on my original point: musicians are looking to create a sound. Perhaps that sound has distortion (I rather like that sort of sound) or is overdriven. But that's cool--audio enthusiasts are looking to reproduce a sound that has already been generated and committed to recorded media. Accuracy is (or should be) paramount. Therefore, you don't screw with the speakers to make them any given impedance with the end goal simply to be to change the impedance!

And if you don't think there aren't other 4 ohm speakers out there, I'm sorry, but you simply haven't looked. Magnepans spring to mind as excellent speakers that are 4 ohm (nominal), and, incidentally, are much harder to drive than M80s. I believe the old Dunlaveys were 4 ohm, as well.

It's funny how people read things. I NEVER said that there aren't any other 4 ohm speakers out there. Heck, the names I know now I didn't know existed 3 weeks ago. Who knows how many more makes there are out there.

btw I'm done with this topic. I don't know enouh about this topic to discuss this any further.

there is always Google.

I suspect there are a large number of speaker co's out there which are rating their speakers at 8 ohms when in fact they are dropping to 6/4 or even less.

Hi Bob,

Here is a quick explaination. I work for a speaker company, pro audio, PA's etc. We build our own drivers, and in some cases we do make essentially the same driver with different impeadance values, 2,4,6,8 & 16 ohm. There are tradeoffs to be made. Higher impedance drivers have lower sensitivity, i.e. the amount of power you put in results in lower power out as your sensitivity goes down. On the plus side of the equation, lower impeadance drivers can handle more power. Axiom has choosen to design their product to provide good sensitivity and high power handling, with good frequency response. It seems to be agood mix, my M80's sound great.

This is due to the voice coil wire. Thicker voice coil wire allows more electricity to flow through it more easily than a thinner wire(lower impedance), and it can take more heat for a longer period of time, resulting in higher power handling. But it has more mass so it can reduce sensitivity. There are a lot of other factors involved (cone mass, surround & spider stiffness etc.). The general rules above aren't true in every case, but I think it illustrates the idea.

As previously mentioned impedance changes contiuously with frequency. It can vary a lot across teh spectrum. There is no industry standard for how the nominal impedance value is selected, I suspect some companies let their marketing department make the call. Some people use the lowest value, some take the average excluding the resonancy frequency peak(s).

Nice explanation! Thank You!

To be a pain: Axiom M80 uses 6 drivers per speaker. The more drivers, the lower the impedance, right? So are the Axiom drivers actually 8 ohm or more (16 ?) so that the final impedance on the amp is 4 ohms? Otherwise, it seems like the amp would have a 2 or 1 ohm load. Thus, does the sensitivity issue you explain apply here if the individual drivers are of higher impedance?

To be clear, I am not disagreeing with you, just trying to figure this out in my own uninformed way.

It doesn't matter what the individual driver impedences are, the amp only sees the entire load (impedance) as a whole.

Of course the load of the system (speaker) is determined by the collection of components, the impedance of each driver, the crossover, everything in the signal path, and how they are wired together (series or parallel). The wiring can be a combination of series and parallel, it doesn't have to be either/or.

6 speakers in the box can be configured in lots of ways. If all drivers are 16 ohm and are wired in parallel then the impedance of the system would be. 2.67 ohm.

1
_______________________________________
1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3 +1/R4 + 1/R5 + 1/R6


If the same 6 drivers are wired in series then the impedence will be 96 ohm. You could have three in series (16*3=48) and 3 in parallel (5.34) and the resulting impedance of the system would be 53.34

Or any combination

I have gotten myself all confused.

Not to split hairs, but that would depend on how the "triplets" were connected... parallel or serial.

Bren R.

Yes, series in my example. I was trying to keep it simple.

Series in pairs, or parallel in pairs? Doesn't the crossover pair the drivers?

This explains it

http://www.termpro.com/articles/spkrz.html

Here is a slight update on the Emotiva XPA-3 paired with the M80 v2's. It is now 10 days after receipt, and I have been blasting the hell out of this combination for hours upon hours every night in movie and music applications.

I have never been so impressed with a speaker in my life! And this AMP provides endless amounts of low/mid end oomph. There is never a lack of power at any volume, never any distortion through the drivers at extreme volume levels usings these M80's which is another thing that I have NEVER experienced with a speaker. Usually once you get to a certain DB level at least one driver starts to distort. With these M80's I have honestly NOT BEEN ABLE to create distortion even if I tried.

And this is using the theoretical 400w X 2 Emotiva XPA3 4ohm configuration. The amp has never shut down, and the most suprising thing is that it barely gets hot. I mean, dont get me wrong after using the amp for 4 or 5 hours it definitely gets warm to the touch, but I would not consider it hot at all. I will confirm again, 10 days into usage and the amp has NOT shut down.

Hope this helps anyone considering the XPA3 as an amp choice for an M80 pair. I will keep you guys posted throughout the next few weeks as well.

Kind regards,

Dominick

Glad you are enjoying your sound!

From what Debbie and Tom told me at Axiom during my visit to Dwight last fall, they torture test the M80s at something like twice their advertised power, for 24 hrs!

Good to hear that you're enjoying it! Also good to hear that the XPA-3 works well.

You went to Axiom last Fall????

Yes, in late October, I think it was. My brother and I were up in cottage country near Huntsville, scouting out some prospective fishing lakes and cottage real estate. I asked my brother, who was driving, how close we were to Dwight, explaining to him there was a well respected speaker co in that area. So we dropped in, out of the blue, and Debbie Swinton was gracious enough to give us a tour of the facility and introduced us to some of the employees. Had a good talk with both Debbie and Tom that afternoon (audio talk and otherwise), very much a family atmosphere there (friendly, welcoming), these people enjoy their work and their customers. I didn't push for an audition because we just dropped in unannounced that afternoon, but I appreciated their time nontheless.

In all of your 287 posts that was the first time I saw you mention that. I thought you were somewhat like me with Axiom coming out of left field. Someone on another thread mentioned Axiom. (It was probably a resident Axiomite seting a plant) It was the first time I heard the name. I was looking at Orb speakers and never heard of them either. And then a million other brands I never heard of. Probably should have just stuck with Sony, Bose, Panasonic or a good set of Technics. Something people have heard of. Won't they think I'm pretty stupid buying a Canadian brand instead of something good fron China that everyone has heard of?

Many people might consider purchasing something from Canada to be exotic

Wow! Speakers from Canada! I thought they only built igloos and snowshoes up there.

Yup, you should have just stuck to Bose.

I'm sure I mentioned that somewhere, anyway it was a great day out, I remember the weather was esp nice that day after a short cold spell, around 25C.

BTW, the next time someone tries to sell you Bose speakers, ask them if they'd mind doing an A/B test with your M80s(I ain't never heard of Axe-e-um). Just don't use a Bose paperweight, I mean receiver to power them.

I didn't even think they built those up there. Learn something new every day.

The igloos are now made offshore in China, because it's cheaper.