I just picked up a pair of M22's in the burled walnut. They look perfect in the living room as they work very well with similar colored furniture...they passed the WAF!

I love the sound but noticed that they need a sub to get a fuller range. I don't want anything too large or loud. I'll be using these for light listening when we have company. The EP125 seems to be a good choice for my needs. It'll have to go in a corner, out of sight, to get it past the wife. It may not be the best place but I only want a little bottom end warmth anyway.

When I got them I took them over to a friends so he could hear the M22's. We put them on his HT and demoed some movies which sounded great even at very loud volumes. The clarity that these added in place of his mains was very noticeable. Next we put on some cd's and put them though their paces in stereo. He has a 7.1 Pioneer Elite amp (about 2 years old) and when we pushed it to "-20" volume the amp shut down under overload protection! We were a little confused by this as the movie demo was louder (ie: higher volume setting than the stereo demo).

We tired several different music genre's which produced the same protection shutdown around the "-20 volume". I realize the issue has to be with the amp but why would this issue occur in stereo and not in an HT setting?

I have a similar amp but it's their higher end Elite model (about 4 years old). I haven't tried the M22's on mine and may not if these speaker's would cause the same problem in my amp! Has anybody had a similar problem?

One thing I should mention we checked all the connections for his speakers for correct polarity and tightness. He is using either a 16 or 14 gauge wire in a short 10 ft. run with banana connections at the amp and speakers. The only other thing running is a self powered sub. We didn't run an EQ for the M22's, we set it to "direct" to bypass any EQ settings. Sorry, I don't have the model number for the amp but it is 110 watts per channel. Could the M22's have exceeded his amp's capacity by being more efficient than his current speaker setup?

He still likes the Axiom's and is looking to get their center and new mains for his system. I'm worried that he'll have the same issue in HT if he pushes it too hard!

My setup for the M22's are on an older Technic's amp which I'll probably never push past quarter volume - no worry with overloading! I just want to try and understand what is happening and why the issue occurred in the first place.

Thanks in advance for your comments and answers.

The only Axiom speaker that I've heard people having the occasional problem, is the M80 because of it's 4 ohm rating, and that would be with some of the "lower end" avr's. I've not heard of M22s shutting an AVR down, since I've been here(almost 1 1/2 yrs).

Hey Zuter:
I've got to agree with the "Black Hole Sun" guy above: I've been here 6 years and never heard of M22s shutting down an amp. They're very easy to drive.

I'm guessing that, despite being cautious about it, there was a loose strand of speaker wire shorting something out...

I'm going over to his place and re-recheck the connections. Hopefully we can find the problem! Either that or he may need a better AVR!

I agree with football-head-guy. How old is your friends receiver? It seems very strange that it only shuts down with music though.

Was this shut down with running the M22 in full range? Looking at their impedance graph it looks like they go down to about 3 ohm in the 4KHZ range.

If there was ever a speaker from Axiom to cause shut downs I always thought it should be the M22s with, as wid mentioned, its very low 2-3ohm impedance at ~4k. I have run my M22s with a few very low end Pioneer receivers and have not had any issues. I have run mine with my Denon 1804, Denon 3808 and my 15 yr old Sony DT915(?), without any issues.

Just to note that you can get the M22s to sound 'fuller' by running a little bass boost in the settings, about 2-4 db works very well.

See my signature line. I've never had a problem playing the M22's even up to -8. I'm thinking your friend may have a faulty AVR.

Edit: Also IMO, after reading threads here for a few months, I would go 1 subwoofer bigger that what you think you might need.

Zute, as I started to read your post my immediate suspicion was that a loose strand of connecting wire was vibrated into contact at certain frequencies/sound levels causing a short and shutdown. Then I read that this didn't happen during movies, so the strand of wire causation seems unlikely, although the connections should still be carefully redone.

I can assure you, however, that there's no general difficulty in driving the M22s with amplification even more modest than what you used. Years ago I tested my "3 ohm"(around 4000Hz) M22s with the 4064Hz track from a test CD and had no problem with extended play at that frequency at a higher than normal sound level. This reinforced the conclusions I'd drawn from a study of technical literature which indicated that concerns about low impedance were often grossly overdone.

I've had no problems with my M22s for 8 years now, and suggest that you're not likely to have any either.

Update:

Firstly, thanks to all for your respondes. And secondly I erred when I said that his is an Elite model, his is the VSX 917V and he corrected me that it shut down in both HT and stereo, -22 in stereo and -18 in HT...my bad!

Still, both of our AVR's are Pioneer and when you do the sound setup using the built in EQ the amp ramps up to "0" db for the duration of the test (about 5 minutes). This test emits various pink noise bursts and other sounds that the amp uses to adjust the settings all without incident. If a problem were to exist you'd think it would show up here!? Or, perhaps it is only sustained output that causes the shutdown...not sure.

I went over and rechecked all the connections. Even though the speaker connections couldn't have caused the issue (no loose strands, correct polarity and all were tight) I redid all the connections.

He has never had a problem with his current setup but said he usually never exceeds -30 anyway. That and the fact the M22's are much more clear at low volumes this should never be an issue should he get some.

As noted above, it's probably just an AVR fault. I have had my HT setup well past the 0 and into the +3 to +5 range without any problems (way too friggin loud though, LOL). I'll try them on my HT setup sometime before the 30 day trial is up to ensure this isn't a speaker issue just to be sure.

It must be the AVR. I have a Denon 2310 and I have run my M22's in stereo, as well as my entire 5.1 system (with a 6 ohm center channel) at volumes in the -8 range for a long time... Like a couple hours, without a single issue.

EDIT: I've also had them at about +4 for ten minutes or so one time, but it's just too loud.

LOL...I hear ya!

With my current HT setup I was playing a SACD demo disk that had this piano part. I had it at around the +4 or 5 range which made it sound like I had my head inside the piano. During the test I ran out to my truck to get something...I was dumbstruck by the sound outside. It sounded like the piano was on my front lawn! Needless to say I went back in and turned it down to more reasonable levels. The neighbors never said anything but I'm sure they weren't impressed...or maybe they were!

Hi,

It's the first time I write on this forum.

I don't know If you've still have your problem, I had the exact same problem with my new M22 (2 weeks old V2 box with V3 speaker)running with a Pionner Elite 7.1 VSX-919AH-K , 120 watts per channel. I did all what you do to correct the problem and when I try my amp with my old Bose (23 years), my amps runs without problem until +.. DB.

I finally discover that the problem was one of the M22, both woofer was dead, I return it to Axiom and they send me a new one ( all V3) last week, for moment all is OK, i pushed my amp until -10 DB and it's OK for the moment and I'll go harder later.

So check if you've got sound on all your speaker by playing them one by one.

Bye