Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater EP800 experiences

I had some time to really tweak the new system last weekend. The addition of the EP800s changed the sound of my system more than I expected. But, one thing I noted from the beginning was that there were less peaks and valleys with the EP800s than I had with the EP500s. After thinking about it, I wondered if doubling the amount of drivers helped to smooth out the room response even more. Not sure though.

I did a REW sweep of the room, and I was not surprised to see the readings backed up my manual readings with the sound meter. When I did a clean sweep with no BFD filters, REW only suggested one filter (I think about -3db at 72 Hz). I tried it and it basically sounded the same to me. At this point, I decided to try the unthinkable...Taking the BFD out of the loop and try different settings using only the sound meter and re-adjusting my crossover points and sound levels.

In the end, I changed my 80 Hz across the board receiver XO to:

M80s - 60Hz
VP150 - 80Hz
QS8s - 90Hz

and adjusted the levels independently with the sound meter. In the end, I wound up setting the EP800s at about 11-11:30, and the gain to +1.0db in the receiver (actually all channels wound up being set within +/-1 db in the receiver).

The end result was a stunning sound. The perceived bass was MUCH tighter while listening to music, and the LFE/Bass test I used was the fishbowl scene from "Finding Nemo". Although my wife and kids had seen that scene many times before, it was like watching a totally different scene. The room shook, and they all were startled. It was that much of a difference.

A final sweep of the room shows me +/-3db from 14Hz to 100Hz. I think I am going to keep the BFD out of the loop for now and enjoy what we have. My wife agrees that this is the best the system has sounded to this point.