Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Do *GOOD* "Lifestyle" speakers even exist?

Alan, I noticed this before in your other thread, but didn't comment on the point; but why would you voluntarily discard your best speakers for any of your listening, whether it's movies, music, or music in movies? As Mary indicated, why not use the M60s as mains in all circumstances, with some of the Quintets doing surround duty and possibly letting the M60s also form a "phantom" center?

You're correct about the upper bass hump that many small speakers use to give an impression of better low bass extension. Bass instruments playing in that range sound a bit louder and in addition a low bass note, say 50Hz, will have its 100Hz and 150Hz harmonics boosted, leading to what's sometimes referred to as the "missing fundamental" psychoacoustic phenomenon in which the boosted upper harmonics give the impression that the fundamental frequency is there. My listening and viewing of response graphs indicates that Paradigm uses this technique on their smaller, lower-cost speakers.

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psychoacoustic phenomenon

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Have you been spending time around Ajax? I'm not sure what it means, but it sounds good!

Sounds like you want a VW beetle to do the job of a big, bad, 4 wheel drive Chevy truck in the off road. LOL!!!!

ARE YOU KIDDING? An alumus of THE Ohio State University spend time with an alumnus of..............."that school up North," and one who is a lawyer to boot?

From Wikipedia.com:

Psychoacoustics is the study of subjective human perception of sounds. Effectively, it is the study of psychology of acoustical perception.

You guys are too good. Wasn't psychoacoustics used for the weapon in the "Dune" series?

Not trying to sidetrack this tread!

I agree with Ratpack.

I went from a nice 2 channel system in the 70s to "Little Cube", high WAF, speakers in the 80's. Going back to speakers capable of producing the full spectrum in detail has been worth the investment.

The fact that the wife likes the music so much that she wants to dance is the icing on the cake.

I agree with homedad and md55, Anthony Gallo's little Divas are great speakers and integrate well with a subwoofer. I bought a bunch of Klipsch Quintets for gifts, and after listening to them, realized I didn't do anyone any favors. They are not very good.

WOW, I leave for a day, come back, and this thread went by the wayside, LOL (its okay!)

Someone asked why on earth would I be using my Quintets when I have M60s; well, I am not sure if the pic showed up for you, but my TV is "in wall", and there are door openings on either side, so no big speakers for me for HT at least at this point in time.

I have really been listening to ALOT of music lately on my new M60s, and MAN....those things are AWESOME, even after the initial "WOW their here" factor has worn off.

I think part of my problem is now that I know what good sound is like, its easy to pick out bad sound.

Well, I haven't even listened to the Paradigm Cinema series yet and have decided to not even go there. I think ALL these stupid "cute" "HTIB" speakers probably all suffer from the same problem.

I am still looking at options, and I will let you guys know, but what I read on a few reviews of Axiom was dead on:

The major drawback of getting Axiom mains is it will want to make you have an all Axiom setup!

Damn, I just can't say it enough...These things are AWESOME! Okay, so this is the first "real" speakers I have ever owned, can you tell? Prior to my sub purchase, all my equipment came from Circuit City or Best Buy; My M60tis are my second internet direct purchase, and after my experiences with both ID purchases and the quality of the end product, I doubt I will buy anything audio related at a regular store again.

Only part that kind of sucked was the waiting; I am an instant gratification kind of guy, and it was hard to suffer throught the wait (on both my Sub and my M60tis). But in both cases, it was VERY WORTH IT!

As to my HT speakers, I will figure something out; I might try the gallos, or the "reference" series of satellites by some manufacturers.

-Alan

WID-I think you might have hit the nail on the head with reguard to the center channel...

The reasons I placed the speakers so high was several reasons:

1) I based my placement off where real theater speakers are placed. (above ear level)

2) To keep them out of harm's way (I am not so worried about these inexpensive speakers being broken as much as I am damage to the wall if someone knocked one off).

3) Symetrical placement; With my TV being "in-wall", placeing the center channel on the fireplace mantle will block the remote sensor of the TV. The TV is abnormally high to begin with, and weights 230lbs, so moving the TV up, and placing the center speaker underneath poses its own set of problems-not to mention the mantle would block some of the sound. Since the center channel is so high, I didn't want to place my other speakers much lower than it to keep the symetry. The other speakers are slightly lower though.

So, in short; my placement options were extremely limited. I did "close off" that open space above the TV by building a sort of wall using a 6x1, and directly mounted my center channel to it. The remaining surface area on the front of the 6x1 is lined with sound-deading foam. This also allowed me to pull the center channel foward out of that "hole" and is actually forward of the TV screen.

Initally I had been doing ALOT of searching for better lifestyle speakers, but found that quite a few speaker companies incorporate a "boundary compensation" switch for just this very reason! Funny thing is, even the "reference" line speaker that looks almost identical to the center channel I have now includes that feature, yet they left it off on my "budget" line speaker; even though it has the same placement options as the reference one.

I am now currently looking as the possibility of modifying my existing center channel to incorporate this feature and see how the results are.

I figure, its cheaper than buying yet another speaker, and if I just bought another speaker in the first place, due to poor placement might end up with the same problem, so it can't hurt to try!

-Alan

Alan, it all about compromises. Yes, the M2's are larger than what you have now, but smaller than "most" other bookshelves. I think the payoff of clear dialogue is well worth the size sacrifice. Plus if you order them in the light maple with tan grills, they will blend with your walls. AND, you have 30 days to send them back if you don't like them!

Also, I'm with Mary on using a "phantom" centre. I did this for almost 3 years, and it's surprising how well it works.