Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Move Up From My Axioms In 2.1 Set-up

I have owned a number of headphone through out the years and the ones that I never did get rid of was the Grado phones I have. My favorite is the Grado 325i. To me their sound signature reminds me the most of my M80s.


A good place to research headphones is HeadFi.

Geez, good job, Rick. Now we're never gonna see him again!

That's always possible Sean .

Randy, I'll touch on a couple of points that you raise in your second post. As to the bass capability of the M22 compared to the Algonquin(which is a weather-resistant version of the M3), the two 5.25" mid-woofers have slightly more area combined than the 6.5" on the Algonquin/M3 and the enclosure is larger and tuned to a lower frequency(as shown in the SoundStage reviews and measurements of the two). Both of these factors would indicate that the M22 has slightly better bass extension, and this would be more widely recognized if the upper bass hump around 100-150Hz in the M3 didn't give an impression of greater bass extension than in fact existed.

The reason that I always use surround speakers(when available)even on 2-channel source material is that the majority of sound in the concert hall(my music listening is almost entirely classical)doesn't reach listeners as direct sound from the front, but rather as reflected ambience from other directions. This material, to various extents, is recorded and has to be mixed into the front channels because there's no place else to put it in 2-channel sources. Processing such as DPLII reads the phase differences in this reflected material, extracts it from the front channels, and steers it to the surrounds where it belongs, making the listening experience a little more realistic.

Well, I wouldn't touch B&Os, but Sennheiser, Grado, and Beyerdynamic are all examples of excellent open air headphone manufacturers that make very high quality products. Good headphones can rival the sound of good speakers.

Everyone else has said it already, but I feel that you'd be taking a large step backwards by moving away from the Algonquins towards the more mainstream speakers that you're looking at. For near field listening especially, smaller two-way monitors are probably the way to go. Some of the best near field speakers I've heard (at least as far as imaging and soundstage) are actually the Axiom Audiobytes. I don't know how Ian did it, but in the near field, they image like my M80s. Obviously, the bass presence isn't there, but other than that, they're fantastic.

JohnK:

Thanks for your comparison of these two speakers.

It seems staying in a 2.1 config, with my room/set-up, I am only going to realize a nominal improvement in overall sound and interaction with my sub- even with a relatively expensive bookshelf speaker.

I'm buying into your logic of the 4.1 and surrounds.

Say I move my Algos into the HT to go from 5.1 to 7.1.

I buy a 110-130 watt/ch, 5.1, AVR.

You would suggest 4 multi-directional surround speakers or a pair of M22's and a pair of QS4/8's?

I just got bit by the classical music "bug" about a year and a half ago and I've added a lot to my collection in the last 6mos.

I like to listen to it pretty loud- but clean & clear is critical to me.

I'm not sure if it's sound logic, from an engineering stand point, but I prefer my system to be twice as powerful as I need so I never have to turn it up past 50%. (well, maybe not twice)

Finally, would one of the new tech AVR's improve overall sound above my older Nikko and Rotel pre that don't have a LFE out for my sub or DPLII?

I had the Algos and SuperCube2 hooked to an Onkyo TX SR 805, before it moved to the HT, and it seemed something was missing after the change in amps to the older Nikko. I wasn't sure the amp was the factor, and the difference wasn't huge, plus I never had the set-ups side by side so I could do AB testing.


Also, let my call out to wid & Kcar to say thanks for the headphone links.

Some of these sites didn't seem to have pricing readily available. What is the price range of these in round figures?

Another reason I want a high quality speaker set-up is when sharing music with friends.

However, I can see the value of a nice pair of headphones and perhaps closed ears wouldn't be so bad considering the "YWF."
(Yelling Wife Factor)

To the headphone "purist" are closed ear preferred over open?

PS. I'm thrilled with the input I've gotten. I fear it could be expensive to learn all this through "lessons learned" from experience.

I'm not interested in having rooms full of last years equipment.

I'm definitely a buy and hold type. I want to buy once and listen for 10-20 years.

I took a chance on the Axioms, buying them after reading many reviews- but I've been very, very pleased.

Thanks to anyone who cares to give input on any of this!

Randall,



Regarding your comments on power, you might find these articles interesting on how amp power requirements can be calculated.

Axiom article on power.


Amplifier power calculator.

Depending on how loud you typically listen, I'm guessing it might get expensive to buy an amp that truly can deliver 2x the power you need since power requirements move logarithmically as opposed to linearly.

Use this as an example (these are rough numbers to show a point, you can do the exact calculations with the calculator if you want to know specifics for your situation):

You sit ~10 ft away and want to listen at 90 dB and also want to have 10 dB of headroom to hit volume peaks in source material. (since +10 dB is generally perceived as 'twice as loud') -> This would require ~55 watts per channel driven.

Now, let's say you want to be able to listen at 95 dB and still have 10 dB of headroom. Now, because of the way the math works, you're up to a requirement of 180 watts per channel to fulfill that desire...

Now, if you actually meant that you want two times the amount of power required to do either one of these scenarios to keep your volume knob at 50%, the math gets pretty crazy.

This reply is going about as deep as I can on the topic as I've learned all I know about power requirements from Axiom's newsletters and the other forum readers, but if you have questions on the power requirements, definitely write them back and one of the experts here can chime in. (I'd ask them also to please do so if I've messed up any of the math here)

Jason

To get an idea of what some of the headphones listed costs look at Headroom. They have a pretty good selection of good phones to browse through.

Given a choice between open and closed phones I prefer the open style. Them seem to have an all around better quality to them then the closed ones I have tried.

As Ken has stated a good set of headphones can certainly rival most good stereo set ups. They can beat quite a few also at a lower all around cost too. Your Rotel pre should have a pretty good headphone out, I know my RB 1070 does.

Randy, yes I would suggest the M22s and QS4s, which are plenty for your room size. The SoundStage review with NRC measurements on the M22, which I mentioned before, is found here and would be worth studying. Note for example that the low point between the two bass peaks(which indicates the enclosure tuning in a ported speaker)in the impedance curve graph is at about 55Hz, which is several Hz lower than the corresponding measurement in their M3 test, as I commented earlier.

Note that if you decide to order, you can get 10% off for ordering from the factory outlet and 5% off for ordering 5 items(which could include some small item such as a wire for the 5th item).

As to the receiver, yes the bass management available in an HT receiver should give you better results in integrating the sub and speakers since the crossover can be set in the receiver at a specific frequency, most likely 80Hz. I'd suggest that you not pay too much attention to power ratings in your small room and with your close listening distance. You'd be using 1 watt or a bit less for a comfortably loud average level and even brief peaks wouldn't be likely to reach the 100 watt level. A very full-featured receiver available now at quite low cost is the Onkyo 606 , which is on sale as a factory refurb from Shop Onkyo for Labor Day. By registering for "Club Onkyo", you're eligible for the 10% off sale plus a $10 credit and free shipping, which reduces the net cost to about $322. A 5% credit(about $16)would also be given which could be applied against a future purchase.

The 606 received an excellent lab test and review in the August HomeTheater Magazine, showing over 100 watts in the standard 2-channel measurement. If you'd like to spend a bit less, the 506 is available for about half that.

Sorry not to help (others already have}, but I was most amused by your "smallest room" phrase: in Oz (and I think in NZ and the UK), the smallest room is the toilet, erhm bathroom. What an image

Regards,
David