Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Floorstanding vs Suuround and adding Amp

Much difference between the two in way of performance for surround in general, and say the Qs8s vs M50?

The way my rear walls are, I would need stands for the Qs8s, the M50s would eliminate the need for stands which ups the price to use the Qs8.

My first post here so a little about my setup. My M80s and vp150 be here next week Currently using Klipsch RC 62 center, RF 62 fronts, and RF 52 rears using a B&K AVR307. my sub is a SVS PB12Plus 2.

My amp question. I am thinking of getting a 2 ch amp to drive the m80s, could I use my B&K as the processor and still use it for my center and surrounds? Thanks

Most AVR's have preouts for each channel, so if you decide you need an extra amp for the m80's, you would use the preouts for the left/right channel to the amp, then hook the 80's to the amp. The other speakers can be driven by the AVR, many of us do it this way.

If your talking about a 5.1 setup, you would not have "rears", but actually "side" surrounds. The Qs8's would be to the "side" of the seating area. "Rear" speakers come into play for a 7.1 setup. A lot depends on where your ditting in relationship to the depth of the room.

Can't you mount the Q's on the ceiling or higher up the wall, that is ideal.

Tim, welcome. A little more detail about your room would be helpful. The QSs are really outstanding surround speakers and should be positioned on the side walls maybe 2' farther back than the listening position, or if the the back wall is close, they can be placed there and spread widely, almost to the side walls. In most rooms one of these positions is possible.

The 307 should be entirely sufficient to drive the M80s to safe listening levels and a separate amplifier shouldn't be necessary. Don't assume a problem before you've tried out your setup.

I'd bet the 307 will run the M80s without ever needing more. While I am firmly on the side of more power pays dividends, the B&K line is not the typical Sony or Pioneer we have this debate over. I have heard a B&K AVR (not sure which #) run a pair of the largest electrostatics Martin Logan Summits (91db 4 ohm)...never heard a peep that was not supposed to be there.

Use that money to nail your surround setup, your bang for the buck is tenfold compared to beefing up the B&K path. I would go for QS8s, period. The image improvement over direct radiating design is dramatic - at least in my small HT. Perhaps in a huge room you could achieve the same with M50, but I doubt it.

The Qs are the best audio values I have found.

I was considering another amp because its a good buy. Im gonna get the Qs8s if Im happy with the 80s makes sense Zimm.. Thanks for advice guys.

looks like my Axiom order be here Friday now! I never told wife..wish me luck on a divorce...lol

THe divorce will be the easy part, if she wants the Axioms, you'll be in for a fight

Zask - I have the 307 too and it's all you will need. No problem at all.

The whole 'difuse vs direct radiating' subject has me a bit confused as well. I'm perfectly happy with my QS8's, and feel they work magic. But isn't the difuse design a bit of a trade-off?

They don't use difuse speakers in movie theaters, and the pictures of both Dolby's main testing chamber and DTS's lab, both had direct radiating speakers in the side & back surround locations. It seems to me they do this for a reason.

I don't know what that reason is, but if difuse was superior to direct radiating, then shouldn't they be using different surround speakers? I'm not going to trade my QS8's in any time soon, still there must be a time and place for direct radiating surround speakers. Does anyone know what that might be?

The movie theaters often have 8 or 10 of them....so, in the end, they do have speakers with a diffused sound...

Hi Micah,

Mark is correct. If you had a huge ballroom-size home theater, you could set up 4 direct-radiating surrounds on each side wall and a couple at the back to duplicate the surround-speaker arrays in movie theaters.

The whole point of Axiom's quad-polar QS8 surrounds is to mimic the effect of rows of direct-radiating surrounds in cinemas, and to do it far more conveniently and less expensively.

The 10 direct-radiating surrounds in movie theaters create a big wash of direct and reverberant sounds. The QS8s, by virtue of their design, acoustically imitate the same wash of direct and reverberant sound.

By the way, in much smaller mixing and demo theaters, Dolby does in fact use multi-polar surrounds (M&K in the small theater in Manhattan). In the Criterion remastering studio here on Park Avenue, they use QS8s--in fact, an entire Axiom Epic 80/500 system is in place.

Regards,
Alan