Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion What's New At Axiom New LFR1100 woofer

Nice Ian, I personally didn't care for the look of the outriggers, as long as its stable.. for sure those lfr's are more top heavy

Hi cohesion,

Andrew and I have been chatting about if there is need for a centre channel model to specifically match the M100 and LFR1100. And we are just not sure; everyones feedback on this would be appreciated. The upside would obviously be the higher achievable max SPL in the lower frequencies but this would become marginal using an 80Hz crossover to your sub. The downside would be that there are only two of the heavy duty drivers which would mean it would be less efficient than the towers it is being mated with (the VP180 has the efficiency to keep up due to the lower mass of the woofers). Putting three woofers in the centre channel would be best but the layout might prove challenging.

Ian, I'm not sure how feasible it is, and it would limit the number of potential customers, but I was thinking a while back that a T-configuration might be a fun experiment. The top of the T would look like a normal horizontal center, but then below it in the center would be more speaker, which would serve as the stand as well. Perhaps this way you could have the tweeters and woofers in a line down the center, with the midranges being the flankers. This wouldn't fit in/on any cabinets, of course, but for people like me who plan to have just the screen on the wall with open space for the speakers to breathe in might be interested in a speaker like this, if it can be made attractive. Why not just an identical center channel? The height of the LFR1100s coupled with my low ceiling would interfere with my screen size plans. How squat could you make a speaker like this? Also, when you talk about mating it with the M100/LFR1100, I imagine you're still talking about forward-firing drivers only. Just curious, but have you done any prototypes of a center channel with rear-firing drivers as well?

Ian, it looks like you were reading my mind as I had speculated about this very topic in the center channel reference thread on June 30. You will remember that for years, although on a considerably smaller scale, Mirage had center channel models with a rear firing speaker designed to expand the sound stage, however, they were fairly expensive, especially for their size.I am not sure but I believe "DefTech" had a couple of these designs as well. As you know, Mirage later replaced these with their "omnipolar" designs and I owned one for a brief period and although I wasn't particularly thrilled with the over all sound, it did have probably the best "off-axis" performance, by far, that I had ever heard in a center channel speaker.

I wondered myself, in order to match these new "giant size" mains, how one would design it and how big would it have to be in order to compete performance wise with the M100/LFR1100? An interesting design challenge, I am sure, however, I would suspect, if you were able to be successful in coming up with such a model in a type of "bi-polar" center channel, it would be a winner and because of the expanded soundstage, and the more I think of it, it could probably be an easier and more flexible match with any of the other models as well.

Charles, that's an imaginative concept, but it's the mid-range(not woofers)and tweeter that are most important to have vertically oriented.

Yes, but there's the issue of getting three woofers into the layout, which I thought would be more easily done in the vertical portion of the T. Maybe you could have one woofer at each end of the T, with the tweeters and midranges still down the center.

THEY CALLED HIM MAD! MAD, I SAY!

Ian, my thought is that the point you made relating to the typical 80Hz crossover used with subs would make using the new woofers in a center speaker of little benefit.

I am kind of with JohnK here. I really don't see the point of a VP200 (or whatever).

OTOH, developing a shorter (monitor?) version of the LFR would satisfy the need for a vertical, under-screen center channel while also expanding the product line meaningfully.

Ah ha! I knew that it wouldn't be long until there was talk about an "LFR" centre channel. And I have a long history of working with "unconventional" centre channel designs. My first design for Mirage was actually their first bi-polar centre, the OM-C2. Great product but one which was compromised in most applications. The main thing to keep in mind is that an omni-directional speaker system like the LFR needs space around it and room for the rear wave information to radiate out into the room. For all of the LFR owners, have a look at where you have your speakers placed and ask yourself if you could place a centre channel in the same manner. I'd bet that most of you will say "No, I need to place it on or in a cabinet of some sort". This was the typical customer complaint with the Mirage bipolar and Omnipolar centres; they would get them home, shove them on a shelf, and then call us saying that it didn't sound right, etc. So, IF you have the setup that can allow it, an omni-directional centre has merit. And, yes, if there is enough interest we can happily consider it!

On the topic of the new woofers, I had worked on the original design with the intent of this woofer being of reasonably high impedance (9ohms Rdc) to work in a 3-woofer system like the LFR (and now M100). It was also designed to perform best as a woofer only, with minimal consideration given to how it would behave if crossed over directly to a tweeter. So for now there are no plans for a souped-up M3 or to offer the woofers for other models in the Axiom line-up. However, there seems to be enough interest in an upgrade for the M80 that I will investigate the possibility of a version of this new woofer for that system.