Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Can Speakers be Too Big for the Room?

That's terrific! Now hopefully anyone living with you won't object. If they do, it really is time for them to go .

Any room can be turned into Audio Nirvana. It's a question of time and money. In my experience, small rooms are easier to deal with.

Check out one of my audio rooms. It's the smallest at 800 ft^3. I have another that is 1920 ft^3 and yet another at more than 4000 ft^3. The sound gets worse as my room size increases. It gets worse because I haven't spent the time nor money to treat them properly.

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BxTe-z9ctC7NazI4YUpMR3hpQ2s&usp=sharing

For the room above, sound panels, sound panel location, speaker and chair position tweaking were made possible by Serenity_Now. Prior to his help, I had terrible bass macrodynamics, muddled microdynamics, bloated mids, unfocused imaging, and a narrow soundstage. Between my 1920 ft^3 and this one, I had to boost the gain by almost 11 dB to achieve the same sound pressure with the same audio gear and the sound panels in the room. After the tweaking, I am down to a -9 dB gain compared to the large room. Micro and macro dynamics are absolutely outstanding, soundstage is more than adequate, imaging is spectacular and the sound is smooth and even across the entire band. It's the most satisfying I've heard in this house. A big thanks to you out east, Trev. This room is bringing me so much joy. More joy to come after I add my recliner in there .

BTW, my Denon set the bookshelves to Large in this room. I also found that a 60Hz xover and LFE+Mains works best. The only thing lacking now in this room is compression-free speakers when I turn it up LOUD. I'm into native drum music and those Dreamcatcher drivers just can't keep up even if I cross over at 80Hz in LFE only mode. I'd love to try the M3 V4 or M22 v4 or maybe even Bryston's Mini-T.

Note the "diffusers" and "absorbers" throughout the room.

Here are some pics of my room after repositioning. There's probably one too many armchairs, but the room serves multiple uses.

https://goo.gl/photos/d8J2CERoQVQiJEFy6

You'll notice two NAD amps in the rack. The lower one is an older purely analogue 7000 that I use for phono playback. Upper amp is C390DD which has no analogue inputs as configured. At the moment I change banana plugs to the Axioms depending on source.

Thanks to all for advice, with special thanks to Mojo for the suggestion to put speakers along long wall.

Tim

P.S. I never had a lava lamp in the 60's-70's ... call it a post mid-life moment.

Nice! Try removing the speaker covers. On my M80v2 (and audiobytes), there is a noticeable difference.

Double cool stuff.

Yup, My movie room in progress is 15.6 x 11.6 x 8 . I am going with M22 for fronts. thinking V160 for centre.
I am not sure if I am going 11.2 or Atmos 7.2.4.
If I go Atmos, not sure why yet but will be M22 , Vp160 and 4 M22 in wall or on wall. ANd thinking of getting the Def.Tech Atmos as they are angled and I guess designed for Atmos.

If I just stay status quo and just upgrade the pte/pro Anthem AVM60 to 11.2 , I will go with M22 Front and wides, VP160 Centre, for qs8's and M2's on wall for heights.

I can't see why I need these M80s in a room that small.
Not sure yet on the subs but it will be dual EP500, SVS Ultra Sealed, JL Fathom E112. Just really got to figure out if the JL's are worth $1000 more than the SVS's or if the SVS's are worth $1000 more than the Axioms ?

In a room that small the Axiom's are more than ample as are the SVS, I think the Fathom is just way overpriced for the few extra db and slightly lower FR range.

I am in a room almost the same size. My M80v3 are 9.6 apart centre to centre and 11" off the back wall. Sound stage and imagining are great

Thanks, I knew I read this somewhere before. I am fighting with this room and the M80s and asked if I should raise them higher to better blend with the tv. When I was upstairs in a bigger room I was 15 ft from the speakers and the imaging was different, specially with the VP180. Not so much imaging, but hust cannot seem to get the sound right with the screen. I am now only 9 - 10 ft away and I do not have much more room to go back.
But, I feel that the M80's just sounds like imaging is at the bottom of my screen.

going to order the M22's for this room

My M80s are 8 feet away from me on the diagonals and I sit so me ears are in line with the bottom tweet. Theys almost up against the back wall and though I'd love to pull them out, I can't.

The sound is right where it should be a foot or so above them and usually in the plane of the speakers so not too far forward or too far back and they imagine pretty good given they're shoved back along the wall.

Something's pooched in your set-up because all this stuff about them M80s sounding knee-high to a grasshopper is weird!