Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater M80ti's small room.

I'm a bit alarmed reading this - I don't think we were trying to give you the message that you *need* to replace anything. The only reason IMO that you would *have* to replace the M80s is if you put them in the room and your family said "they're too damn big and they can't stay here".

You will need at least some room treatments (esp. first reflection points) but those are easy to do and as Mojo said you may be able to do that with things you would want to hang on the wall anyways (as long as your taste in art leans towards fluffy things :)). I believe one of the members here is making some awesome "art + acoustic panel" products which might be an option. My (poor) understanding is that in general smaller rooms need relatively more of the surface area treated than larger rooms but I'm not 100% sure about that.

I don't have much experience with sealed vs ported subs but my impression is that the sealed ones are sometimes easier to find "good enough" placement for... but IMO with a room that size and two subs to play with it shouldn't be too hard anyways.

EDIT - LOL, Mojo posted at the same time as me but we ended up with fairly contradictory messages. I don't disagree with what he is saying, except to the extent that you already have a system and IMO it would be worth setting it up and playing with it a bit before you start replacing things.

I guess I'm trying to say "yes there are good options for changing your components and improving the sound, but just moving to a smaller room should not be the reason you do it"...

... says the guy using M40's as very nice PC speakers

My impression was that the EP500 fared better than the EP600 in that regard. Not sure if that is from cabinet differences or just more time for refinement, but I don't believe I have ever heard about the kind of issues with EP500 that some people saw with the EP600. Not saying that the EP800 is not an awesome sub, just that the 600 might have been starting a bit further back than the 500. All this is anecdotal though.

Hmmmm...that could be, John. Note however that Axiom's top of the line subs are no longer offered in a ported version.

Yep, agreed... and at some point I am going to have to give one of them a try. I definitely used to prefer the bass from sealed speakers than from ported speakers when I was getting started in audio, although I ended up concluding that transmission line cabinets were a pretty good compromise.

Not sure how to reconcile that with a house full of "Vortex ports"

It was tough for me to program my brain to ignore the $2,000 I spent on the EP600v2 11 years ago. But you know what they say about sunk costs. Thankfully, Ian made it a lot easier for me to pull the trigger.

Need port plugs for old subs....
Then you're rocking.
Ian might have already considered it and might have a pair kicking around.

Blair, I tried everything man. I don't know if you're aware but the port on the old EP600 was actually a long, wide duct that snaked up to the top of the 600 and back down. I stuffed the mouth of that duct as best as I could. I tried many things over the years. It's all over now with the new 800 but it will take some time for the nightmares to dissipate. My pain will be somewhat alleviated when I FedEx it back to Axiom on Monday.

As you say though, it might be worth for chaos to try wiping the grin off the face of his 500s. He might lose a few Hz of low end but it might make it much better for music.

Interestingly enough, one of my buddies has an SVS PB-1000. I've been trying to get him to let me tune it better but he said it was "good enough". When he heard my 800, he wanted to toss his SVS and finally let me play with it. I re-positioned it and tuned it and it definitely sounded much better but when I stuffed the port and re-tuned it, it was like night and day for music. Movies are good too because his room is small. He's now crafted a gorgeous plug out of styrofoam. It's still no 800 but he's happy enough with the improved sound he'll forego the 800...for now.

No.

But I've never driven a car and thought.....damn, this thing has too much power. I have a throttle, and my amp has a knob.....

Now imagine Michael, you've purchased a race horse of a car but can never enjoy it because you can't find any roads long enough to get it up to speed. That is a better analogy.

M80s need room to form a more enjoyable soundstage.

The unfortunate reality is buyers want top of the line which usually means they purchase floorstanders without due consideration for the space they'll be installed in.

They then space the floorstanders close together and sit 6 or 8 feet away. The speakers sound "great" only because the buyers don't have the room to hear them further apart and from further away. They have no idea what they're missing.

My avatar pick is my car, 605 whp/3120 lbs, 216 mph top speed, 9.8 quarter, 2.8 0-60, and can hit 2 g turns. My roads suck and I can only drive it four months each year. I enjoy the shit out of it every time I drive it.

I have M80's in a 12'x16' room with 200 wpc amps. Love them.

The question was "are M80s too big".

My answer - nope.

If the OP was starting with a blank sheet and designing/ specifying a totally new system, I'd probably go a different route.

Life is short, live it while you can.