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

"This is why you cant have it all in the Dojo."



As you might remember, I used to sit in the nearfield (8 feet away from the M80s). That didn't help with depth either. Admittedly though I didn't and still don't have diffusion in between the mains or at first reflection points. Near-field listening did nothing for surround by the way because the side QS8s were a foot behind me and 11 feet away and the rears were 13 feet away. It also did nothing for soundstage width.

In my 10x10x8 room that uses your panels and with the corner speaker positioning you suggested, I hear depth but it's still not "in your face" depth. That room is special. When I want a very intimate presentation of a lady jazz singer, I go to that room and she's...you know...right there...in front of me. I can reach out and touch her without getting slapped.

I'll have to try what you suggested but I have to tell you, I am not holding out much hope. I've been told speakers of my generation (not just my M80v2) just couldn't do depth.

I've also been told it's far easier to get depth with smaller speakers like the M5HPs which is why I've been so interested in them. I just don't know if the M5HPs would be able to form a wide and deep soundstage if they were placed 9 feet apart and I sat 14 feet away. Ian feels they won't be enough but I don't know what that means.

I don't know how to evaluate a speaker to determine if it can give me width and depth and how it needs to be positioned in the room to achieve that. I don't know what measurements I need to look at and if I had the measurements, I likely wouldn't be able to interpret them because I don't have Andrew's meat computer . I'd like to learn but I don't even know where to look for educational material.

Anyway, if you are over here again, let me know. You're always welcome to stay here. And I still dream of escaping to out there but I have peeps who rely on me here and I can't just leave them.

I've found the sound floor of the room is critical to the being there/depth/realism along with overall volume matter as much as speaker placement.
Ear height vs tweeter height used to matter more too. The v4 tweeter blends extremely well.
I also read turning off any processing can help (didnt for me, games yes oddly) and or setting your AVR to a front sound stage setting.

Those are good points.

The noise floor in my room is less than 20dB C-weighted. I don't know how much less because that was the limit of the meter. I typically listen at 85dB nominal. This means my signal to noise ratio is greater than 65dB. I don't know if this is "good enough" but even if I crank it, I have no depth.

My ears are right in line with the tweets.

Whether I engage processing or not makes no difference. I don't have a front sound stage setting. I've never heard of that setting.

Did you check your polarity between the L&R? The M80 can sound pretty good even with reversed polarity.
Did you check the individual drivers for free movement, no noise/drag?
Bi-amped with a dead channel?
Loose wire?

The quality of the recording is paramount too...did you check the output settings in your playback device?

Depth and volume aren't related/ volume isn't necessarily required to get depth.

Oh...when you said volume, I thought you meant gain. You really meant volume. I think I got that at 4,200 cu. ft.

No bi-amp or bi-wire. I'll check all that other stuff for the nth time but I am pretty sure that's all ok because it sounds amazing other than depth. Admittedly I've never checked for driver drag. There's no funny noise though.

As for the recordings, yeah...some of them sound like absolute junk but the good ones are majestic and give me 22 feet of soundstage in 2.1 even though I have the M80s only 9 feet apart. They are about 6 feet away from side-walls.

Do you have depth?

I did mean gain...

I've had it lol.
"One more tweek" gets me every time. Then I start over, it is extremely satisfying to discover/hear the differences.

I currently have a sort of sudo depth. My M80's fill the room very nicely, akin to surround sound. No speakers, no localization, nice width, some depth but not "I can place the drummer 10' behind" depth atm.

I have had some amazing moments but it seems the stars have to align and I need to be in the right mood. Listening for the sake of listening doesn't work for me.

I just checked everything. Good call on the binding post torque. My room down there swings from 15C when I'm not there to 22C when I turn on the fireplace. That likely wreaks havoc with expansion and contraction of the metals.

The 11-year old M80v2 drivers move freely and there's no drag or noise. I'll tell you though my new VP160v4 drivers move marginally more freely.

No difference in depth. That EP800v4NME kicks ass and is just bloody fantastic though. I struggled to pull away from the music again. That Onk puts out too!

Ok, so good! I am not the only one who doesn't have depth according to you.

I know I sound like one of Socketman's pedantic kids on these boards but I do enjoy my music and movies. Then I snap back to reality and want depth.

I'm off to find me steak and Guinness.

Is it possible your crossover is to high and your subs are doing damage to your front sound stage/ depth?

Are you nine feet from them? I missed it.

Edit. If you're 14' away and you have 6' to your side walls why are the M80's only 9' apart?