Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Out with the new and in with the newer

Here is an exquisite piece to test your high end. I've listened to all kinds of exotic tweeters and mid-ranges but I've never heard highs of this caliber until the actives arrived.

I've also noticed I can keep the volume down quite low with these actives and still get immense enjoyment out of them. Historically, I've had to turn things up to get emotional satisfaction but not with these.

Ian did an absolutely amazing job on the curves.

https://open.spotify.com/track/4XQkZ7B0itWNhvYl2YYDyy?si=bBeOowUaS5OvebIl6UVwMw

Oh my goodness. High Frequency Dissonance. Jangle my soul.

Phil, these actives are the last speakers I'll ever need...until Axiom comes up with active LFR II...LOL!

My vintage RCA cables from 40 years ago that were interconnecting various Kenwood, Sanyo, Realistic and JVC components are doing the job with the actives. These cables may actually be older than 40 years because I scrounged them from friends' places. I spent some time re-routing them and now 60 Hz noise is gone.

I can now confirm the actives disappear in my living room much better than the M100s and my reference standard, the M5s. How much better? How about all the way?

They are quite amazing actually. So visually large and yet I don't perceive them when I close my eyes. To get them to perfectly disappear, I had to set the BGC to Off for the right side and FAR2 for the left. Fortunately to achieve disappearance, I didn't need an analog BGC control - the existing digital settings are fine - but will it be granular enough for the man-cave? We'll find out around Xmas.

I have to say I did not expect them to disappear in my living room. Axiom knows I was not pleased with the fact my M5s did so well in my living room and then completely moved out of the way in my basement but the M100s were not able to do the same. Ian pointed me to passive LFRs and I am glad I waited. I suspect the actives disappear better in all kinds of spaces.

I didn't have to do much fiddling. Some may say they were just fine and I was being pedantic. Craig however knows that I have a strict, scientific protocol about such things and it includes the piece below I use to gauge acoustic disappearance. No doubt AAAA (Serenity_Then) has much fancier tools and methods but mine are "similarly good".

https://open.spotify.com/track/4XHXQEOG6UmRAdSoKNc0aA?si=8OEeM3l0RraLpyJelaLj6g

Lol.
Not sure I have the content to go any better.
You tube and Netflix get most of my time and the kids are soaking up the PS4 every chance they get.
I need a better room and the content will come. Lol.

So as consumers, how do we determine how much more a speaker is worth compared to another? By the number of images each renders? The resolution of the rendered images? The three-dimensionality of the soundscape? The vastness of that soundscape? The number of microdynamics? The emotions elicited from the macrodynamics? How high the volume has to be before one is satisfied with the music rendition? What risk they carry with regard to room integration? Whether they truly need a sub for music?

With regard to the above, the actives are superlatively superior to the M100v4 Axiom flagship direct radiator. So much so, that a 2.7-fold difference in price for the speaker and amplification relative to the M100 is an incredible bargain. Throw in a very likely need for a sub for music when using the M100s, and the actives are only about a 2-fold increase relative to the M100s.

BTW Craig, I think with the first paragraph above, I've invented some attributes you might want to consider in your score sheet for DBLT.

I also say the 3-fold jump from the M5s to the M100s is not as great a value proposition as the jump from M100s to the actives. I say that because I got the M5s first, listened to them for some time, then got the M100s and was not emotionally swept away. With the actives, I'm an emotional wreck!

I thought that was your normal state ...

What a speaker is worth is dependent on the person. This changes over time with exposure and training. Once you start attempting to identify differences in tone, dynamics, space your training your self and become more critical of what you’ll except in a system. I think at one time we were all happy listening to music from the 2” speaker in our clock radios.

BTW this applies to more then sound ... video, wine, food .... the more you experience and start to analyze (if you know it or not) the more critical you become in that area

You are very correct, Rich. I see that in myself and I've been surprised how much more critical listeners my friends have become through listening to my systems.