Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater HT in-progress

Ever wonder what it would sound like if the sound power curve wasn't on top of the listening window but above it? Or if they had another set of high and mid drivers on their outboard sides?

best guess … the image and stage would start spreading and fall apart …20’ wide grand to ambient piano of god …
What do you think / guess

With regard to the sound power reigning high over the listening window, maybe to some extent we can do that with the boundary gain compensation rotary switch on the DSP. Axiom's published LW and SP curves are measured with the BGC at neutral position. In my room, as I switch to FAR1 and FAR2, the stage expands horizontally to the wall boundaries which are 5 feet away. I even get a wrap-around effect. Most amazingly, fidelity, images, depth and width do not suffer. The soundstage expands and the images follow. It is as if the ALFRs are generating new space.

That BGC increases the output of the rear array by 3dB at FAR2 relative to the front mids and tweets. Since my room is not overly damped, I expect the FAR2 setting has the SP riding higher than the LW. That would mean I am hearing more reflected sound over direct sound than I would at other settings.

Dr. Toole has said that for a well-designed speaker, we hear about 17% direct sound in a typical room. (Well-designed means horizontal LW with declining sound power and no resonances in either curve.) The rest is all reflected. I think with the ALFR, some of that theory is out the window and we are likely hearing less than 17% direct sound if our rooms are not critically damped. And it sounds absolutely fantastic!

I've fooled around with the direct/reflected ratio. I've even eliminated the front mids and tweeters and was able to get narrow sound stage tracks to sound wide with good imaging. But the fidelity fell apart. I've lead myself to believe that if we can have control over the SPL of the front mids and tweets, we would likely be able to make all recordings sound spacious. But I don't think just a volume control would work. It would have to attenuate some frequencies and boost others. The reason is, as you boost the reflected sound over the direct, the frequency response is altered because you are hearing more of the room and what you have on the boundaries and in the room acts as an acoustic filter.

So maybe we need room correction but room correction that operates separately on the LW and SP.

As for drivers on the outboard sides, maybe those can help with the directivity for the room correction I described.

What you describe makes me think that the next big improvement for axioms actives could be DSP auto customization by doing room measurements around MLP.

Exactly.

"We don't believe in traditional room EQ solutions because they can't fix directivity errors. So we built our own which fixes everything."

And the wonderful thing is, we will be able to take advantage of the numerous generous Axiom programs to more economically upgrade.

Was in my photos and came across this pict ... it reminded me to post it for you ...

Had some time so I thought I’d post some thing
Trevor, you might like this … a wall board hoist is sure useful:

Makes putting up or taking down a projector, speaker,… a one man job.


hosting the frame for the screen


The sub panel and some of the electric is in. Currently working on getting the platform ready for the carpet and finishing all the electric. More on this later ….

Well, Can't say I've done much on the HT since the last post. Been working on other projects ... the latest of which is a rain water collection system.
So for the last few weeks I've been digging trenches for the pipe and getting yelled at for tracking dirt into the house .

Anyway, was binge watching the Mandalorian with my kids (in the HT). When in the middle of the 4th episode the center channel starts distorting like crazy. Think it was heavy clip (This has happened before but went away before I could figure it out). So, I hit the front power switch on the ADA1250, and the distorted dialog went away but surprisingly was replaced by 10 seconds of crackling noise on more than one speaker. Hmmm ... Gave it a minute to cool down, turned it back on and all was fine for 5 minutes then it happened again. I'm figuring the 1250 supply is overheating. Not sure if it doesn't have enough ventilation or if something is going ... it sits over the ADA1000 with about 2" between units. The prepro is over the 1250 with also 2" of space. I'll try increasing the unit spacing using some scape 2x4's under the feet and test it again with a thermocouple in the box.

The pic below has the new 3.5" spacing between units ... if it happens again and the temp is reasonable I might have to send it back. If it is too warm I'll add a fan ... it was planned anyway (if I ever get to the cabinets).

No way! No spacing needed!!

That shit looks awful. I'd punt you out on your ass if I was your missus.