I have owned multiple Axioms for over 7 years now, m80s, m3s, qs8s, ep500, ep175. My M80s sounded ok in a certain volume range and nowhere else. Anything below and they just didn't sound alive and anything above the highs got harsh rapidly. The sweet spot was around 75-85 db about 12' away from them which is much louder than I like to listen too for more than than small periods of time. Even in the sweet spot there is no comparison though these sound so soft and natural compared to the metal domes.
The thing that amazes me the most about these is how incredible they sound at low volumes. I can listen to these at 30db less than the M80 sweet spot and don't feel like I'm missing anything. All of a sudden I'm listening to music late at night after the wife is in bed directly above the living room and don't keep feeling like I need to turn it up, actually I keep thinking I need to turn it down because it sounds so good
Here are the positions I think I'm going to settle on for the towers and sub. I think we're going to move the av rack out from under the tv and put some book shelfs in or a table / anther chair or what ever makes the wife happy and move the equipment into one of the back corners so its more hidden.
At first I had the towers closer to the tv with no toe in, this seemed like it was the optimal position for the towers but it was boxing in the corner where the sub is and causing even more boost out of that corner somewhere between 40 and 80hrtz from the sub. I had it tamed down a bit with the PEQ but once I moved the tower in between the sub and the corner it took most of it away. Dropping the Xover to 60 from 80 seems to have taken the rest away at least to my bass loving ears
I tried them back in the corners really tucked in and the sound kept getting pulled to the speakers from the center i assume reflecting off the sidewalls so that was driving me nuts. This position was a compromise between the two. They're not so close to the walls that you can detect the speakers, it's still helping to fix the sub corner problem and kind of keeping them out of the way. Also the left tower doesn't point straight at the couch on the left wall like this so everything stays a little more centered when sitting over there. One of these days I will run Dirac and see what that does. Anyone have any tips? I have never got around to running it before
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Thanks again these are beyond our expectations and those were pretty high after reading all the glowing reviews