Axiom Audio Epic 80...not too great for stereo.

[TABCON]

As you can see in my list of equip. below, I have the Axiom 80/500 set up. It is astonishing for DVD movies, but very mediocre at best for stereo CD's.
The crisp highs, tight mid-range and taught bass are just not there. The bass is muddy, there are not highs to speak of and the mid range seems to rule the roost.

Granted, I have no idea how to set up the 4806 for CD listening, but man i thought the stereo sound would be much better on this system.

Can anyone help with my set up?

Tabcon

[corey]

Are you sure that you ran your Denon's auto setup correctly? Might be worthwhile to try that again, after reading the Denon manual very carefully.

If you want to do it by hand, set all your speakers to small, by pass your sub's cross-over & set the Denon's cross over to 80 hz. Set your tone controls to flat. Get a SPL meter & set the levels of all your speakers. Make sure all your speakers are in phase - many THX DVD's have a setup section that will help you with this. Put your Denon in Dolby PLII mode, confirm that PLII mode is using the speaker levels you set (& the flat tone controls), & try a stero CD.

The above is not all there is to system optimization by a long shot, but it should get you in the ball park. If it doesn't, your problem is most likely in your speaker positioning or room acoustics.

[Nick250]

I suggest plan B, do it by hand as corey suggested. I have been trying to get my 3806 based system setup properly with the Audyssey Auto EQ, and at this point it seems great at above 80Hz, but crossovers, large/small settings makes little sense and it's hard to tweak because the manual is horrible. With the information I have so far I would say Audyssey is unusable because of the <80Hz problem. With proper documentation I think Audyssey could be a winner, but there is no way to tell since the aforementioned documentation does not exist anyplace I can find.

Nick

[Clint DeBoer]

You may also want to experiment with toe-in. I found that toeing in the Axioms just slightly was the best solution. Also note your listening distance to the speakers versus how wide apart they are... Some guidelines "from the horse's mouth":

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/setup/loudspeakers/hometheaterspeakerlayout.php

[TABCON]

I don't think it's the room, so I'll do the setup and see what happens.
I'm going to do it by the book with the microphone setup and all.
Also, I have the speakers toed in slightly and it does seem to help.

Thanks!

Tabcon

[gene]

The problem is likely poor setup.

Step 1: Turn off all Auto EQ's and bypass all tone controls and GEQ's
Step 2: Follow our guidelines for subwoofer placement
Step 3: Set all speakers to small and adjust xover to 80Hz
Step 4: Calibrate levels via internal test tones and bump sub level up around 5 dB or so - use C weighted on SPL meter
Step 5: experiment with toe in as Clint suggested, also experiment with moving the primary listening seats
Step 6: repeat step 4.

Some Notes:
Make sure you have proper level calibration for all modes of operation. Denon allows for independent level calibration for stereo, and multi channel sources and for each input! I haven't played with the 4806 but if its like the 5805, it may even allow for separate bass management settings for stereo mode vs multi channel. Consult your manual and/or dealer.

If you have tile floors, glass doors and a listening room that opens to other rooms in the house, this needs to be addressed.

Get throw rugs, insulated curtains, apply a minimimal amount of absorption in your room (check our Acoustics section of our site for guidelines). An open arcitecture room syle is terrible for bass and there are very few options for correcting this. You may also wish to get a second subwoofer to help provide a more constant and smooth bass response to all listening areas.

Lack of highs on an Axiom system to me implies:
blown tweeters
bad auto eq results
direct soundfield of speaker blocked by an object such as a couch, lamp, etc.


Take greater care in your setup and when in doubt, contact the manufacturer and/or higher a qualified installer.

[jcPanny]

For 2 channel CDs, try out the "Pure Direct" mode on your receiver. It should take the EQ, crossovers, and sub out of the equation and the M80's should do fine without a sub for music. This mode on many receivers also shuts down the video circuity and front display to help lower the noise floor.

[billy p]

What is the differance between direct and pure direct???::o

[Buckeyefan 1]

I don't think it's the room, so I'll do the setup and see what happens.
I'm going to do it by the book with the microphone setup and all.
Also, I have the speakers toed in slightly and it does seem to help.

Thanks!

Tabcon

If you've followed Gene's recommendations and aren't satisifed, here's what I would do:

Try turning all your equilization/tone controls off, and set your towers to large. Set the subwoofer to "no." The Denon should allow all frequencies to your towers. Set the Denon to Direct or Pure Direct mode. Is there still lack of highs/muddy bass? Try Stereo mode, and turn on the tone controls. Raise the treble to your liking. Does that help?

If not, and you don't have your speakers in corners or anything blocking the midranges/tweeters to your seated position, then go into the on screen display and start experimenting with the graphic eq. Turn on the tone controls, and bump the treble up a few dB's. Try cutting the mid bass frequencies in the graphic eq, and boosting some of the 2000-8000Hz frequencies.

Denon AVR's (at least mine) are pretty flat out of the box. It took me a few months to really tweak it to get that perfect sound. With time, you can get that unit to sound excellent with any source.

As Clint said, toe in (or out) will drastically change the sound of the speakers. Getting them closer (or further) from a wall or corner will also effect the bass output.

I prefer my cd's with towers only. You may prefer them with your subwoofer. If so, at least you'll have the towers tweaked for optimal mids and highs - then you can use the bass management by turning on the sub and selecting a crossover point.

[TABCON]

Okay, I used the 'auto' setup and it set all the speakers to large except the center and it didn't find the LR surround. So I scrapped that, and did what Gene and others recommended. Set the delay on all speakers, no EQ, xover set to 80 and I bumped the sub to 5. Now, the system seems a little too bright and the bass is not as strong as it used to be. Stereo sounds a bit better but is also very bright.

I also discovered that the Axiom 500 has a deep hum in it if the xover is set to anything but 40. Weird.

Any thoughts?

Tabcon

[billy p]

I think Gene stated switch all speaker to small and set crossover at 80Hz.Then recalibrate your system?

PS: Surround mode should appear on next selection after sub mode?

[speakerman39]

As you can see in my list of equip. below, I have the Axiom 80/500 set up. It is astonishing for DVD movies, but very mediocre at best for stereo CD's.
The crisp highs, tight mid-range and taught bass are just not there. The bass is muddy, there are not highs to speak of and the mid range seems to rule the roost.

Granted, I have no idea how to set up the 4806 for CD listening, but man i thought the stereo sound would be much better on this system.

Can anyone help with my set up?

Tabcon
I just recently got the chance to listen to a full Axiom Epic 80/500 set-up and I must say I was and still am quite impressed. The system was stellar for music-just very detailed and articulate sounding and even better for home theater. Got the chance to watch some of the Master and Commander open fighting scene and it was absolutely breath-taking. Made me feel as if I were right there on the ship. It sounds like there might be an issue w/the set-up somwhere. Good luck I am sure you will get it straightened out. The people here are very helpful and are quite knowledgeable.

[Tom Andry]

I also discovered that the Axiom 500 has a deep hum in it if the xover is set to anything but 40. Weird.

You might have the 60hz hum. Did you remove the ground screw as suggested in the instructions?

[mike c]

when I had the axiom hum, removing or loosening the ground screw did not help for ME.

mine was caused by the proximity of the sub preout interconnect with the receiver speaker binding posts. but after mixing and matching coaxial cables, it disappeared by itself.

[TABCON]

Wow, you guys really know your stuff. Insofar as the ground screw for the sub, exactly what are you talking about, the ground screw on the electrical outlet itself? Also, I'm getting ready to run the Richard Gray power connect line to the sub directly from the conditioner, so the outlet will be eliminated soon. If this does not work, I'll contact Axiom. They are great folks to deal with.

I don't have any equipment to calibrate my speakers as Gene recommends. I'd be happy to go and get it though. What would I need exactly?

Tabcon

[Nick250]

I don't have any equipment to calibrate my speakers as Gene recommends. I'd be happy to go and get it though. What would I need exactly?Tabcon

Sound meter from Radio Shack, ~ $50 or so.

Nick

[cyberbri]

Getting Avia would help as well. It has a wonderful regiment of test tones for speaker/sub setup, calibration, and evaluation. It also has test patterns for tweaking your video display.

Once you get through all of the setup and have that done properly, any poor sound issues are going to be due to the room and/or your personal tastes versus the sound of the speakers. Ie., if the speakers are close to walls or glass, etc., you will have a lot of sound reflecting and blurring the sound. How are they positioned? Are the (front) speakers on an arc, equidistant to the LP (all 3?), equilateral triangle between left/right and LP?

Toe the speakers in more and/or move them further from the walls -- although the best thing is to treat trouble spots with acoustic panels (http://www.gikacoustics.com/index.html), which are pretty affordable considering the huge improvement in sound quality they will give you. If the floor isn't carpet, but bare tile, wood, etc., you need to have rugs and other coverings to help dampen reflections. For muddy bass, after setup issues, placement and room interaction is usually at fault. If the mains are running Large/full-range, set them to small and let the sub handle all the bass. The sub can be moved around for optimal sound (flattest response, which can be tested with frequency sweeps on Avia, etc.), and this lets you keep the speakers in the spot for optimal sound, soundstage and imaging.

Your room is your biggest speaker, because it greatly affects what the sound sounds like by the time it reaches your ear - sound bounces around all the walls and combines/cancels out and reaches your ears at different times. I have a window at the first reflection point on the right side, and opening it changes the sound because sound goes outside rather than being bounced back off the glass. That's where I will be putting an acoustic panel (about $60 each) pretty shortly here.

[Nick250]

Great post Cyberbri. Kudos. Consider keeping it and posting it again as the need arises.

Nick

[cyberbri]

Thanks. :) I have a number of write-ups (sub calibration, etc.) that I should probably put on a blog so I can copy/paste. ;) I actually did something similar with this (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=523614) for calibration.

[TABCON]

Thank you all. I never could have done it without you (and now I want to thank all the little people...lol).

The system is awesome now.

I did a combination of things:

1. Auto setup was no good for me, so I did it the old fashion way, by hand and by ear. Toed in the speakers and moved them a little further from the walls, relocated the sub, set all the front speakers to large and the rear surrounds to small, set the the xover to 80hz on the Denon and 80 on the sub. I have not used a sound meter yet but it sounds damn good now with cd's and incredible with the dolby movies.

I watched King Kong last night and peed my pants!

2. I removed the grounding screw on the sub and changed the video hdmi cables to an expensive set of monster cables thus eliminating the 60 Hz hum completely. Nice hdmi's really do make a dif.

I'd love to have all of you over to watch a movie some time.

Tanks again!

Tabcon

[TABCON]

Oh yea, I almost forgot, when Kong exhaled, i could feel his breath on my arm hair...AWESOME! Thanks goodness it's not smellavision.

Tabcon

[cyberbri]

Great, glad to hear it!

One thing, though. Running your mains as large is okay for music, but for movies you may want to run them as small. Movies with massive amounts of bass often have lots of bass running through the different channels, not just the LFE channel. You can probably get more bass and better bass using your sub. Plus you'll take a load off your speakers and receiver/amp. :D

[TABCON]

I tried that, but to me it sounds better set to large with movies.

I will take your advice and try it again though. After all, I am a newbie to all this and you guys rock!

Tabcon

[cyberbri]

I tried that, but to me it sounds better set to large with movies.

I will take your advice and try it again though. After all, I am a newbie to all this and you guys rock!

Tabcon


When you tried it, was it before you tweaked everything as a result of this thread?

If you have your sub and speakers integrated well, you should be able to play music and switch between Mans only/Large, and Mains-small+sub and only notice a difference in depth of extension. If there is a disconnect between the speakers and the sub with bass in music, etc., it could be a setup issues (ie., cancellation due to phase, or placement issues, etc.).

Just to reiterate, running speakers as small lets the subwoofer handle the bass, what it was designed to do (and has its own dedicated amp for), and lets the speakers and receiver/amp work less hard (the lower the frequency, the more watts needed to reproduce it). This frees up watts/headroom, and means the drivers in the mains are pressed to reproduce sounds down to 20Hz or lower (including distortion if pushed too hard). When they don't have to reproduce that bass, they can theoretically play cleaner with less distortion. Ie., in my case, my sub has a 350w/1400w amp for frequencies below 200Hz or so, while my receiver pushes 50-100wpc max for the whole frequency spectrum.

For music, bass isn't necessarily as demanding, unless you listen at extreme levels, so running mains at full range isn't a problem, and many people prefer it that way on music - mains only and no sub. For me, I like the extra extension (to below 20Hz) and the authority and power my VTF-3 adds to the sound of my Ascends.

Just to see, pop in WoTW with your fronts set to large, and
turn off the sub. Turn it up to -10 or so on the DTS track and see how your speakers are performing (up close).

[PENG]

What is the differance between direct and pure direct???::o

Direct does not shut off the video circuits, Pure direct does. If DVD movies sound good to you, then the way to find out if the poor Stereo sound is due to settings or not, use Pure Direct and analog inputs only. Run a pair of analog interconnects from your DVD, preferably CD player to the analog inputs of the 4806, select Pure Direct on the Denon and your speakers should sound better if the problem was settings related.

[TABCON]

Just to see, pop in WoTW with your fronts set to large, and
turn off the. Turn it up to -10 or so on the DTS track and see how your speakers are performing (up close).

Will do. Do you think it could harm my speakers set this loud?
I'll try it and get back later.

One more thing, the Denon manual states that if your front mains are capable of handling bass, then the large setting is okay. Bookshelf speakers should be set to small.

One more question, when setting the levels of the speakers, the receiver allows me to set the db output. Without a meter, should the db output be the same level for all the speakers, even the sub? I reset the system last night with all outputs the same, and it sounds even better.

Tab

[Rik]

One more question, when setting the levels of the speakers, the receiver allows me to set the db output. Without a meter, should the db output be the same level for all the speakers, even the sub? I reset the system last night with all outputs the same, and it sounds even better.

Tab

From your primary listening position all the speakers should be set to the same dB level, except for the sub which should be set slightly higher. That's to start with, adjust from there to suit your taste.

[cyberbri]

Will do. Do you think it could harm my speakers set this loud?
I'll try it and get back later.

One more thing, the Denon manual states that if your front mains are capable of handling bass, then the large setting is okay. Bookshelf speakers should be set to small.

One more question, when setting the levels of the speakers, the receiver allows me to set the db output. Without a meter, should the db output be the same level for all the speakers, even the sub? I reset the system last night with all outputs the same, and it sounds even better.

Tab

Bass in music is much different than in movies. Bass in movies goes much deeper, and you will be watching movies at much louder volumes. Of course it's up to you how to set the speakers up.

For the settings in the receiver, you are supposed to measure the SPL with a meter and adjust the level control for each speaker/sub in the receiver so they each play at the same measured volume. Ie., if your surround speakers are pretty close to the listening position, they may be louder than the other speakers at the "all speakers = 0dB" default settings. So the surround speakers may need to be turned down say 4dB in the receiver settings in order to play at the same volume as the other speakers.

[Sheep]

video hdmi cables to an expensive set of monster cables thus eliminating the 60 Hz hum completely. Nice hdmi's really do make a dif.

Derr..... What? How would that change the subwoofer.....? :confused: And Monster?! Expensive?! Derr.... What?!

SheepStar

[TABCON]

Derr..... What? How would that change the subwoofer.....? :confused: And Monster?! Expensive?! Derr.... What?!

SheepStar

It's called a 'video hum'. The guys at Axiom told me about it, and sure enough it worked.

Yea I know, Monster does not have the snob apeal some other cable companies do, but these were $149 for a 4' section and there is absolutely no hum and the video quality seems better.
I know I spent to much on cables, but it worked, so stop being so snobby about it.

Tabcon