Axent or Axess?

Huh, no one? Frank, Manu, is there anybody out there

My full system is in my public profile.
For surround duties it's AV2/250/DBL front and 175/IBL back. So it's "only" a 4.0 at the moment.

I have spotted a rare s/h Axent and try to figure out, if it's worth to wait with the DVD5 and take the chance for a center first... New I would only go up to Axess later. But I have never seen or heard one of those in real. That would be a blind or should I say deaf deal, which is not the way I usually buy.

Is the 175 good enough to start with an Axent? Of course a 145 mono would be the icing on the cake, but that will have to wait...
The room is about 4m X 6,5m. I had never underpower problems in this rented flat. So it's more a question of control and quality.

happy listening
Adrian

I don't have personal experience of the Axent, but I have a friend who normally isn't much taken with HT stuff generally who claims it was absolutely amazing. He setup a demo for a customer and was totally blown away by just how natural and real it was while being completely transparent.

It's a whole lot better than an Axess. The only problem with it is size.

Thank you Frank for your input!

Yes, the size is a bit tricky. The height and depth are almost the same as the smaller Axess. I wanted it to put in my double-with Hutter rack. In order to make the height suitable, I can order longer metal connectors. But inbetween these metal tubes the rack it is about 3cm too narrow...
On top of the rack it would fit nicely, but then my Sharp LCD TV has to go somewhere else. I don't think it's a good idea to put the TV on the Axent? Probably I'll have to look for a wall mount. What do you use to put your centers in a rack - spikes? rubber dampers? which ones?

happy listening
Adrian

Adrian

You really don't want the uprights to get in the way and it would look awful with the speaker protruding from either side of the rack.

It would be very inadvisable to place the LCD on top of the speaker. First of all, the speaker top is not horizontal, it slopes to a narrower section at the back. Second, the vibration from the body of the speaker would not do the picture any good.

We use blutak to couple the speakers to the stands. This is not the best solution for the Naim centre speakers however. The Naim speakers have locating points underneath for upward facing spikes (such as partington Toppers) which are meant to sound better.

Frank

Ah, the top and bottom sides are not parallel. Valuable info, thanks again! You can't see that on the website. Neither the locating points for the spikes.

I generally don't like stacking devices directly, specially vibrating ones...

I guess a wallmount for the display would be the only proper solution in this case. I'll have a look at one of those http://www.vogels.com/ other solutions are welcome.

Are there any wallmounts for center-speakers?

happy listening
Adrian

Are there any wallmounts for center-speakers?

Not the size of the Axent...! (At least, not that I know of.)

The "fat-boy" is here Guess what I'm doing this weekend? Any good center test DVD's?

I found a nice wallmount, which you can push back to the wall for stereo, and drag it out to the same level as the Axent when doing surround. It's ordered and should be mounted next week. Until then, I had to stack the LCD on top, which was not easy, because the Axent really has no parallel sides! Every side is angled differently or rounded. The TV comes too high now, but with the wallmount I can take the stand and the speakers away. That makes it come down again. If that's not enough, I'll have to take off one level of the rack.

The Axent fits like a glove on top of the double-width Hutter. The rounded sides have about the same exterior width as the rack, and the flat bottom fits properly between the upright side wood panels. When the TV is off, I can look for a way to decouple it...

happy listening
Adrian

hi adrian

could you please post a link to the mount for your axcent, as i may require one for mine

neil

Why the accent or accent, why not use the same speaker as the left and right.

I use 3 SBLs, and have used 2 IBLs horisontally mounted for centre (better mid) but would not having 3 identical speakers for L,C,R should be better? This was often impossible with CRTs but now we have flat screens and projectors this is not a problem.

If it’s the fact of a wider spread (e.g a centre tweeter and L+R mid) then it horizontal IBLs (But 2 tweeters) of a strange bastardisation using 2 SBL bases and a single tweeter wall mounted between them would be interesting! If anyone has an idea how to do this I would be keen to know. Thinking I could try this:-



Comments?

Still trying to get my setup sorted and lots of experimenting to do, and it’s also interesting since SBLs are pair matched - the difference between 2 pairs of SBLs is noticeable - just listen to a white noise burst on each speaker) because of this is would be a sin to sell off a single SBL as I’ve seen once on e-bay as the chance of it meeting it’s matching partner would be remote.

Neil

The Axent lies on a Hutter Racktime Rack in 954mm width. It's the broadest width, where you can have the flat basic sidewalls. The even broader 1250mm will have the curved or arced sidewalls. All in black with silver connecting elements.
http://www.hutter.co.at/page.asp?PAGE_ID=30&L_ID=7

The Sharp LCD is about to get mounted to the wall above the rack with a Vogel's wall support EFW 6345. It has some kind of scissors mechanism, to move the TV back and forth.
http://www.vogels.com/ klick through Home > Products > Wall support: LCD / Plasma > EFW 6345

Stuart

I can't see why not use 3, or even 5 or more identical speakers for surround. It's the recommended way for multichannel music (SA-CD/DVD-A). For movies THX recommends diffuse surrounds... it's your personal choice. You can try it, and turn a direct speaker around to face the wall to get a diffuse effect.

The problem is: Can you place them the right way? In my room it's easier to place a center with a horizontal form factor. As you said, magnetical shielding is important with sensitive equipment like CRT's. But most hifi speakers come in pairs, and can't be bought one at a time! So you have one left for a back center .
I fail to comment your "SBL center speaker array". Frankensteins monster came to my mind Hope, you don't fry your tweeter, your amp or both!

happy listening
Adrian

quote:

Frankensteins monster came to my mind

well omly an idea not done that yet.

Unfortunately I've a spiral staircase in at the back of the room so can't do 6.1 it has to be 5.1, or 7.1 unless I wan't strange sound effects in the kitchen - then again that would make the sound diffuse

The Axent is a bit of a monster, and my friendly dealer said the Axess was a better match for my active SBLs.

I'm certainly very pleased with the sound, which is streets ahead of my old KEF THX Centre, and is very clear on dialogue (the main purpose of a Centre I think)

Not sure if this is helpful to anyone, but the dealer overcame the depth problem by positioning the speaker vertically inside a (disused!) fireplace, where it looks remarkably unobtrusive.