Digital Trends

Axiom Epic 80

February 4th, 2004 | by Ian Bell

VP150 Center Speaker

Some will argue that the backbone of any good home theater system is the center channel speaker. The center channel speaker is the speaker which will produce the majority of vocals and music found in any 5.1 and higher mastered movies or DVD/SACD music titles. What separates the VP150 center channel speaker from others on the market is the unique speaker arrangement. Center channel speakers will typically follow a MTM (mid-range, tweeter, and mid-range) driver placement, but the VP150 reverses this arrangement by placing two 1” tweeters on the outside and 3 5.25” inch woofers in the middle. The VP150 speaker also follows the same ASW design philosophy found in the other Axiom audio speakers with the height of the VP150 tapering 7.5” inches in the front to 5.5” inches in the rear and the width of the VP150 measuring an astounding 26.5” inches wide. The box of the VP150 is a sealed design and does not use any ports like the M80ti tower speaker.

QS8 Rear Surround Speakers

By the time we got to the QS8 rear speakers, we were not surprised at all by their unique size. Shaped more like a hexagon, the QS8 features twin titanium tweeters on the angled sides with dual aluminum woofers located on the top and bottom of the speaker. This rare driver arrangement is better suited for placement high on the rear wall or on speaker stands which are open freely at the bottom so the down firing woofer can work as designed. As with all other speakers in the Epic 80 system there are 5-way gold-plated binding posts located on the back of the QS8 speakers. Axiom ships these speakers with a hidden wall mount bracket, but recommend their own speaker stand specifically designed for the QS8.

EP350 Subwoofer

Of course we can not forget the grunt of the Epic 80 speaker system, the EP350 subwoofer. The EP350 houses a large front firing 12-inch cast basket aluminum woofer with two of Axioms vortex ports located on the front of the box. The EP350 comes with a 200-watt built in amplifier, an adjustable crossover, output level control, variable phase switch and line level/speaker level inputs. You can choose to manually flip the EP350 off, or let the speaker automatically power-on when you turn on your home theater system. It is nice not having to worry about turning the sub woofer off; the EP350 will automatically power down when you turn off your system. The EP350 shares the same quality as the rest of the speakers in this system and comes with floor spikes and gold plated RCA jacks. Axiom Audio recommends that you keep the crossover frequency on the EP350 in the middle at about 80 Hz, but because the M80ti loudspeakers are so large, you may want to turn the crossover frequency down to about 50 Hz or lower to let the tower speakers pick up some of the bass.

The controls located on the back of the EP350 sub-woofer