Underwhelming Mission M-Cubes...

[admin_exported]

just got a set of mission m cubes,set them up today partnered with onkyo 875/PS3. hugely disappointed with them so far. they were 5 star reviewed as well by the site,what a bummer! My 15 year old mis match 5.1 set up sounds much better. Have them set up without the supplied mission cables as i have just recently sunk qed xt silver anniversary speaker cables into the walls.

Movie soundtracks via bluray sounds ' tin like ' and stereo music is like a set of cheap pc speakers

Should i give them time to run in a bit before passing judgement? if so how long do i give them? I did consider the Q Acoustics 2000 but went for the M Cubes because they were for a ''nice'' front room and wanted smaller style speakers.

Do you reckon i could give the dealer a call and swap them?

would the Q Acoustics 2000 series be better as i now suspect?

Thanks for any advice folks!

 

[grdunn123]

Just checking...you got the sub too? They do need some running in and I can't imagine that the lack of Mission speaker cable would be the cause. Sounds like your sub isn't set up right

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

Thermopyle,

The Mission M-Cube's Distributed Mode Loudspeaker (DML) Technology was designed to disperse sound at low, mid and high levels at almost any volume/frequency range confidently and competently and hence, create an immersive and accurate cinematic soundstage.

However, with such ultra compact speakers, the subwoofer has a lot of work to do in providing a lot of the low-mid range frequencies, bass and in this particular case, even dialogue as you will discover. For a large room, this could have a detrimental effect on the accuracy of the directional audio.

1. I would suggest you place the subwoofer between the left and right front speakers so the soundstage will be one that is seamless and cohesive.

2. How have you set up these speakers? Have you calibrated them - manually or via the Audyssey calibration?

Ronald

 

[Anonymous]

yeah got the sub.

 

[Anonymous]

Guys, i now have the sub positioned just to the right of the center speaker,essentially between the center and the front right.

Ran the onkyo audyssey set up again just there.It does seem a bit better....will sleep on it,think ma head is frazzeld by listening much to hard!

will try again in the morning and let you know.

Thanks guys.

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

I have a further comment to make regarding speaker settings but am unable to due to some error. I will try again later.

Error

This page can't be displayed. Contact support for additional information.
The incident ID is: 5780496793590057571.

 

[Ronald Archiebald]

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-->Thermopyle,

The Audyssey calibration has this uncanny tendency to rate speakers as 'Full
Band' or 'Large', regardless if they are floorstanders, bookshelf or satellite
speakers.

Further manual tweaking is therefore in my opinion, inevitable and essential
to ensure that you are getting the best performance from your system.

For such tiny speakers, you will want to set everything down to 80Hz as a
starting point and then experiment further. Try the THX settings first - 80Hz
all around (including the subwoofer) and tweak further until it
satisfies your listening tastes.

Let us know how you progress with this. You have a very good system, rest
assured - it was £1k when it first came out! Some serious technological
innovation there.

Ronald

 

[Sliced Bread]

Hi There,

I think you have it wired up incorrectly.

The frequency response of the mission m-cubes is 280hz - 20 khz at -3db, so you will need to set the cross over very high. This is higher than your amplifier will allow as it is such an unusual frequency range.

For this reason, I believe the m-cube uses an umbilical chord (the supplied cable) which is different from conventional speaker cable, as it runs the audio through the subwoofer before the signal is passed to the cubes. This allows the subwoofer to set the frequency response correctly. You should set all speakers to large when wired this way.

You might want to set it up using this (the method should be in the instructions) before sending it back. it will sound completely different as at the moment you have a huge hole in the middle of the frequency range (from 280hz down to your current cross over setting).

Also, I personally do not like the settings Auddessy uses in my setup. I achieved a much more cinematic sound by switching it off.

Thanks

John

 

[keiser1]

Hello thermopyle,

I agree they sound tin like but only when the sub is off do they sound like this, otherwise they sound good, i even have to turn the bass contour down when watching some films. Mine are back in there box at the mo as im just getting ready to move, but if im not mistaken it does state in the instruction manual for the sub that you need to have the sub crossover set to its highest point. Also if your interested i dont use the umbillicle cord that comes with the package, i run mine straight into the amp and not the sats to sub,sub to amp way,i tried this setup for a week watched a load of blu-rays then swapped over and used the supplied umbillice cord, ran all the sats into the sub watched the same films agin even at low and high volumes and didnt notice any difference. This i suppose is all down to personal taste but it also saves a whole lot of messy cable coming from the back of the sub.

I think you need to do some tweaking to get them set up right,but once you have the settings correct i dont think you'll be disapointed as they are a 5 star product and i dont think they'ed be given that rating if they didnt sound good.

 

[chris hollands]

I have the M-Cubes also and was very underwhelmed when i first heard them, admittedly i have have had a full size speaker system with a larger price tag before, but i thought also that a 5 star product with an original premium of £1200 would have sounded far better than it does. The problem lies i think with the sub.

 

[keiser1]

It says in the what hi fi review that the sub needs carfeul placement, mine was set up below the front right channel next to the av unit. I will admit that having the Audessy Dynamic EQ/Volume on my denon set to on makes a huge differnce to the sound from the speakers.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all your thoughts guys,cheers.

Have let them run in a bit,24 hours worth of music and they are starting to sound a good bit better! Never had to 'run in ' a set of speakers before but they are definately improving with time.

however i do find that for music it has to be 5 channel stereo,any other setting with the amp sounds awfull.

Movies are also sounding a bit better. I think i maybe expected too much, as i did have large floorstanders for my fronts prior to the mcubes.

Pleased to here that it did not make any noticible difference when wired up both ways,didnt want to have to sink the mission cables into the wall and remove me qed xt!

will keep you posted on how they develop over the coming week,cheers!