This review is for the complete LX4 system, including the matched 5.1 surround speakers, you can go to the LX4 5.1 Expander product page here.

From the Ground Up

If you've ever dreamed of taking your music into another dimension, you’ve probably figured out that surround sound was just about the only way to fulfill the dream without getting arrested. With the advent of affordable surround for consumer electronics, and the creative and business opportunities it presents, musicians and recording professionals have been looking for a simple, professional way to step into surround from the stereo world. With the LX4 system, M-Audio attempts to provide that professional stereo-to-surround solution for near field environments. Since I've had good experience with the Studiophile line, I thought I'd take the plunge and go for the entire LX4 5.1 package. Below is a summary of my experiences and impressions with these small wonders.

The LX4 system was designed with several efficiencies in mind – namely to “expand from 2.1 to 5.1 seamlessly on demand”. M-Audio claims to be the first in the world to do this. All power amplification is contained within the sub woofer, so there’s only one power cord for the entire rig. Nice. When you purchase the 5.1 expander, they come only with the speakers and wires, as the amplifiers to power them are already waiting to go alongside the terminals for the left and right speakers on the back panel of the sub. Sweet!

However, this kind of integration also comes with some compromises. First of all, there’s no adjustment to the crossover (which is set to 140 Hz). This is because the system is designed specifically for the speakers that come with it. No big deal. However, the bass management (where the low frequencies are split off from all line inputs and fed to the sub woofer) is also hard wired, so it cannot be switched off or bypassed in order to hear full-range sound to the speakers. With 4-inch drivers on the satellites, you’re not going to get much bottom out of them anyway. I’ve used my BX5s with a tunable sub woofer for 2.1 mixing, so I’m accustomed to having a modicum of control there. Again here it likely does not matter, as the response of the satellite drivers won’t overlap the sub – but some folks tend to get testy when they don’t see a bunch of blinking lights and knobs to yank around. The LX4 is spare in that department – with a volume control for the sub and a single knob to adjust levels running to all five satellites – and a power indicator LED between them, all tucked away on the back panel of the bass unit. It is, in a word, elegant – but not without its perils, as you’ll read below.

Setup and Sound Advice

The speakers arrived boxed and packed snugly in Styrofoam with each enclosure swaddled in plastic wrap, as is standard with M-Audio. The 2.1 system arrived in a large carton, and the 3 additional speakers that make up the 5.1 expander came along for the ride in a separate oblong box. Along with the expected documentation came a distinct surprise – pre-dressed speaker wires. Not only were they cut to length for the standard near field layout (including nice long runs for the surrounds in the 5.1 Expander kit), the ends were already stripped and “tinned” with solder to keep the stranded wire from fraying during connection from amplifier to speakers. M-Audio was definitely thinking ahead here.

The manual does a good job detailing the form and function of the LX4 system both in 2.1 and 5.1 configurations. One thing struck me as odd – the manual stated specifically that the surrounds should be “two to three feet” above the listening position, and the surround speakers should not point directly to the listening position. First of all, I’d not heard of the elevated position for surrounds in a direct radiating speaker system (home systems will often use di-pole or bi-pole speakers, or flush-mount speakers high in the walls or ceiling in order to hide them from view), and pointing near field monitors away from the listening position seems just plain wrong. So I did some research and came up with a PDF document from Dolby that provided some good history and additional guidelines. In it, it states that “The surround speakers should also be the same distance away from the reference position as the front speakers and located 110° ±10° from the reference line. They may be elevated to a position not to exceed 15° above the reference position, as long as they remain equidistant from and directed to the reference position.” On almost every other point of merit, the LX4 manual and the Dolby doc were in agreement. If you read the entire PDF, you will learn two things: 1) there are not many hard and fast rules with surround sound, and 2) there’s a lot of calibration and other hassles that the a well-integrated system like the LX4 will remove from your list of to-dos (read – you get to making music faster). With that, my worry was vanquished and I was ready to measure up and move on.

When I installed my first 2.1 system (BX5s with a third-party sub), I measured everything very carefully in order to maintain good stereo imaging. I eventually dispensed with my dual-computer monitor setup and went with a slim and trim cinema-aspect LCD display, with the anticipation that I would eventually need the front edge of my top shelf for a center speaker. That plan paid off handsomely, as the LX4 satellite has a profile that “just” fits in front of my monitor - after I put a book or two under its stand to lift the viewable part of the screen above the enclosure. This is the first place where folks will be doing some experimentation. Some will be forced into odd placements for the center speaker, and “breaking the plane” is always a risk. If you find yourself lacking in space, try various things and as always - listen for the best result.

My particular problem cropped up when I realized that in order to preserve an accurate reference distance, my right and left speakers would need to move forward from the front edge of the shelf by 5 inches (equal to the distance from the center speaker to my ears). The critical band can be subject to major phase problems with three speakers reproducing the same sound at different distances. In home theatre situations this may not be a critical issue, but this is near field reference monitoring – a different animal. So, off to Home Depot I went, and a few dollars and hours later I had attached a pair of home made extension shelves that allowed easy placement of the stereo pair at the correct distance and angle. The sub woofer went under the desk, and I connected the line inputs and front speakers and was ready to begin my first listening experiments.

The Sound in 2.1

After matching the level between the sub woofer and satellites (using a trusty old analog SPL meter from Radio Shack), I started with a few laid back CD tracks from Norah Jones. When I first sat down, I immediately raised an eyebrow and popped my ear to the center speaker, as Norah’s voice was very clearly “emanating” from that speaker. Of course there was no signal and no amplification going to that speaker, but I was compelled to make sure. The sound stage was so clear I could swear the speaker was in use – Norah’s whispers were dead center in a way that has heretofore confounded my trusty BX5’s. I then switched to Disturbed’s “Believe” and was immediately impressed by the punch in the bass, so much so that I ducked out the sub by turning down the input level on the back panel. Remarkably, they sounded as good as any four-inch enclosure I’ve ever auditioned. That’s the thing – I was expecting to get more low mids (and a less-efficient use of the 4” woofer) as I was sure that there was no way the sub could be carrying that much of the load without a noticeable crossover and localization effects – right in the wheelhouse of the deep, chunky guitar parts. But alas, the bottom end fell away – and when I reset the level, everything returned in a nice smooth wall of over compressed sound. I then switched to MusicMatch’s Radio MX service to listen to some “CD quality” music. As usual, the rock music sent me reeling, as the typical mp3 mangling of high frequencies shined through without remorse. Interestingly enough, I switched to one of my classical stations to continue background playback while writing this review, and a Chopin piano piece plunked along in the background – and I mean PLUNKED. Someone had obviously forgotten to flip the roll off switch on their AKG 414 when mic’ing the bass end of the piano – and I laughed out loud because I have forgotten to do the same thing – with the same result. Obviously the folks that put together that performance did not have a system that could expose that range for them. So again the sub woofer proves its merit. Even without the hard rock music, I’m now beginning to “believe”.

The Fury in 5.1

I had a day and night full of fun in stereo, so now it was time to upgrade. However, I had forgotten one critical factor – speaker stands. So after clunking myself on the forehead with the heel of my hand (ouch), I traipsed down to Circuit City, then Best Buy, and several other audio stores in the greater Los Angeles area – none of which had what I was looking for (especially in my price range). In desperation, I stopped by the neighborhood Radio Shack, and discovered the last set of stands they had in the shop – and what’s better, they were on sale. Serendipity strikes. Not only were these the perfect platform size, but they also allowed the speaker cable to run through the body of the stand and the top half telescopes up and down to a variety of heights allowing experimentation with different surround adjustments. With the LX4 satellites needing only the speaker cable, set up was as easy as feeding wire through the stand and running back to the sub woofer. Including time for very careful measurement and marking the floor (so that I could move the surrounds away and return them to the correct spot and angle) it was up and running in less than 30 minutes – and since all of the speakers are matched and are “ganged” to the same volume control on the sub’s back panel, there’s very little calibration to do. Few things in my studio have gone this smoothly – even the setup of my office chair was more problematic.

I brought up Nuendo 2 and HALion 2 for some studio surround experiments. Both of these applications have some examples from Steinberg’s “Urban Atmospheres” collection, and HALion 2 comes with an assortment of surround-sampled instruments from the good folks at Wizoo. I started with the “5.1 check” patch in order to ensure my routing was correct. Everything was copasetic, so I then moved on to the 5.1 drums. HALion 2 comes with small, medium and large room samples, as well as a folder full of individual sampled instruments. I spent more time with the kit in the large room sample set, as once I heard the reverb from that room in surround, I was hooked. This could get way too addictive. As a sanity check, I pulled up one of my favorite stereo drum kits and played around with it in an artificial reverb – there’s no comparison – surround rules! As it happens, I read an article in Mix Magazine where a top flight engineer mentioned that he made the mistake of showing a rough surround mix to a big name pop diva. After she heard the mix in surround, nothing she heard in stereo seemed “right” to her. (This is fair warning – if you have a system like the LX4, keep the surround to yourself until your client has signed off on the final stereo mix.) I then pulled up some of the Urban Atmospheres to sample some of the offerings there. “Big Intersection” was a little too close to home – and inserting samples that move around the field, such as “tire squeaks” and “car by 1” made me feel like I was back in downtown D.C. walking back to the Metro on my way home from work. The last time I experienced this kind of soundstage clarity, I was in a major movie studio screening room.

So, in that spirit I grab the Gladiator DVD off the shelf and pop it in the DVD-ROM drive for a go-round in surround. Before the movie starts, I get a dose of the DreamWorks sound logo in surround – a few seconds of incredible. I wish I could rewind and play it about 10 more times to hear the placement of all the orchestral instruments through the surround field. I went to the movie’s chapter list, and the first thing I jumped to was the heat of the opening battle scene. I was impressed, as was my wife, and the neighbors. I was stunned by the amount of sound that came out of these speakers with such relative ease. Dialog, music, and plenty of sound effects (the flaming arrows coming from the left surround to the right front speaker – and into the chest of some poor Germanic slob – whiz-thunk-ACK!) were all fully present and accounted for. And that’s the interesting thing – it seemed as though everything had its place in time and space – and I had no trouble separating out each part even though there was a LOT of activity. The mesmerizing quality of this energetic scene faded and I was able to single out sound elements to analyze. It was then that I knew I was on to a winning combination – this is NOT something that happens with game surround systems – this is serious business. I then switched to some dialog-heavy chapters (there aren’t that many in Gladiator) and gave things a listen. The dialog on the Senate floor was unnerving. There were marbleized slap-back echoes from the surrounds, both in the words and pensive steps of each actor – and the arrhythmic murmurs from the background Senators (a latter day Greek chorus) came from all directions and dragged me to the middle of the Senate floor, right next to Commodus. In such a well focused near field environment it’s no surprise, but the effect is still beyond cool.

It was time to move over to music in surround, and I didn’t have anything lying around in that format. I went online through Windows Media Player 9 and purchased Sting’s new album, “Sacred Love” in WMA surround format. The opening track, “Inside” starts with a lot of swimming sounds, traditional and ethnic, in a swirl of reverb – I could feel the hair involuntarily rise on the back of my neck. Then they went to the chorus, and the cymbals reared their ugly head. It seems they decided to put some part of the percussion between or across the left front and surround speakers, which is risky to begin with (as placing front to back is fraught with frequency domain perils). But adding Windows Media compression to the mix turned a nice acoustic set into a mangled mash. Believe it or not, this is a good thing. The LX4s didn’t hide the compromises that the mixer made in delivering this in a compressed format. Score another one for M-Audio. To cleanse my listening pallet, I moved forward to “The Book Of My Life Featuring Anoushka Shankar” – and I was not disappointed – more hair rising on my neck, and arms, and the tops of my feet – but I digress. The song itself sounds like a reprise of “Desert Rose” but it’s quite nice nonetheless.

Further Tests - Taking It To The Street

I feel as though I could easily spend a day full of tracking and mixing with these speakers, in stereo and/or surround. I’ve gotten enough from this setup that I feel confident in mixes coming from outside and having their good and bad traits show. However, I didn’t have time to mix anything in surround in order to test taking something I’ve mixed into “the real world” – whatever that is. Learning a new mixing environment is like learning a new musical instrument. It takes time, practice, effort and a modicum of well-intended failure to get the full value out of a system like this. I certainly don’t feel like I’m being lied to, as I’m hearing a lot of my early mistakes from stereo mixes done years ago – just as my BX5’s showed. It’s a cold comfort, but a sure sign that my studio has improved with the addition of these speakers.

Sound and Fury - Final Thoughts

If I were to recommend one non-standard application with this system, it would be to put the sub woofer “on the same plane” as the other transducers. I feel like it’s important to have access to the ganged volume control, as well as the on/off switch on the back panel. I made the mistake of switching off my system before turning the LX4 down (then off) and the pop through the soundcard and my mixer was downright scary. I almost never forget to turn down the studio in the proper order, but with the power LED, knobs and power switch on the back of the sub, it is easy to miss (my BX5’s have a power on LED right at 12 o’clock on the woofer – which many folks hate, but I put a dot of window tint over them and count them as ambiance – I also never forget to keep them in last-on-first-off order.). Also, the LX4 doesn’t have the timed relay that the BX series carries in order to protect the speakers during power-up, so be double sure that all’s right before you throw the switch. As it happens, the Dolby document suggests experimentation with surround placement, including the possibility of the sub going alongside the satellites. With a little planning and care, you can get a world of honesty from this system, in stereo or surround.

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