I'll take a shot at this first.
Would the speakers be too powerful for your room ?
No, there are people here running M80s in somewhat smaller rooms with great success. There are a couple of reasons for thinking about a smaller system though -- first that you could spend less $$ and be almost as happy with the results, and second that any of these speakers need to be out away from the wall a bit to sound their best (maybe 12-18" from the back of the speaker to the wall behind them) and some people aren't able to accomodate M80s in their rooms without sticking 'em right against the walls. M80s are a couple of inches deeper front to back than M60s so make sure you can give them the room they need.
The reason I mention $$ is that if you found yourself looking at a 7.1 system (the prices are for 5.1) or if $3K were a hard limit (80/500 is about $3200) going from M80 to M60 would IMO be the lowest-impact way to keep the price in line.
How high is the ceiling ?
How do these speakers compare to other high end speakers ?
General consensus seems to be that Axioms are all-round better than Infinities, more clear than the Paradigms albeit with a bit less bass, and less harsh than the Klipsch speakers but otherwise comparable. If you are comparing to (say) the Paradigm Monitor speakers they sound a bit better and cost a bit less.
Bose... they did sound pretty good in the stores though...
Yep, the Bose do sound pretty good at the store and will sound pretty good at home. The Axioms (or any comparable full size speaker) properlly set up, however, will be AWESOME. Once you hear a really good high end home theater system you will understand where the Bose systems fit in the food chain. Our only criticisms of the Bose systems is that (a) they seem overpriced for what you get (although prices have come down by almost 50% in my area and now are not so bad), and (b) the speakers are just too small to make an effective home theater system (ie a system which can give you an experience comparable to or better than a real movie theater).
Having said that, BOSE have a very high WAF (Wife Approval Factor) and do sound pretty good given the size of the speakers.... they just aren't in the same league as a good full-sized system.
Bottom line is that there is nothing "magical" about Axioms -- they just tend to be pretty good for the $$ and have a fairly consistent sound across the whole product line, with big systems able to play more loudly and fill larger rooms than the smaller systems (which, surprisingly enough, is not the case for all speaker systems).
Welcome to the board.
John
Last edited by bridgman; 10/03/05 08:44 AM.
