O.K., I'd like to settle some misconceptions people had with my post. First, I understand that modern recordings are very compressed and that Axiom's are neutral speakers. I just hate having 600 cd's and I can't listen to but 50. I prefer vinyl for various reasons, one of which is a more "warm" sound I get compared with cd. I don't want to argue this point, it's my personal opinion. Secondly, my wife loves loud music, just not on my speakers. She calls them "bright" for lack of a better word and says they give her headaches. WAF doesn't exist in my household (fortunately). If I wanted the speakers I would have kept them. It was totally my decision.
I listened to several speakers today. Wharfedale Evo 30's, Monitor Studio Silver RS6's, PSB speakers (not sure of model), Quad 22L and Harbeth Monitor 30's. The Monitor Audio was easily the weakest of the speakers. Not enough bass, small soundstage, thin sounding. I had two friends with me during the auditions. One a Paradigm Reference Studio 60 owner and the other a Rocket 750 and 850 owner. We listened to Quad 22L's first. Absolutely amazing! We played several genres of music and each of us made the comment how crystal clear they were. Phenomenal soundstaging, great bass extension and just downright musical. We then listened to the PSB's, which in their defense was in an open area. My friend who owns the Paradigms commented how boring the sounded. I think that pretty much summed it up for all of us. Nothing special aside from a good bass, We then listened to the Wharfedale's who the salesman seemed to not like very much. Well, we all agreed that they were very good speakers and that given the same room treatments as the Quad's they might be in the same ballpark. The Evo's had really low bass and had great soundstaging. They weren't as clear and instruments were not as crisp as the Quad's but this may have been due to the area we auditioned them. We left that Hi-fi shop and headed over to another to pick-up my new Dynavector cartridge. We had the opportunity to listen to a $3500 pair of Harbeth Monitor 30's. We all had different opinions of them. Paradigm owner loved them. I enjoyed them, but thought them a bit warm. Rockets owner disliked them over a period of time and said they were too warm. That says a lot considering he has the 750's. We all agreed they had the best soundstage of all the speakers. They lacked bass compared to all of the floorstanders (obviously) aside from the Monitor Audio speakers. They lacked a bit of dynamics for my taste, particularly at that ridiculous price.
As I've said before, I really loved my Axiom's for home theater, they just didn't suit my tastes for 2 channel. A few people have made it sound as though I was bad mouthing the speakers which was never my intention. Different strokes for different folks. I've made my decision and will be picking up a pair of Quad 22L's sometime soon (I'm still stinging from the $380.00 for the Dynavector cartridge). I forgot to mention that we all agreed that the finish on the Quad's was exceptional. 7 layers of laquer and a birdseye maple finish. They were stunning and they had the sound to match (for me anyway). Have fun and enjoy the music everyone.
