I recently compared the m22s and 170s and most of your comments are the same as mine. One thing I disliked about the Ascends was an extra resonance with horns. For example, a saxaphone or trumpet had a very, very strong bite(attack) to the sound, more so than I have ever heard (and I play trumpet). I agree that the Ascends sounded fuller. On Dave Matthews Band's cd Crash, track 4 is the song "Too Much". The openening features all of the intruments playing the same chord. On the Ascends the instruments kind of mushed together(but not too bad), whereas on the Axioms they were very clean. I ended up sending back both speakers and am now considering getting the m60s.
