Well there's no shame in not liking a speaker's tonal characteristics; and every piece of audio equipment will color the sound in some way or another. People's continuing fascination with tube and vinyl gear is, I believe, a testament to how preferences can diverge from naked accuracy.
One problem is that most of today's music is grossly compressed, with the treble boosted well above what is natural. This is an attempt to catch your ear when blaring over car stereos. While the brightness of my Paradigms sometimes annoyed me, I would completely forget about it on many recordings that were more neutral.
So I guess my point is that I think CDs are typically much less neutral than speakers, and if you listen to a lot of pop recordings you might want speakers that trim back the treble a bit. When you listen to a well-recorded bit of classical music, it's amazing how natural it sounds. Not to give you second thoughts or anything; but as you admit, it's hard to give up the detail of the Axioms! Good luck to you and trust your ears
-Cooper
