I cannot believe I'm sitting here and not listening to my beauties. I made a promise though. Hopefully this isn't too much photos for the dial-up folks!
I was able to listen for a little while and I'm like holy moly what an upgrade. I still have the 2nd EP500 hooked up yet (less a subwoofer cable).
Here are my first impressions of the new system (literally like 10 minutes):
Listened to a quick clip from Transformers and I instantly could tell how much better the VP150 meshes with the M80's. To my ears it's like night and day. Before I always thought the center was over powering the M22's and I should have had a VP100 instead. Having the M80's really brings out the beauty of the VP150 sound as it fits perfectly into the M80 setup! And oh my god do the M80's knock my socks off... ::Tingles go down my spine::
Listened to a little piece of the Eagles Farewell Tour Melbourne Disc 2 Track "Life's Been Good". Again I notice the VP150 blended so much better with the M80's. There was also a few notches up in bass. Obviously the M80's are adding to surround stage much more. Overall it just sounded great across the entire soundstage. You could tell the low's and high's coming from the M80 were well balanced and the EP500 off to the side was giving you that kick in the stomache when Don Henley slams his foot on the drum. Damn I'm impressed. Again, ::Tingles go down my spine::.
Obviously I have alot more CD's, DVD's, 5.1 Tracks, Movies, etc to go through to give a good review. But those were some first impressions. I'll try to touch back to the first impressions when I add the other EP500 and see if I can report the differences.
So some bad news, :(. Unfortunately it looks as though one of the M80's has some scars in misc locations. I'm going to see if Axiom can replace it out. If anything I definetly need to get the grill replaced. One of the plastic balls are broken and stuck in the M80 and the outside of the grill is kinda of tore up. Interesting enough the location of the grill damage is near one of the locations on the M80 where there is a "scar".
There are 3 locations on the M80 which I'm not happy with. There is a corner is the back (which I noticed first but shrugged off) that looks like it was hit pretty hard. Not a huge blemish but noticeable. I would have dealt with that easily because it's in the back. However in the front bottom corner it looks as though the finish in flaking. It's a large area. I'd say and inch back on from the corner going each way. Not sure what caused this. You can see it from a distance if someone points it out. This I also kind of told myself I could deal with because it was on the bottom and so on. But then I saw the problem by the bottom tweeter. To the right. I tried to photograph it but it's not viewable really in the photo. It's almost like an inch gash where the finish is split right to the box. It doesn't look as nasty as it feels. With the three scars I just feel it's more like an M80 coming out of the outlet then a brand new one. So I hope Axiom can deal with my pettiness and switch this one out.
As far as the other speakers. Nearly perfect. One of the EP500s has a small feelable scratch on the top but nothing like the M80. I'm happy as can be. There was some definite holes in the boxes but no damage. They were only in shipping for a day, :)!
So now on to the goodies!!! I must say... this HG Cherry finish smells, hehe.
Great packaging on the QS8's, A+ Axiom:
A teaser of the QS8 coming out of it's packaging:
The boring Boston Cherry QS8:
The fabulous HG Cherry QS8:
The before picture setup. I have alot of work to do with the living room. One day I'll actually have a real HT room:
M80 teaser:
THE M80!!!!!!! Look at her shine:
The grill piece is stuck in the M80:
Here is that gash. Like I said I couldn't get a photo of it really. My camera was doing so well on the close-ups. Look midway down you can see a cut of sorts. I just fear it might grow:
Mid-switch out:
The second M80 (it's perfect):
VP150 (no flash):
The frontline. Wife suggested a new entertainment center console to compliment the new speakers. Hell yeah! Definitely need to re-arrange now though:
The EP500 box took a hit. No damage though. One M80 box had a huge hole to but ironically that M80 was the perfect one. You'll also see the "old" boston cherry EP500 sitting off to the side:
ANother picture of the frontline. I have no idea where I'm going to place the EP500's. Also have to adjust the M80's etc etc.:
And the Boston Cherry Epic Grand Master 500 graveyard:
Hope everyone enjoys them. Once I get my room cleaned up and the EP500's setup perfectly along with the M80's I'll take some more photos.
I hope I can provide some better review material and M22 comparisons as well!
