Since becoming a regular on this board a couple of years ago I also still read AVS and some other audio forums from time to time and I rarely see those comments and then they are usually like yours, in the form of a question and the answers are normally that they are indeed not bright at all. So I'm a bit confused why this keeps turning up. Therefore I did a bit more research with a real quick Google search. My search did turn up lots of examples of the words 'Axiom + speakers + bright' but for every question asked, there are multiple responses or professional reviewers stating that in fact, Axiom speakers are not bright.

So why is this question so common? My personal theory is that, like myself, most of us in the 'rocker' category either grew up listening to metal when we couldn't afford 'accurate' speakers and loud was really the only criteria. Also, the younger generation today are still listening to metal (I love that the music of my youth has survived a couple of generations!) but their experience with audio fidelity is influenced by iPods and heavily compressed MP3s.

In short, the boomboxes of old, older speakers built to look big, over emphasize the bass and be very loud, right up to today's ultra common, poorly made earphones are all very 'forgiving' of poorly engineered recordings. The recording industry knows this and have become lazy, using compression techniques designed to replace the dynamics and clarity with loudness.
Why? Because on non-accurate speakers that can't present the detail anyways....loudness sells.

I myself found it difficult to go back and play some of my CDs and most MP3s when I upgraded to Axiom Speakers. Luckily I played some really well produced CDs first, by chance really, and was TOTALLY blown away by the detail and sound quality that I never even knew existed before. However, I started noticing that some CDs and practically all of my MP3s actually seemed to sound worse than I remembered. I now have a wide variety of music in my library but metal is still a big part of it and unfortunately, this category did seem to have a larger ratio of more disappointing sound quality.

However, I soon realized that this wasn't the fault of the speakers. They were not too bright, they were not too cheap... They were too good. They were playing the music EXACTLY as it was recorded by a crappy producer who used compression techniques to make the recording have the illusion of sounding as loud as possible. If the song was further compressed into an MP3 or other file format, it only makes it worse.

Just how good speakers like Axiom truly are becomes blatantly obvious when you play a well made recording. It will simply blow you away. You will want to spend days listening to every CD or piece of music you own all over again, as if it were your first time.

Since most of my listening was done via MP3s streamed to my receiver via a Squeezebox, I solved most of my problems by re-ripping every CD I owned into a lossless format. I used flac, instead of MP3. I still retain a library of MP3s for my MP3 player as it doesn't matter as much there. An MP3 player often can't play music all that well to begin with so, you don't notice the difference as much. MIght as well save some space.

Moving away from MP3s, whenever possible, on my bigger system improved things greatly. However, I can still definitely tell the difference between a well recorded album and and poorly made one.

In short I don't believe Axiom speakers are too bright but they will teach you about poor recording qualities. I don't think they are wrong for metal as they are equally accurate with any kind of music.

Metal (rock in general) does have more than it's fair share of poor recordings compared to classical so I think this is where most of the "too bright for metal" comments may be coming from. Depending on your sensitivity, perhaps an audiophile grade speaker is not going to be your best choice but it will be important to remember that ANY well made and truly 'accurate' speaker will give you the same experience in bringing out what is truly recorded in music. However, if you dive in, I think you will find that you will be so happy listening to the good stuff that you will realize it was an Excellent choice and you will wonder how you ever lived without them.

Hope this doesn't come across as an Axiom defense tactic. it isn't meant to be. In fact I tried to refer to 'accurate speakers' in general, rather than just Axiom. Just sharing how another metalhead came to learn a little more about how audio really works and share his conclusions about his speakers.

The best advice is above though. Find somebody in the audition list in this forum who lives near you and listen to them for yourself. I'll add just a bit to it in saying bring some music you are very familiar with and also search this forum and others for some suggestions on metal that is well recorded and bring that too for a comparison. Be warned though, once you hear music on any system that compares with Axiom or is Axiom, there is no going back......

Sorry for the long reply. It helped me pass the time on two conference calls and made me look busy enough that the office lurker kept wandering by instead of pulling in to chat.


With great power comes Awesome irresponsibility.