Bob, there are lots of fine speakers out there if you are willing to pay the price for them or spend time searching for a used set, I have listened to MAs and they are a great speaker nicely detailed, very smooth sounding, but I also found them to lack the low volume clarity of Axioms, as do many other higher priced speakers, IMO. I would love to have enough money to buy a set of MAs, or any of the other brands I felt compared to, or bested, the M80s, but I do not, at least not now, and the biggest selling point of Axiom is the price. If you have the money to buy some of these other brands of speakers, then by all means do so, as I do feel they are slightly superior to Axiom(sorry Ian), but at a premium that I and many others are not willing to pay. So if you can find a set of MA's, Paradigm Studio 100s, Focal 918's, or any ~$2500 speakers and up, for the same $1300 you have spent on the M80s then cancel your order and buy them.
All of this still comes down to how you are going to like the Axiom sound and I know all of these questions stem from the fact you bought them with out hearing them, the worst that can happen is you don't like them and you ship them back and you take a loss of ~$100. A very minor price to pay to know exactly how a system will sound in your home. Many boutique shops selling these other brands will charge a restocking fee about equal to this $100 for returning a set of speakers. So you are really not any worse off for not having heard them before purchasing.
