Well, thanks to all for the wealth of advice as I pieced together my new HT setup. I am now the proud owner/operator of a full W series home theater setup. W22's, W150, QS8x4 and EP500 all ordered from the factory outlet.
Pics to come later when I have access to them and when I can figure out how to add them to a thread!
Here's the short report that I hope will be helpful for any other newbies or lurkers out there, and just plain ol' fun for the regulars:
Let's get the bad out of the way 1st - One of the W22's had a 'blown' woofer upon delivery. Also, the cosmetic defects on my FO order were a little more noticeable than I was expecting based on all the info here in the forum. To be fair, on most of the speakers they are not noticeable, however I can clearly pick them out on one W22, the W150, the EP500 and one of the QS8's - all others I don't where the defect is. However the locations of the noticeable defects are in positions where they will not be noticed during regular movie watching. Most tend to be towards wall facing edges so unless you're inspecting the speaker you won't see it. That's really it for the bad.
The good - Axiom has more than lived up to it's reputation of over the top customer service. The 'blown' W22 was replaced in record time. (Thanks JC and Axiom!) I called in the blown speaker and left a voicemail message at 830 pm on a Tuesday night. JC called me back an hour later apologizing for the delay in response! I had a replacement W22 delivered to my house by 930am on Thursday morning. That's about a 36hr turn around time for anybody that's counting - of course it helps that I'm not that far from Dwight, but still...
I listened to the W's for a few days just to get a feel for them before committing to cutting open my walls for a proper installation. I did some basic comparo's to my previous HT speakers (entry level Polk's) and as expected the Polk's were simply blown away. I heard entirely new elements to guitar and strings that simply weren't present before. My wife could immediately hear the difference as well.
Well, to make a long story short, all speakers are now installed properly and the system is roughly calibrated, but not tweaked yet (BTW, does tweaking ever end or do you always play?
)
So far the system has exceeded my highest expectations. this weekend we watched Journey to the Center of the Earth on Blu-Ray. While I won't comment about the movie itself, we were completely awestruck by the entire system. The dialogue was clear and easy to hear and the bass and surround effects were spectacular. At one point when the movie has situated in a cave with water dripping all around, both my wife and I looked straight up at the ceiling above our heads where we could swear there was a water leak! Of course there was no speaker located there - quite a testament to the ability of the QS8's! In the dinosaur chase scene the couch was literally shaking with each step of the the big T-Rex - another magical moment. Let's just say I can't wait to throw in a really good reference quality Blu-ray (say Dark Knight?) and see what can really be achieved.
The system has also just lent a clarity and 'airiness' to music as well. I have never heard Sarah Mclaughlin's (sp?) vocals sound so sweet. Also my father in-law has been rediscovering his Eagles Farewell Tour DVD using the DTS audio track. He keeps commenting on how clear it sounds. On the flip side i have learned that some blues tracks I loved I can't listen to on this system because they are apparently not well recorded and I can hear that now too!
And to answer the age old urban myth - not too bright or harsh unless it's there in the recording. Clear is the term I would use.
Thanks again all - apologies this turned out to be a bit of a novel, but I hope some will find this post useful.
