Sorry that I too, am repeating myself here as well, but the similarities between Axiom and Paradigm is no accident. In the past, many of the well known Canadian-designed and built speakers such as Axiom, Paradigm, PSB etc. did their initial R&D in Ottawa at the National Research Council which had one of the original "Anechoic" chambers(this was before all of the above grew to the point where they could have their own on site). The idea was to design and build a speaker that was as neutral and transparent as possible so whatever you were listening to was as close as possible to the original. Later on, of course, it was the companies' desire to expand on what they learned and as time went on improve what they were doing in terms of design tweaks, model choices, cabinetry etc. etc.
It is interesting to note, however, that another Canadian speaker manufacturer that many of us know, "Totem", chose specifically NOT to go the "Anechoic" chamber route as the designer wished to imprint his "own" concept of what a speaker should "sound" like. These speakers, of course, are considerably more expensive.
Obviously, Axiom generally, will represent better value because of internet only sales, as opposed to the others who have chosen to go thru dealers.
