ihulls,
Reading through this thread, I came across a nasty comment of yours, to wit:
"i.e. – Alan Lofft’s opinion of the M50’s. (I never thought I’d experience an employee trivialize a product their trying to sell?)"
I have never trivialized the M50s; they are a very nicely balanced speaker, just slightly less detailed than the M60s, M80s and M22s. And that isn't "opinion". Those conclusions are a result of many days of double-blind listening tests using a wide variety of recordings of virtually every musical genre and instantaneous A/B switching. Axiom performs its listening tests exactly in the manner that the original National Research Council tests were conducted, as originally designed by Dr. Floyd Toole, whose paper "Turning Opinion Into Fact" you might benefit from reading.
Contrary to the popular belief that "we all hear differently", in fact, the majority of people with normal hearing--when auditioning speakers blind, with the price, brand and size concealed--agree on which speakers are the most natural and "musical" and which speakers are the most inaccurate and unpleasant. Given two very good speakers that are closely ranked in blind tests (no two sound absolutely identical), you may have a slight preference for one over the other, but often that choice may be largely dictated by a particular musical selection. The phrase "similarly good" applies in such cases, and, as I've stated here before, sound quality and neutral accurate musical reproduction do not correlate with loudspeaer price. I've tested very costly speakers under blind conditions that trailed by a large margin some Axiom, Paradigm and PSB models that cost a fraction of the price (including such brands as Kef, Thiel, and others).
I continue to do the listening tests to the entire product line at Axiom and suggest changes if I detect glitches or resonances. For the record, the tonal balance of the latest version of the M50s is very like that of the M3s, with deeper bass extension and output.
