Well, the outdoor stereo is finally complete. As soon as I figure out how to do it, I hope to throw up a few pictures...the Cape Cod Grey is a near-perfect match to the exterior trim of our house (minus the 20 years of dirt). I will spare you the details of what I went through to wire them in, but suffice it to say if I never see the damp, dirty insulation from the attic over my garage again, I will be a happy man.
A couple of noteworthy things:
The Algonquin speakers are extremely well put together. The finish on these speakers is the best I've seen from Axiom...granted I haven't bought speakers in years nor seen the custom wood jobs, but these look great.
That said, a word of warning to prospective buyers...the grilles are fragile, and the ones that arrived with my speakers broke apart. I would remove grilles during installation.
They sound fantastic...can't be discerned from the standard M3. Yes, I committed the sin of using tone knobs, more for the speakers I have inside the house running off the same amp. However, bass has great extension, clarity, and more importantly, kick. Still has those mildly laid-back, listen-all-day-at-any-volume qualities I love in the M3s.
The SLB is a HECK of a product, with one caveat: the bolts are difficult to thread through the puck and twin bracket pieces once they're aligned. After struggling like all heck with the first two bolts, I used butter to grease the others. This is definitely the way to go if you're thinking of using the SLB.
All-in-all, I'm very happy...it's made our already pretty fun backyard even more fun, especially for the kids. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!
