Wow is all I can say. I ordered my M3Tis Monday, and they arrived here in KY yesterday. When I unpacked them and hooked them up, I was disappointed to say the least. Such shrill little screamers. They sounded like someone's fingernails on a blackboard. Terrible.
Let's back up a little first...
Two weeks ago, I decided to upgrade the home theater. It's been three years since I've made any major purchases for it. So, since I had recently revamped my home brew DIY subwoofer, I decided that for the ultimate HT experience, I needed five or six completely identical speakers. Best buy was closing out last year's Klipsch models, so I got three sets of SB-2s for $250/pr. Not bad. I played them a lot, and eventually became acustomed to their sound. Never really happy, but accustomed. I decided it would be in my best interest to make the most of BB's 30 day return policy. So I've been listening to everything under the sun in town. Infinity, Polk, Athena, JBL, B&W, Klipsch reference, Paradigm, etc. The models I liked better, I couldn't afford, the ones I could afford, I didn't like any better than my SB-2s. I kept reading various reviews on audioreview.com. I keep seeing ads for these speakers that have "no right" to sound as good as they do. I'm not paying $275/pr for speakers I can't hear first. That's nuts.
Oh... They have a 30 day return policy...
So, I got them last night, hooked them up, terrible. We've already covered that base. Well, all new speakers need to break-in. This I know. So, when I left for work this morning, I threw some CDs in the CD changer, hit repeat, turned up the bass, turned the HK AVR230 up to about -18dB, and walked out the door. When I came home for lunch, a miracle had happened. Someone had replaced my shrill terrible speakers with some much smoother, more mellow speakers that looked exactly like the others. I brought a friend of mine who had been interested in my speaker auditions as he's planning on finding a new set of speakers to feed to his Onkyo Integra. The "new and improved" Axioms beat the SB-2s hands down. No comparison. The Klipsch SB-2s sound like cheap AM radios in the same room with the M3Tis. Given, the M3TIs aren't as loud as the SB-2s, but I'll trade quality for quantity any day.
The next step is, well, to pay a visit to best buy, but, I need to plan on filling out the rest of the HT setup. Can't have a Home Theater with only two speakers. So here's my plan. Current pair of M3Tis will be put in series and act as a single center channel. I hate the sound of a center channel that sits on top of the TV. Too distractingly localized. So, I was thinking M40Tis for the mains, and three M3TIs for the surround and surround back.
Feel free to advise.
Chris
