I have my Axiom system-have for about half a week. I've been living without internet so I haven't had a chance to post. I hope you all have missed the perfect combination of forum troll/reasonable guy (that's me!)
I have the Epic 80-500 setup.
Sound quality wise let me just say that I've not found a limit in volume for these speakers in my room with my receiver. Well I have found a limit-my ears and my paranoia that the neighbors are going to call the cops. In the same room I had been running a modest Boston Acoustics 5.0 system-and I definately found an upward limit in volume with those speakers.
The axioms came in 2 shipments-I suspect that was required to get the speakers through customes. Purolator goes 'dark' when the border crossing happens which is frustrating. No tracking makes me crazy. I suppose I could call them, but I hate using the telephone. I'm just new fashioned. Ship time was just over a week, which was delayed one day because I changed the shipping address.
The first shipment was the VP150, the QS-8s, and the speaker wire. Fate had elected that I not get the real toys on day one. The first box I opened was the center channel. It was double boxed and nicely packaged. It is much bigger than my Boston center, but my TV stand is exactly the right size. I like the binding posts on the back of these speakers. It is easy to run wire into them-the hole is vertical rather than slightly to the side like a lot of speakers I've had in the past. This made getting the wire into the posts much easier. I do have two gripes with the posts. First, there are 'plugs' where banana connections should go that need to be removed before banana connections are added. The plugs are plastic and fall out very easily. I would wager that few Axiom owners have been successful at keeping the little plastic bits inside. Second, the polarity indicator is a red or black ring-it is hard to see in suboptimal lighting. Worse, they seem to be prone to falling off-one of mine is slipping off. If these things do come off easily this will be quite annoying if I ever move.
Sound wise the VP150 destroys my boston center channel. In fact I'm pretty sure that when I wasn't looking the VP150 urinated on the speaker it is scheduled to replace. It also sounded out of place with the other two Boston bookshelves remaining. I ran the receiver's optimizer feature and everything blended well enough again.
I then unboxed the QS-8 speakers and replaced my surrounds. These speakers are incredibly dense. They are way heavier than they look. I was a bit concerned about mounting these on the wall, but the supplied bracket has a lot of places to fasten to the wall. However I have another gripe. While the bracket is supplied the hardware to fasten the bracket to the wall is not supplied. I had to go to my local hardware store and guess at what I should use to attach these to the wall. They are still hanging so I guess I did okay-but supplying some drywall anchors and screws surely can't break Axiom's bank. Heck, add four bucks to the price. Once mounted however, these look really nice!
Again, sound wise these destroyed what I had before. My PC converts stereo into 5 channel audio and the room went from being good to listen to on the couch to being good to listen to anywhere. I don't think that I could be happier.
The next day the same delivery guy showed up with the M80's and EP500. I snickered and said 'heavier boxes today I bet'. He agreed.
I unboxed the M80s first. The first M80 I pulled out still managed to surprise me with its size-even though I had already 'measured' how big it would be. I pulled the grill off and I don't think I've smiled that big in a long time. This speaker means business. Serious business.
Uh oh, baby calls. I'll finish my story later.
DW
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