Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions M50 vs. M60 Frequency Response - Bass

GC, I was entirely aware of that review before. Alan has stated on more than one occasion that the M22, M60 and M80 sound very similar at typical listening levels except in the deep bass and that he's had great difficulty distinguishing them in blind tests when a subwoofer was used to even out the bass factor.

There are differences between the different series of Axioms (ie ti, v2, v3) which could account for the differences I've heard in back to back testing. Nevertheless, I find the M22/M60/M80 series to be generally superior to the M50tis that I own. The M3s are another can of worms (if you can find them, look for my reviews of M3s/M50s/M80s and M22s/M50s)

While I own M22v2s, I have not back to back tested them vs M50s or M80s. And I am lacking in M60s, although I set up a set of v2s for a friend.

The M40s and M50s are very similar brethren. Same driver/tweeter type, etc. but the M40s were the smaller version of the M50s with a single woofer instead of two, and hence a slightly smaller tower.
Both are 2-way designs in contrast to the M60 3-way driver design which makes a huge difference.

I did a blind testing of the M40 vs. M60 awhile back (these would be the M60 originals, not the newer version 3).

The link to my humble thoughts (and photos) can be found here.

Another review of the M40s.
http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/axiom_millenniam40ti.htm


Incidentally, Axiom needs to update their vintage info page to include recently defunct models.
http://www.axiomaudio.com/vintage.html

Here's the M50 vs. M22 comparison we did a number of years ago (back with the ti models).

Here's the M80 vs. M50 vs. M3 comparison. This was M80v2s vs the original M50ti vs. M3v2s.

Does it not strike anyone as a little odd that there has been no direct indepth (or any depth) comparison of the M50s to the M60s? After all, they're the the most alike models in their price range... physically alike, next to each other in order of price, and both the last remaining 8ohm speakers before it jumps down to 4ohm (coupled in a significant jump in price and performance). Just seems like all the comparisons play leap-frog over each other (M50 to M80, M22 to M60, M3 to M50, etc). Isn't that... weird? lol

Not really. If you're going to upgrade, why jump only one step? Similarly, if you're going to buy a second set, you're likely not to buy two sets of towers. What kind of nut would have two pairs of towers? (whistles...)

It appears I'm the only one that likes to use 2 sets of mains. I'm seriously thinking about buying a pair of M50's to pair with my bookshelf M22 (which would replace my on-wall M22's), at some point in the future. Perhaps M60's would sound better?

Has anyone else experimented with pairing M22's with the various floor standers?

The reason I like it is I get more sound, a wall of sound that's not localized, like it was with just the M22's on stands.

I would call it inconvenient, for sure

The problem is that most of the comparison reports you see are driven entirely by the speakers which people living nearby (within "lugging distance") happen to own. One person decides to haul their speakers over to the other person's house, beer is opened, snacks are brought out, and the comparison begins.

I would argue that the whole mechanism is self-selecting for small vs large comparisons simply because carrying a small speaker over to someone's house is a whole lot easier than carrying a set of towers.

There are also some comparisons which result from an upgrade but in those cases it's relatively rare to upgrade only one level unless the new speakers are the top of the line (which explains the M60-to-M80 reviews). If Axiom made M100s then I'm sure you would see a lot more M60-to-M100 reviews than M60-to-M80...

M100... hum... interesting though, 3 woofers, 3 midrange and 3 tweeters, LOL... Better start saving for the upgrade

cheaper by the dozen?