I read every speaker review I could on Axioms and Ascends. After going out locally and listening to Polk, DynAudio, NHT, Monitor Audio, Boston Acoustic, Sonus Faber, ProAc and some others I decided I had a good basis from which to judge speakers. After much deliberation I ordered both the the M60 and 340's due to their their liberal 30 day trial periods.
Of those I heard I liked the ProAc Tablette, DynAudio Audience 52, and Sonus Concertina. Most of the towers sounded "boomy" to me.
Set Up:
Old Sony CD plaryer w/ analog outs
Sony STR-DE895 receiver
Music:
Earl Klugh, Miles Davis, Joey DeFrancesco, Rush (Tom Sawyer), Herbie Hancock, Grateful Dead (Attics of My Life).
M60:
On it's own I liked the M60. The bass was very controlled and not boomy. The mids seemed pretty well defined. The highs were my only beef. They exhibited what I noticed in other speakers I auditioned with metal tweeters: an unnatural accent...maybe this is called sibilance? I also thought that cymbals were missing a certain attack that I heard in other speakers. I don't know if that is the tweeter or something else. On some vocals I did actually like the "airy" quality of the high end but I don't think that is as it was recorded.
340's:
These really astounded me. I kept hearing things in the music that I hadn't heard before. They just seem to bring out every little detail, particularly in the mids with things like vocals and guitar. Earl Klugh's classical guitar just seemed so rich and dead on. I heard Herbie Hancock moaning along with his piano riff on one track and had to skip back in amazement. I put in Joey DeFrancesco's organ playing I just couldn't beleive the detail. Adding the sub in with the organ music, of course, made it that much more amazing.
The down side to the 340's has been the sub integration. Sometimes it seems right on and other times it seems disconnected from the music. I've spoken with Hsu and they believe it is partly due to a high crossover on the Sony though neither they nor I know what it is(not specified in manual). Putting the sub between the fronts has helped blend them but sometimes the relative level of the sub to fronts seems to be out of whack when it was fine for another song.
So, I'm going to try a H/K 430 with multiple crossover settings and (hopefully) better bass management. This is an added cost I wasn't expecting after plopping down so much on speakers. I'd count that as a mark against Sony more than Hsu/Ascend. Bu the way, don't trust the sales dudes at Best Buy. THe Sony does not have an adjustable crossover as they said.
Conclusion:
FOr me the 340's/Hsu did music music better. A final conclusion cannot be made until I try the H/K. Even with the sub dilemma I'm going with the Ascend but you could count the extra complexity/cost to the 340s of adding a sub as count for towers like the M60.
Thank you all for your input in previous posts as it educated me enough to evaluate speakers.
) And, be sure to get back to us on whether or not the 430 makes a difference in your "sub dilemma." 
