Greetings all,
I just did the same thing, and YES!, the tone, interest in other's opinions, and camradrie shown on these forums, as well as the incredible help that I got from Brent and Amie at Axiom made what should have been a very stressful buying experience quite easy.
Because of budgetary considerations, I had to split the order between Outlet stock and regular stock. So this past week I got my M60s and Qs8s, and I am still awaiting delivery on my SP150, EP350 and M2i's for the front effects.
The M60s are nothing short of a revelation.
In all honesty, I had pretty much resigned myself to having to wait quite a bit longer to make the jump to a new speaker system. I had listened to just about everything out there that was in my wallet's comfort level, and really could not find anything that I thought represented enough of a leap in quality over my current system for what I was willing to spend.
The about-to-be-replaced system is a set of Polk S10's, (probably 10 years old by now, but still- and I gave them one last serious listen to before hooking up the M60s - a really pretty sounding set of speakers for what I paid for them) a CS-250 front, FX300I for the surrounds, a PSW300 Sub, and a pair of the M3II's for the front effects. Except for the M3II's everything has the same high and mid range drivers in them, which I think contibute tremendously to how well matched and balanced the system sounds.
All is running through a Yamaha RX-V2092, with a Yamaha DC765 CD player and a Sony DVP-NS725P (that will be the first of the components to be replaced - not very impressive for either music or movies, but it was cheap!)
But back to the point...
I simply cannot believe what these M60s can do, compared to what I listened to for 2 and 3 times their price.
The purity, clarity, musicality, imaging, and spaciousness are simply incredible. And, given their accuracy, they are very, very easy to listen to. They never become harsh or overbearing at the upper end, and they are still not broken in! I cannot imagine what they are going to sound like in a month or two.
I've not yet hooked up the Qs8's. I know, they have been here almost a week! And it is killing me!
But I am still waiting for a couple of friends to come over and hear the old Polk set-up, to see if they want to buy it. And when I pull down the old surrounds I am going to have to change the mounting placement, and I don't want to be bothered with unmounting, mounting, and unmounting if I do not have to. The SPF (Sweetie Patience Factor) goes way down the longer there are holes in walls and wallboard dust drifting around!
There are two things that I have been having trouble with since I hooked up the M60's.
First, I find that I cannot decide what to listen to! I just keep jumping from CD to CD, like a little kid!
"Wow! That's incredible! I wonder how (fill in the blank) sounds!" I'm driving The Sweetie crazy. Heck, the day after they got here, it took me almost a half an hour to refile all of the CDs that I pulled out the night before!
Second; Badly recorded, or badly mastered CDs really do sound lousy. It is amazing what a difference this makes. It dawned on me while I was listening to some of my older stuff that there are now kids of legal drinking age that are younger than some of my CDs!
So, I'm glad that I saved some of my $$$s by going the outlet route, because there are going to be plenty of CDs that will need replacing. (At least those are easier to sneak in than new speakers and components!)
Anyway, thanks again for all of your insightful and well-reasoned comments and advice. I did not post much, but I was devouring everthing for weeks leading up to finally pulling the trigger.
And YES! When everything is in place, I will indeed post a picture or two!
Bravo to Axiom, and Bravo to all of their passionate fans, of which I am now happy to include myself!
TjB
