Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Axioms vs. Paradigm

Thank You! I have Athena AS-F2 towers with a NAD amp in the living room and that's exactly how I would discribe THEM. Without being able to hear the Axioms I appreciate your opinion. Thanks Again! Oh...Do you feel that the bass is to your liking too? With the back port, how have you placed them? These will be for a 12'X 12' den.

I have the M50s also, and can't say for one little bit that they are either harsh or bright. In fact I bought them to replace a pair of M3s, which have been "professionally" reviewed dozens of times with never a negative comment. In many years of listening, I've not heard a single bad sound from them!! So at update time I opted for those speakers that seemed to most closely approximate the M3s: The M50s.

The M50s are a tad more foreward than the M3s, and tend to enlarge the orchestra being listened to, to "full-sized"(imho) status. They also seem to have a slightly clearer mid-range, and more accurate mid-bass than the M3s.

So, "harsh and bright"? Nope, not in mine-or most anyone on these posts who've heard thems-opinion!!
Rich.

Hi Twebbz, welcome to our forum! (Shame on me for not saying that sooner!!!)

Hopefully someone else will pop in with their comments on bass-as my room has the accoustics of an overgrown rock quarry, and getting good bass from ANYTHING is a bit of a problem. Add to that the fact that I am required to put my speakers now in a cabinet dosen't help either. I had to boost the bass a couple db in my recvr. to level it out down to my x-over of 60hz. but the bass I have is extreemly clean and tight(now) I had my M3s crossed at 80hz, and that plus the M3 bass hump gave the bass a somewhat looser sound.

At any rate, the M50s are really tied-down to where they are, located in a cabinet that cannot be moved!! But yet with recvr mods I can get an acceptably tight and clean bass which I'm actually very satisfied with!

Maybe having a back AND a front port helps!
Rich.

I have the M22s at this time, but I've always had an itch to upgrade to floorstanders. I don't really want to spring for the M60s. I had auditioned the M50s for awhile and found them a bit too tame for my tastes. If I opted for a pair of M40s would I be disappointed?

I guess it depends on what you are looking for. The M40 will get you excellent bass response but I wouldn't expect it to have a "larger" sound than the M22s.

Hate to say it but for you the next step up from M22s probably *is* M60s.

The M3ti, M40ti and M50ti have consistantly been grouped together as the more "laid back" sounding Axioms speakers.

The M2i, M22ti, M60ti, and M80ti, are the more forward, detailed group. If you have and enjoy the M22ti, the step up the food chain for you would be the M60ti, if you want to keep the same "style" of sound.

How big is your room? How far away would you be sitting from a pair of towers? How close together would they be? Depending on your room, and setup the M60ti's aren't necessarily going to be "better" than the M22ti's you have now. The bigger speakers need more breathing room.

I'm not a one for great pounding bass so I lived without a sub-woofer for some time. For music I never found bass missing. I bought an Outlaw LFM subwoofer last summer. Its presence on movies can be very noticable. On music I truely cannot tell where the M50's might leave off and the sub picks up. I have all the bass I could ever want perfectly blended.

The m22s are about 6 ft apart from one another, in a room 12 ft x 20 ft, but the area is really smaller than that due to the seating configuration. It's really a lousy room to put a ht theater in, but it was my only choice. Depending on where one sits you may be either 4 feet or 10 feet from the right m22. I usually sit 4 feet from the right front mostly due to a personal comfort issue. I really like the enveloping sound of the 22s, but I wish it's sound was fuller. I guess my real question is a simple one, which I probably know the answer to. The soundstage quality of the m22 is created by that awesome midrange which the m40s and m50s don't possess. To retain the spaciality of the m22s, I have 2 choices, keep the m22s or buy the M60s. Am I wrong in this assumption?

Buy the M60's...
You won't be sorry.

When I had the chance to A/B compare M2 with M3 (in an admittedly unprofessional way) I found the difference in midrange to be much less than I was expecting. There is a clear and consistent difference -- it was literally as if the vocalist was standing a couple of feet further away with the M3s -- but the soundscape and imaging were indistinguishable between the M2 and M3. I mention this because the latest M2s are full members of the "M2 / M22 / M60 / M80" club in terms of sound characteristics, at least since they picked up the standard 1" tweeter a couple of years ago.

I imagine the soundscape and imaging would be just as good on M40/50 as with the M22s... but I expect you would have to go to at least M50 to get a noticeably "bigger" sound. It's hard to say for sure because that "bigger" sound is so darned hard to characterize and translate into speaker characteristics. The problem is that once you have stretched to M50s the 60s aren't that much further away

I'm wondering if it would be worth experimenting some more with placement, maybe you're sitting too far off axis to get the best sound from the 22s or something like that ? Any chance you could post a pic of your layout ?

One of my concerns is that from your description of the room setup you might have trouble getting 60s into the right position... you need to figure on the front of the cabinets being almost 3 feet from the wall in many rooms. On the other hand if you could use the entire 12' width of the room and have your seating position near the back wall, the M60s would be able to really shine.