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

Greetings Earthlings and others

I am down to my final 2 choices.Axiom M80's or Paradigm Studio 100's ( + all necessary accessories to complete 7.1 ). Has anyone owned or sincerly compared the two. Any info or opinions would be helpful.
MHJ
P.S. Room size 25 x 18 x 12

Hi MHJ, I'm sure others will chime in here, and there have been many posts comparing Paradigm and Axiom, you might want to try the search utility. I don't remember which Studio model I tested, but I did like my M60's over Paradigm. I also auditioned B&W, NHT, and Klipsch, but Axiom one out in the end. Hopefully some one will jump on here that has heard both, I know the 80's are fabulous. Also, depending on where you live, you might check the Axiom Audition thread in the Q&A forum to see if there is someone with 80's in your area...

hope you become an Axiomite soon

Randy

I don't own those Paradigms but my friend does.

Paradgm's high end speakers and Axiom's towers sound very similar. However, Axioms are far less expensive and have much btter customer support. I thus went with the Axioms.

Try auditioning some Axioms in your area to hear how good they are. Then you can compare them to the Paradigms whic I'm sure you can hear in a store

I have auditioned the Studio 100's. Compared them to Polk Audio RT & LS series Also compared them to Definitive Technology BP 7004 which in my opinion they won hands down (they lost against the Martin Logan's but that a completly different price range). Not as bright as the BP 7004 or the Polk RT's. I already own Klipsch which are brighter than the sun and no amount of tweaking has been able to tone them down. I do not like bright speakers as excess high frequency tends to irritate my ears.The Polk LSi25's have a natural sound but only under power. The lower the volume the duller the sound. So I guess my question is How bright are these speakers?

Ravi, have you had bad support from Paradigm?

I have a friend who had a `hard` time getting in touch with them and then had to wait about 2 weeks for a replacement driver from the store he bought it from. It`s not bad, but with Axiom, whenver I call I get someone right away, and I had a part to replace and it arrived in less than 36 hours.

2 weeks without my speakers is too long. 36 hours is superb service.

One of my best friends has Paridigm, and he swears by there service.
I'm not sure I agree with his logic though.

Kent (my friend): "I've blown my tweeters 5 times, and all I have to do is call Paridigm, then go to the local dealer and pick up a new tweeter."

I didnt say so, but I would think there is something else wrong if he has blown his tweeters 5 times.

I have, and have made mention of this several times here. I think you can do a search on my user name and see what I wrote before. I don’t post much, so you should be able to find it without too much hassle. It was about a year ago that I actually listened to them, so right now I’m just going off my failing memory. But anyway, In a nutshell, they sound very similar (to my ears anyway). The 80’s are slightly more detailed, which is either good or bad depending on your music / listening preferences. The 80’s have a tighter mid range (again to my ears). As far as deep base, I think it’s a toss up which one has more or less. I am not a budget conscience type of guy when it comes to buying what I want, so the price of the 100’s didn’t scare me. But for the difference in price, I bought a sub and the 80’s, and couldn’t be more pleased. One thing for certain though, the 80’s play louder than the 100’s did. And it wasn’t a wattage thing either. The 100’s were being driven by some very pricey McIntosh equipment, my 80’s are being driven by mid range HK equipment.

Yes...I'm looking at the New Paradigm Monitor 5 and the Axiom M50ti speakers. I've been told the M50ti is "harsh and bright" to some....and the Monitor 5 is lacking in bass...Any advice???

As an owner of M50's I do not find them harsh and brite nor have I heard that description from anyone who owns them. Like all Axiom speakers they are clear and detailed. With bad recordings the material sounds bad. With good recordings they are extremely enjoyable.

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.

Hi guys,
Would like to expand(of maybe contract)on one point if I may; And that is on "Forewardness" as relates to M3s.

In my experience only; when listening to my M3s I find them to place the vocalist right at the plane of the TV, while the M50s put the sound "about" one foot foreward. I know that statement is derived only from a population of one, but it's what I've found in "my" room. I also believe the M50s have a tad better midrange as well. (I did another A/B test on the M3/M50s the other night just before putting the M3s in back, just to see if my original observations a few weeks ago were still valid)

They were.

Interesting... so the M50s would be closer to M2/M22s in sound than even the M3s were.

Again, that's from only one isolated individual, but it is my take on the situation.

I should expand on that-my testing was a very simple "Plunk 'em down and listen" evaluation. The test, as such, was followed a few weeks later with a similar test with similar results.

I really dig my M3s, but these new kids seem to be...