I totally agree with spiffnme, before I bought my Axioms based on all the unbiased feedback on this forum (not like AVS) I listed to NHT, Klipsch, Paradigm, and B&W's on all of the receiver's I was thinking about.... Like you spiffnme, I fell in love with the B&W look and sound, the 703's are just toooo cool. I figured the price would be more than Axioms, and that was confirmed when I saw the price tag at the local AV Dealer. But when the salesman said, oh, I'm sorry, that price is for only ONE speaker, I about fell over. Also, my brother in law owns a recording studio and has only used B&W's in the studio and at home for as long as I've known him. He could not believe the sound my M60's put out, we were listening to a recent CD his band just produced, and he was VERY impressed with the sound coming from my system. He had never heard of Axiom's and his best guess was that I payed close to $1,000 per speaker based on the quality and sound he was hearing. The look on his face when I told him the truth, I wish I had a camera...
I have not been around AV as much as some of the others on this forum, but I have been around music most of my life. I grew up around the piano, played 1st chair trumpet in jazz band, and have a pretty good singing voice. Must have got that from my dad, he was a professional singer and was on Ed Sullivan back in 59, for the Army Entertainment Show. Some of you old timers might remember that broadcast each year...
Randy