This site show speaker data for about 50 speakers, including 5 from Axiom. NRC of Canada facilities were used to generate the data. In terms of frequency response and distortion, the Energy Connoisseur C-9 and Paradigm Reference Studio 100 v.3 were most impressive, outclassing the M80 from Axiom. Now I am having second thoughts about ordering the M60. Unfortunately, the M60 was not among the speakers that were measured.

Just a wise bit of advice..

Dont buy speakers,componets etc based on specs. The studio 100's cost twice as much as the 80's. if there is a difference between the two, i betcha its not worth over 1000 bucks.

I'd love to see the measuremnts for the VP150. Anyone know if they're available?

Being an engineer (EE), I cannot help but base my decision PARTLY on objective data. Of course price and actual listening preference will weigh on the final decision.

if you were a speaker designer, and wanted to build an "accurate" speaker.....would you trust your ears or your measuring equipment?

Measuring equipment. Accuracy=measurement. Sounds good may or may not, depending on you POV.

"outclassing the M80 from Axiom"

Well...
What do you mean by outclassing? Just looking over the charts it seemed pretty give-and-take to me.

jbmjr,

I have a neighbor who is an engineer. After 15 years of focused effort, we in the neighborhood think we have him on the road to recovery. . Just this weekend he actually sat and enjoyed a fire rather than trying to calculate the temporal and sonoral displacement created by the inverse proportion of the weight/density relationship of the hardwoods incinerating in the fireplace. Concerning my M60s he said, "those new speakers sound pretty damn good".

On a more serious note, have you had a chance to audition the M60s? I'm not sure where you are, but if you contact Amie at Axiom, she may be able to line you up with an audition. I'm pretty sure that if you turn from the analytical decompostion of that page of specs to the pursuit of actually listening to the incredible output of the M60s, you'll just feel a whole lot better about things and really appreciate a treasure in audio.

Damn, i just realized that was totally nonsensical.

What I mean was that the if you're looking to design a speaker that sounds good to you, you might or might not trust measuring, depending on your point of view.

Or you might go for a certain type of measurement.

I suspect that knowing even part of what goes into speaker design would destroy our puny mortal brains!

Hehe. Maybe. I'm thinking that those measurements are only a slice of the greater pie of meaningful measurements, and even that slice is debatable in interpretation.

But it is a thought provoking site and part of a worthy quest.

The M2i has a flatter listening window frequency response than the Wilson Audio WATT/Puppy 7. But that doesn't mean it's a better speaker or that it sounds better overall. The data is interesting and a good thing to consider. The NRC has proved the test data is somewhat relevant to human listening tests. However it's unlikely that every little bump on the graph meaningfully translates to audible differences.

Due to Axiom's return policy, you could haul your M60s to a Paradigm dealer and do an A/B test with the Ref. Studio 100s. In fact that would be a facinating test. Several possible outcomes:

(1) The Axioms sound better.

(2) The Paradigms sound marginally better but not sufficiently so to warrant the price difference.

(3) The Paradigms sound vastly, hugely better and the increased price is well worth it.

I'd bet on either #1 or #2. If you can arrange it, why not do the test? It would be good information to share, plus might give you peace of mind.

I've heard both the Energy Connoisseur C-9 and Paradigm Reference Studio 100 v.3...and I own the Axiom M60ti. As pretty much everyone here has just said, you can't buy a speaker based on a chart. Listen to them. IMHO, the C-9 sounded like crap, and the Paradigm though decent, didn't have the clarity of the Axioms. (and cost twice as much!)

Unlike electronics where the distortion is in the 0.0x% range, distortion in speakers can go up to 5%,10%,20% or even higher, particularly at the low frequencies. That's why speaker manufacturers do not generally publish distortion data, unlike electronics makers.

Canada's NRC has generated accurate data on thousands of speakers, but manufacturers rarely publish them. I applaud soundstage.com for having these speakers tested at NRC and publishing the results, which will undoubtedly benefit the consumer.

you cannot measure soundstage

you cannot measure effortlessness

you cannot measure smooth sound

you cannot measure how dynamic a speaker is

you cannot measure enough --- specs are fun but how it sounds is the bottom line, period.

I do think ravi and 2x6 have good points- we're pretty sure, but can't be completely sure, that we can measure everything speaker/amp related.

However, our ear can measure everything audible, including soundstage, effortlessness, smoothness, etc-- so I'd conclude that with much care (which various engineers may or may not take) and technology that's probably fairly close to what we have now, everything true word in a speaker/amp review can be measured.

Reading closely, I do think 2x6 in another recent post about measurements does have a good point about the problems of measurement. Language is tricky...