Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Sean and Dean’s Excellent Adventure

You're right, Adrian, those do look really similar!

Sorry, guys, I don't know why the pics came out so small?

Instead of setting up the speakers in the AB-BA formation, did you try the AB-AB formation? Just wondering if that would be easier and/or more accurate since you could stay put and still be in the sweet spot for both sets of speakers by just slightly turning / swiveling the seat. Sounds like a fun time

One of the main differences between the speakers still remained presentation. While, earlier, it was of a horizontal nature, once we put the M80s on the outside the difference became more about top to bottom. The Axioms definitely present a wall of sound with the array of drivers on the M80s. This driver array really brings forth an energetic midrange. I found the M80s to be an exciting speaker that really brought the music to the listening position.

The Loreleis, on the other hand, are a tad darker. They seemed to take a slight step away from the listener and extended the sound a bit off to the side. Tonally, the two speakers were very similar. Some recordings were very hard to tell apart in the timbre. Both speakers did a good job of delivery the entire musical spectrum, but just offered a different take. I found the bass to be really close. Both were sharp and well-defined and went equally low. We put on some organ music by Bach and both speakers excelled at conveying the deep bass. On this particular CD, I noticed the sound of the upper registers of the organ were angled higher up on the Loreleis than on the M80s. Here, the extra drivers of the M80s helped fill in a grander sense of scale from bottom to top--in terms of the sound physically coming at us.

Again, going with Bach, we put on Cello Suites Nos. 1, 5, & 6 played by Yo-Yo Ma and I was hard-pressed to tell a difference between the two speakers. We thought the use of just the cello alone was a nice way to really gauge the tonality of the speakers. Less going on musically and more sustained tones played at length.

Well, I'll let Dean chime in with his impressions.

All in all, I really liked both speakers. I cannot call a winner or loser--and really, that wasn't the point of our listening session. It was more of a way to enjoy different speakers and broaden our listening horizons. There are things I liked about the M80s and there are things I liked about the Loreleis. Both are very capable speakers, while doing some things quite alike, while also doing some things differently.

I'd like to thank Dean for letting me come over and invade his space for an entire day--a day that was both educational and fun!

That's a good idea. We didn't try that.

I guess one of the drawbacks was that the wires connecting to the switch box were not really long enough for good freedom of movement--at least to lean back on the couch. We started with one of us sitting in the center while the other was slightly forward and off to the side to do the switching. After a while, the switcher (whoever it was) sat on the floor right in front of the couch.

Yeah, the AB-AB positioning is often suggested so as to minimize the positional effects.

By the way Dean, have you got another Carmina Burana besides the Thielemann that you were saying last year had some moments of harshness?

wish I had been there!

Sean did graciously provide me the chance to hear his Loreleis one fine day, and it was a transformational experience. It is worth noting that they are a 2-driver, 2-way speaker that - to my ears - was "full range". Amazing bass for one, 7" driver.

SO cool that you guys got to share a listen.

I even let Tom listen to one of my tubes go bad!

(although we weren't sure what the problem was at the time)


Thanks for the kind words, my friend!

Here is the one picture I took. It didn’t look blurry on the camera.



Part of this is easy as I can say I concur with everything Sean said but will expand on a few things.

First I was shocked at how much of a difference repositioning the M80s made in their soundstage when compared to the Loreleis. I’ve experienced that the M80s are somewhat finicky with placement. I’ve also read a couple professional reviews supporting that opinion. However, I’ve never placed them as close together in this room as our first test nor had another brand of speakers in this room to reference them against. Where the Loreleis were throwing sound out about a foot outside each speaker the M80s sound was coming from them. So that when we repositioned the speakers with the M80s on the outside both speakers sound stages seemed about the same width. We did not play with toe-in or anything else to see how things changed. If there is a lesson to be learned by potential and current owners play around with your speaker positioning.

As Sean said in the second position (M80s outboard) there were tracks where it was hard to tell them apart w/o listening carefully. These were what I would best call the less busy passages like acoustical guitar and the Cello. OTOH, in the busy tracks like some Boston, Jethro Tull, Sonic Bloom, and Vivaldi the wall of sound the M80 presented seemed much more forceful and room filling. This was this characteristic of the M80s that lead me to choose them as an “all-around” speaker over some Focals and B&Ws I also liked.

Another big difference I noticed was the vertical positioning of the soundstage between the speakers. Despite being as Sean said a little “darker,” when sitting at tweeter level the the Loreleis seemed to project more ambiance into the room. Not that the M80s weren’t putting out ambiance but the array of drivers running down almost to the floor cause their overall soundstage to be pulled down distracting from the ambience. Hence the reason I’ve for years now elevated my M80s off the ground so that the tweeters are above ear level.

Both these are capable speakers that as Sean said often sounded similar, but also often gave very different presentations of the same material. Main lesson to be learned here is try (in your room) before you buy (w/o option to return). Pay little attention to what speakers others think that you will like unless you have experience listening to speakers with that person or at least have both heard the same speakers and both described them sounding the same way so you have a common frame of reference from which to describe other speakers.

That's an excellent point that Dean brings up about speaker positioning. I've heard his M80s up on his "stands" (read: milk crates) :D, and the advantage of getting them up higher, at least for his room, is that the drivers have a better opportunity to throw the sound out into the room rather than into the couch. While sitting on the floor running the switch box this force of the drivers coming right at me was readily apparent.

It was the same SACD only this time I wasn’t hearing any harshness. AFAIR I was only hearing the harshness back then during the louder passages. That stopped when I switched from the Denon 2807 to the Onkyo 3007. Same thing with the louder passages in movies like the battles in “Master and Commander.” Scenes that made me cringe with the 2807 smoothed right out with the 3007. In this case we were using Sean’s amp but same thing no harshness.