Ted,
One note on your ‘bright’ comments. I have no intension to get into that debate (it’s long since bored me to tears and I care not for discussing again), but I will say that I also found the M80’s to be a little bit too forward. I installed some resistors that Axiom will send you if you ask. Problem went away. (they lower high freq a tad) After a year or so, I moved them to another room and found that the high’s were now missing some, so I pulled the resisters out. It sounded better to me, but still just tad too forward for my tastes. I threw a big assed wool rug down on the hardwood floor in front of them and now love the sound. The key word being “wool”.
So before closing the door on the M22/M60/M80 siblings, I suggest you play with room treatments first and if that doesn’t work, ask for and install the resistors. I would even bet that if you ask, Axiom will send you the speakers with the resistors installed. (this company is unbelievably accommodating to their customers wishes).
I suggest that you not go with M80’s in your particular room because you will have to tuck the speakers into the corner to not interrupt the walkway in/out the doorways. M60’s are a lot more forgiving with corner placement than M80’s. Or, I should rephrase that to….M80’s are finicky to where you place them.
Good luck with the boss.
