Jerry, I used to hang on the AVS forums a lot, I think I have about 3,000 posts. 5 years ago when I was looking at speakers, I got so sick of the Axiom bashers over there talking about how Axiom speakers are bright, this simply is not true.
They are designed to be very neutral and have a flat freq response in anechoic testing. They will bring out the true recording as it was intended to be heard. Now, if you have a poorly engineered/recorded cd, that is not the fault of the Axiom speakers, but I can guarantee top quality recordings will sound fantastic.
Back in the day, "bright", was used to define a speaker that was detailed and true to the original source. For some reason the AVS trolls have a changed this definition to be a bad thing.
You may want to check the audition threads in our "Hearing Things" section to see if you can find someone up in your neck of the woods that will let you listen to Axioms.
To answer your question, I think the Axiom speakers are much better than any retail type brand, like Polk.
