Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater The Agony of VaSSallo Speaker Damage

Hi All,

I have been a frequent visitor to this forum over the years and I would first like to thank everyone for all the valuable information you provided ranging from glowing Axiom speaker reviews to home theater design details. Primarily based upon your speaker reviews and your accounts of Axiom’s second to none customer service, I ordered my Axiom Epic 80 500 5.1 system on January 21. I selected the VaSSallo cherry wood in cinnamon satin for the M80’s, VP150 and EP500 and Black Oak finish for the QS8 surrounds.

I thought my first post would be a review of my six Axiom speakers and two Mirage Omnisat back surrounds; however, shipping damage to one of my VaSSallo M80 speakers has my home theater on an extended hold. With just one functioning M80, I can’t run the Audyssey MultEq/auto setup in my Denon 4308 receiver to complete my audio setup and finalize my speaker locations.

Here is my estimated 6 week M80 repair timeline. I follow this with some observations on speaker shipping damage (I apologize in advance for my long first post):

VaSSallo M80 Speaker Repair Timeline (last revised 3/31/08)

March 07: Axiom Epic 80 500 5.1 speaker system received with shipping damage (FedEx)
1. Internal Damage to one VaSSallo M80 speaker
2. Cosmetic damage to the edge of one Black Oak QS8 (I will repair it myself and receive a 5% discount from Axiom rather than risk another shipment)
3. Extensive damage to both M80 shipping boxes as well as other speaker boxes

March 12: Axiom determined that my M80 had to be returned (in a new box) to have its crossover repaired/replaced
A special thanks to JC at Axiom for his help to isolate the M80 internal speaker damage, his help to resolve an EP500 ground loop problem and researching several questions.

March 18: First replacement M80 shipping box arrived with extensive damage (FedEx)
Photos of unusable damaged M80 box immediately emailed to Axiom.

March 29: Delivery of second replacement M80 flat box on Saturday (FedEx)
Empty M80 flat box arrived with just small repairable holes in the sides.

March 31: Earliest available pickup of Damaged M80 on Monday (DHL)
Prepaid shipping label and shipping details were handled by Axiom --Thanks Noreen

April 14 to April 21: Axiom estimated 2 to 3 weeks to return my repaired M80

Speaker Damage Observations:
1. My VaSSallo cinnamon cherry wood speakers are absolutely gorgeous; however, I completely overlooked the repair aspect when I made my finish selection. If I had selected a standard finish, Axiom’s outstanding customer service would have immediately sent me a replacement M80 from stock. Since there are no custom VaSSallo M80 speakers waiting in stock, my home theater will be down for about 6 weeks if all goes well. Given that shipping damage to VaSSallo speakers is even more costly for Axiom and a major inconvenience for Axiom customers, perhaps all custom finished speakers should be shipped in more damage resistant packaging.

2. 50% of my M80’s were DOA (Damaged on Arrival) and the first three M80 boxes (one box almost empty) were DOA. I know other forum members have identified areas of the country that experienced similar shipping damage. Perhaps Axiom should formally identify these DOA shipping zones and use special packaging material for deliveries to those zones. I would like to nominate the Greater Philadelphia area as the first official Axiom DOA zone, to be identified as DOAP (Damaged on Arrival - Philly). I believe all DOAP shipments should be double boxed to minimize both G force and cosmetic damage. For example, my Denon 4308 receiver (42 pounds) arrived double boxed with plastic air bags between the inner and outer boxes. Although there was damage to the outer box and some of the air bags were broken, the inner box was factory fresh and the receiver has performed flawlessly.

3. If my M80 is damaged again on either leg of the round trip between Philly and Axiom, my audio setup/finalizing speaker locations will likely remain on hold until sometime in May. In the meantime I have over 200 feet of 12 gauge speaker wire, with a beautiful flame-retardant gray PVC jacket rated for in wall installation, hanging from the ceiling and walls in my family room . I’m very reluctant to start cutting into my walls and ceiling to snake the speaker wires until I finalize my 7.1 speaker locations. Needless to say, the WAF is understandably strained.

I will periodically update my M80 repair timeline. I calculated the probability of a successful M80 FedEx round trip between Philly and Axiom based upon a 50% one way failure rate, and it didn’t look good. I’m hoping that DHL has a gentler, kinder M80 shipping policy to the greater Philadelphia area.

Please wish me luck.