Well, a couple of questions (maybe this was answered somewhere else)-
What are your intentions with these speakers- stereo music, movies, both?
Will you be adding a sub at all?
The best advice is of course listen to the speakers yourself to determine what you like.
For example, I have had a set of Aperion 6T's and Axiom M80's in the house now for over 2 weeks. Aperion pays return shipping if you don't keep them, and Axiom pays for shipping to you, but you'll have to pay to return them. For the M80's it will be $70-80, I would expect the M60's would be a bit cheaper. If you can handle that extra cash/risk, then that is the best way to do it. You get to listen to them on your equipment, in your room. I can't tell you how much easier that has made it for me.
In my case, I've been eyeing Axiom's for years, probably 3 or 4, and I finally just got to the point where I could finally upgrade (well, not really, but I'm pretending I'm loaded for now). My goal was to get at least 3 sets of towers in house to audition, but it did't work out and I ended up with only 2.
Well, I'll probably get booed out of here now, but I am sending the M80's back. It is actually a tough decision, and I'm kind of sad about it, but I know I would feel the same sending the 6T's back as well. One day I sat down with my wife, and I did a blind listening test with her for a couple of hours to see what she thought, I used both new sets plus my old set of Cambridge Soundworks Tower II's. In most cases she picked out the 6T's as preferred, and my Cambridge once. When I told her what speakers were which, she was surprised- she thought the ones she kept picking were the M80's. This was done with stereo music, but here's a quick run down of what I found:
6T's- the wood finish is nicer looking than the veneer on the M80
s, that matters a bit to us. We found the 6T's preferable when it came to female voices (though the M80's were not lacking, the Cambridges were). The 6T's were a little bit better for imaging, and had a wider soundstage for us. I had the Cambridge speakers on the inside, the 6T's were in the middle, and the M80's on the outside. I think that speaks well for the 6T's soundstage in that my wife thought the music was coming from the M80's.
M80's- look nice, they do go noticably deeper than the 6T's, not a ton, but enough to notice. The M80's love power, and seemed to hold their composure better at higher volumes than the 6T's did (I do not listen that loud for more than a minute or two at a time nowadays, so that isn't important to me). They're imaging and soundstage were solid, just not quite up to the 6T's.
I've rambled, but I would think some of what we found in our listening tests would probably hold true for the next level down, 5T's and M60's. In my opinion, there isn't a bad choice here between these two brands.
Again, your opinion or experience may be completely different than mine. But in my experience, if looks do not matter, and you need bass because of no sub, or it's strictly for home theater and not so much music, then I would say the M60's would be a good fit. If getting lower bass isn't a big deal, and it's for a lot of 2 channel music, then the Aperion's will work. But if you can, listen to both to decide.
Also, for the record, I am going M2's and QS8's for my surrounds...oh and the Aperions center speaker fits my space a bit better, another reason why I went with them.
