In short, I wondered this myself before buying, but such an approach will rarely be successful in getting the product you want. So get the Axioms and be happy knowing you got todays best speaker at the best price.
The hard reality of today is technology changes so fast that a consumer can never keep up, this used to be just for computers but is very much applicable to most of all products today. If you really look at it this is just to create a false sense of need to push more product. Is a toaster or coffee maker today really that much better than one made 5 -10-100 years ago? Just look at receivers. Almost every 6 months there’s some new better processor and processing that comes out. We can only blame ourselves, the consumer for falling into this trap. Fortunately, I think speakers are somewhat buffered from this. I have a pair of 15 year old bookshelf Missions that I’d wager are as good as many bookshelf speakers ( including new missions I”ve heard ) sold today at the same price as I bought mine ( I’m clearly not including Axiom speakers in this assestment ).
Also, remember Axiom has really broken ground in the price / performance arena that many companies with even newer releases can’t match and I think it’ll be difficult for any company including Axiom to have such a dramatic improvement in their next speaker line up. Even if you wait and a new line up came in 6 months, are you going to buy newly released speakers or wait another 6 months for descent reviews to come out ? And who know’s what the new Axiom line up would be like. There’s no guarantee the’d offer the same value. I’d wager that any really significant improvement would be at least 10 years down the road? Do you want to wait that long? I didn’t! Besides, by that time, you’ll likely need 20 speakers for a HT system.
If you really really want to try to make an educated guess as to wether newer speakers will come out in the next while consider this:
Ian is quoted as saying in a couple years (from the time this article was written) there could be some new interesting technology to discuss, with the interviewer. Which is about now. Hmmm no outdoor speakers released yet, no in-wall speakers released yet, ( a newer line of sub on the way...) seems to me there's alot that need to come before a newer line up of speakers...
http://www.goodsound.com/features/2001_07_01.htm
The M80’s were changed from they’re original speaker config. So why change them anytime soon?
Here are some recent obsolete speakers within the last year:
http://www.axiomaudio.com/qs2.html
http://www.axiomaudio.com/vp0.html
and the Millennia MZero Ti bookshelf couldn't find the link
I have no idea how long these where sold for but that could give you an idea of how often Axiom updates their speakers…
But again, just buy the speakers they're truly awesome and you'll be happy for years to come.
El
