Scott, check the "Hearing Things" thread if you want an audition or call up Axiom to see if there's someone near you. Also, I would suggest you listen to some Monitor Audio Silver series and also some Paradigm Studio series speakers if you haven't already. They are all priced well below what you have been looking at and in my opinion, are all very enjoyable speakers.

Half of communication is listening. You can't listen with your mouth.