Thanks! I really did like the m40's, and I think if you spend most of your time watching movies, the m40's more than meet the task. And when I listened to some rock, electronica, and trip-hop music, I could hardly notice any difference between the m40 and m60. However, I found the two speakers to be significantly different when it comes to folk, jazz and pop where the vocals are prominent. With a stronger midrange, the m40 would be an amazing bargain - I would have chosen them over the m60's for sure, and never looked back.
On the one hand I don't want to criticize Axiom speakers because they're the best I've heard in their price range, but why must their smallest 3-way speaker be 47 lbs? A friend of mine has an old pair of Axiom towers from the late 80's (not sure of the model #). They're midway between the m22 and m40 in size, but they're true 3-way speakers. In all fairness, they colour the sound a lot more than the current Axioms, but they have a strong midrange, and sound great for speakers pushing 20 years old. Would it not be possible to accomplish something similar by adding a 5 1/4" driver to the m40? Or, what about adding a 6 1/2" driver to the m22, and stretching it a bit to make a tower, in the same way the m40 is essentially a stretched m3? Maybe I'm the only person who would buy them, but I see the lack of a smaller 3-way design as a gap in the Axiom line-up.
Again, at the risk of sounding hypercritical, I love my m60's, but I feel like I made a compromise in buying them. I am assuming there must be a flaw in my reasoning, because it seems that most modern tower speakers are BIG - either by necessity of design, or by consumer demand. Am I missing something here?
