Very interesting review, however, it would seem that "mid-range" difference may come in the form of the crossover setting and its emphasis much like the mid-range/high emphasis in a tube guitar amplifier(I am an old player). I would suspect here the natural response would be that because this portion of the music came across "louder" in that frequency range, the music seems more forward and "live" in its response. I suppose the bulk of us here are "Axiomites" and we have our favourites, however, you bring up a couple of good points in your review that no matter what, would certainly make me strongly NOT consider the purchase of the Omen Defs.
Since I would imagine the majority of us here would have a combined A/V set-up in which we would be listening and watching both movies and music within the same system, the very size of these speakers and in order to "max out" their response especially at the low end and the somewhat greater sensitivity to placement, would be a turn-off for me. The fact that the cabinet is so much bigger yet the laws of physics don't seem to come in to play here. If I was buying these speakers brand new from the company itself, along with the larger driver size and a significantly larger cabinet, for the money spent, I would have expected a noticeably greater bass response. To me, this excellent review and comparison maybe just shows how really good the Axiom design is.
I believe most of us or for that matter, any audiophile who listens to music, prefers the "across the board" smoother neutral sound, especially when it comes to music.
Over the years, I have had and disposed of many models in various forms and sizes and, I suppose I am showing my loyalty here, but the M80's turned out to be the equal or best of the lot, especially for the money. Just my two cents anyway.
