Okay, got a chance to compare these a bit to my outdoor M3s. This was the easiest/quickest way I could do a direct A/B comparison. This is not high end audio equip, this is my shop music system. Cheapo Sony AVR, two outdoor M3s (v4), and a cheap 10" sub. The M3s are the most expensive part of the setup. I'm NOT an audiophile, but I like my Axiom speakers (M60s/VP150/EP500 previously) and can appreciate how much better they sound compared to others I tried. I figured the plastic outdoor speakers would be a good comparison to the plastic ceiling speakers.
I have these on a shelf, about 6' up, about 8' apart, and I stood about 10' from the speakers in the center. I used some music from Fireflight, a Christian metal band, with a female (breathy) vocalist and some classical accompaniment, which gave me a wide range of sounds to compare in just a couple of songs. (this is way overkill for ceiling speakers isn't it?).
Trial 1- speakers set to large, sub off. Here the ported regular M3s obviously won with lower end punch. Vocals were still very clear and airy (listen to me [sarcasm]) and the imaging always amazes me. It's like she's singing directly in front of me, I'm looking there, and my eyes don't see a speaker, but my ears and brain tell me she's right in the middle. I was curious how the different tweeter would compare, and it was maybe just a hair less 'real' sounding compared to the regular M3s, but the difference in the vocals was very subtle. The tell, though, was the much more anemic low end- understandably so without a port. Not much punch at all. There was also a good deal of 'plastic' sounding tone with the lower end. I imagine this would go away once these were mounted in a ceiling. Admittedly these were not made to just sit on a bookshelf, so I really can't hold that against them.
Trial 2- set speakers to small, sub on, crossover about 80 (dial on the back of the sub goes from 40-240 without any other marks, so I do my best to get it around 80). Here it was nearly impossible to tell any difference between the two. The plastic tone was gone. The regular M3s still sounded a bit fuller, vocals were more 'real', but I could easily listen to the ceiling speakers in that setup on a regular basis sitting on a shelf. The sound was MUCH closer to the regular M3s with the sub.
So there you go, a very unprofessional review of the new speakers. I think they will do great for my use, overheads in an Atmos setup and will complement my other speakers well. I don't think anyone would use these for main speakers unless you just had to with WAF. Now I just need to decide if I use these for the surrounds as well or in-wall M3s or on wall M3s...
