I understand your position as I was in the similar boat in the past year.
I wanted to get a better set of speakers to listen to music. I had heard all the same bad vibes from others with that 'they are too bright' to 'lifeless sounding'. I did my trek out to multiple stores to audition different brands from B&W, Paradyme, PSB & Totem. Each sounded good but it's very hard to really tell what you have in a store listening with an Amp that is not yours, with a room that is not yours to be able to tell if what you hear there is going to be remotely like the sound that you are going to get when you splash down the money and take them home. So I asked 3 different stores if they have a loaner set that I can try. I got 2 NO CHANCE and an offer of 20% restocking fee.
I heard of the Axiom offer and jumped at it. It did take a week longer than I would have liked to get my speakers in. I went with a set from the B-Stock room as I care more about how they sound than how they look. (BTW, I couldn't find the flaw, even after a few hours looking).
The set of M80 speakers blew me away. They were by far miles better than everything else that I had heard for the same cost. I would even hazard to say they blew away the Paradyme speakers costing 3x the price (list).
Then I hit the underlying truth about the Axiom speakers They play what is really there. I did end up going back to one of the hoyty-toyty stores to play a few CD's just to see. If you have a good recording, it will sound awesome. If it is a bad recording, it will sound awful.
The dynamic range and detail is spectacular. I have never truly appreciated some of the songs that I have until I got these speakers. You need to give yourself a good 2-3 weeks of listening to multiple albums several times to really get a feel. There were some tracks that I loved before that I now don't. I know that is't just a bad recording or mix. They sound empty, or hollow. But if I hook back up my older speakers, I now know what music can sound like and they don't sound much better either. I have moved on.
I also did end up sending back the M80 to upgrade to the much larger LFR1100, but in hind sight, I would have still been very happy with the M80's I had and spent the saved money on other items.
