Welcome, Storm. I can mostly only echo what others have said: Axioms are great, accurate speakers and an excellent value. Much of the "negativity" you read about on forums are the same couple of people who feel that they have an axe to grind and shout bad stuff in every forum, and some others who have never heard Axioms (literally!) but give their impressions based on reading stuff from those other few people. Also, garbage in- garbage out. Axioms are revealing and will reward you with good recordings, but show the flaws of bad mastering too. Finally, Axioms service IS top-rate!
What I can add to the other posts is this: The best place to listen to speakers is in YOUR room, in YOUR speaker positions, listening to the music YOU like. It's near impossible to do that with a brick-and-mortar store. Someone (Jack?) once said that if you look at the cost of shipping them back as just a very low "rental fee" to have world-class speakers in your home for a month, it's a bargain. And really, very few people ever want to return them so the chances of that are low.
Also, in being fair, the other speakers that you're listening to are also good speakers (from manufacturers who largely look to produce accurate speakers over manufacturers who produce colored speakers. i.e., speakers with a "certain sound"). I don't think you would go wrong with the other choices, but I do think that Axioms' direct-to-consumer business model will give you a better value than the other brands, where each distributor and seller along the way jack up the final price to make their profits.
Again, welcome!
Tell us a bit about your room and the music / movies that you like!
Last edited by MarkSJohnson; 12/12/14 06:25 PM.
