Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Sound Quality (Price not important): M60/80 vs...

An option that you can look into if you share your location, that someone with Axiom speakers in your local area might be more than willing for you to hear a set of speakers live.

The down side to speakers as you will get from reading the forums here are that they sound different from room to room, location to location, one song to another.

I have spent some good money over bad trying to get that perfect sound only to come up short as I just didn't understand the fickle side to sound.

I was told that the M80 speakers were like the Paradigm Studio 100 (but others said the Studio 60's). I did go to a dealer who would not let me take a pair home and evaluate demo them, so I spent a good two part days inside their listening room to get what I thought was a feel for how they sounded.
The Studio 60 just didn't work for me with the lower frequencies in trying to catch the essence of a grand piano or deliver the feel of an upright bass. It couldn't reproduce a pipe organ where to can feel the sudden attack of sound from the different ranks. The Studio 100 did a far better job and I was seriously considering buying them.

I found out about Axiom and said if it's just going to cost me $60 to ship them back if I don't think they live up to my taste, it's a small price to pay to see how they sound in my own home with my own equipment. Non of this I've bought them so now I better love them and second guessing if they sounded better in the show room that what I am hearing now,

I got the M80.V4 and fell in love with them. The sound stage was by far better than what I was hearing in the dealers show room. I listened to the same tracks, but it felt like the sound was more there and that you could place each of the instruments inside the stage and not just a blur between what is left and what is right. A grand piano sounded right there, down to the subtle decay as the notes rolled off to nothing. I wasn't expecting to get blown away but it felt like this speaker was just singing to me.

As I have said time and time again in this and other forums. The down side to Axiom speakers are how revealing they are. Feed it a bad recording of something that sounded good on your old speakers and it will show you all the flaws and weaknesses that are there and not cover any of it up. The other side of the coin however is that if you feed them a great recording, you will sit in awe about how great it sounds and then feel that your old speakers were letting you down.

Your choice about no sub is more a statement of how you have not heard a good sub. A great sub will not let you know it is even there until you turn it off and get a glimpse of that little part of the sound that you are now missing and wish it was turned back on.

Can the Axiom's work without a sub. YES. Does it produce the lower frequencies. Yes.

I have heard some PSB and Totem and B&W and there are models that do make me smile. All cost significantly more that what I paid and all have their sound nuances that are different that what I have. I just happen to have become accustomed to the sound of my Axioms and really like it. Not to say that the others are bad. Just different.