Welcome corduroy41. Those are very early AX5s you have. I would say around 1984. The original 1981 version did not have an aluminium cone subwoofer in the rear. I did design them at the NRC using all the technology we had at the time. Those were the early days of understanding the family of curves and the affect they had on Double Blind Listen Test results. Julian Hirsch gave them an outstanding rating back in the day and noted that they were “the flattest loudspeaker he had ever measured”. What we are producing today has all the latest technology built in relating to the family of curves that has been discovered over the past 33 years by ourselves and others. We have also made big improvements in the available dynamic range. So an upgrade to a current model is something you may want to consider at some point. When you are ready let us know because we would give you a trade up value for your AX5s to put in our museum. It is also worth noting that not all speakers available on the market today will sound better than your AX5s; there is still a lot of disregard for the family of curves in speaker design, even today.
Thanks for the reply Ian! It's been a while since I've had the time to follow up with this thread.
So yesterday came about and I typically fire up my stereo to listen to the ever popular Psychedelic Psunday on Q107 out of Toronto. I'm enjoying away for the first few minutes but something wasn't right. The tweeter of the right channel is acting up. I ran though the usual checks.. loose connections, flaky speaker wire, bad amp channel.. no luck. Tried a spare set of speakers, and yep.. the tweeter is cooked. I've since emailed the customer service contact and hope to hear about a replacement. But this got me thinking. Maybe an upgrade is in order.
I'm hard pressed to upgrade these speakers only due to how nice they sound, when fully functioning of course. What's a natural upgrade path or comparable model here? I've been eyeing the M80's, but I've never heard them. I just don't know where to go from here.
On a side note, I'm considering a trip up to Bracebridge this coming weekend. I'm sure I could find the time to bring them by if this is at all possible.
