well they have arrived. I must admit, I WAS actually blown away by the sound. So incredibly different from my Polk speakers. I noticed right off the bat, my polks were not nearly a flat response and listening to the axioms I was able to hear things more comfortably.
I have pictures, but I have yet to post them. I'll get to that later. Anyway, here are my thoughts.
In my eager wait, I ended up unhooking all my Polks and set them aside in the other room. As I received them, I was overjoyed, as well was the Fed Ex Lady, stating that she was glad that I was actually home! (of course I would be!) First thing I did was turned on the Air Conditioning, anticipating that I would get very sweaty from all the movement and such. The first package unpacked was the VP150. As I pulled out the speaker, it looked longer than I was anticipating (I even measured over and over the length specified on the axiom website). I placed it up top on my TV and then went for the M22Ti's. Unpacked one, placed it on the stand, then did the same for the 2nd one. I immediately popped in a CD to see how it would sound, right out of the box. First thing tested was 311's album Evolver. First thing I noticed was how much more detailed and defined all the sounds were. Nothing was muffled whatsoever. Highs were very high, yet not being overbearing. Great sounding, right off the bat! As I listened to the CD, I continued to unpack and hook up all four QS4s and then took out the 311 CD and put in Digital Video Essentials.
I calibrated each of the speakers. One thing I noticed was that the speakers sounded softer than my Polks. The Axioms actually read 2-3dB softer than my Polks at the very same setting. I'll get to that in a little bit. Next, I popped in the THX Ultimate Demo DVD. Great things from right off the bat. My other speakers were comparibly boomy in all ranges of frequencies. This explains why my dB readings were actually 2-3dB lower. I would've never known that had I not bought these speakers. As I went through different portions of the disk, like the Pod Race in DTS-ES Matrixed, I was floored at the difference that the QS4's made over my FXi30s. All around, the sounds jumped out at me, without any hint of overpowering. Panning was incredible. Smooth, silky, and the speakers never called attention to themselves. I noticed more and more sounds coming out from the track that I had never heard. I continued to shuffle through my DVDs to notice differences, and I can tell you honestly that, EVERY disk that I tested, was incredibly different. Wonderful.
As for the specific sound of the Axiom speakers. They are bright, but not overbearingly so. They bring a crisp sound and a natural zing. The mid tones were very mellow, yet very pronounced and never over-exaggerated. It just sounds so much cleaner than my Polks.
When my wife got home from work, I demoed stuff for her and she said she really loved the sound. She just kept saying how much clearer and defined everything was. She also described the sound like this. ::using her finger:: pointing it horizontally describing it like a line, she said "your other speakers exaggerate the line and make it unecessarily fatter."
Both of us agree that these are VERY trasparent sounding speakers!
Very, very high praises!
