Originally Posted by bridgman
Interesting question - I hadn't thought about M50 to M5HP comparison before but it makes a lot of sense.

I have never heard M50's but still really enjoy my M40's. As Mojo hinted at, Axiom speakers have always been two "sound families" - M3/M40/M50 and M2/M22/M5HP/M60/80/100 - although I'm never sure if M50 really belongs in the first family since the frequency response spec suggests more of a 2-1/2 way than a 2-way.

I would think the first dividing line between speaker families would have to be the design.
2 way vs 2.5 vs 3 way
By far the two largest differences i've noticed in listening to bookshelves (2 way or 2.5) vs. floorstanding (2.5 way or 3 way) has been the volume of sound (easily attributed to cabinet size) and clarity, detail (likely attributed to the dedicated midrange in a 3 way system).
The 2.5 way designs always sounded more laid back as Mojo described, the 3-way designs always sounded more detailed (this includes some home A/B blind tests just FYI). If you consider today's Atmos systems, how many more dedicated location speakers does it take to reproduce a more realistic effect?
It seems that the bottom line is the more drivers you have, the more realistic the sound could be. Kind of makes sense. In the real world, we hear sounds off of every echo, every surface. To reproduce that effect, you would need tiny drivers covering every square inch of a room to reproduce reality, or close to it.
https://news.softpedia.com/news/Tra...st-Expensive-Speaker-System-118692.shtml
[Linked Image from techshout.com]

Last edited by chesseroo; 03/02/21 05:21 PM.
"Those who preach the myths of audio are ignorant of truth."