I had heard a lot of good things about the DiAural crossover technology employed by Aperion so I ordered a pair of Intimus 522D-LRs (about a year ago). I wanted to compare them to my Axiom M22s and KEF Q15s and KEF RDM2s.
The build quality of the Aperions was first rate and the packaging was truely impressive. The speaker cabinet was much more solid than the M22s and the Q15s but not the RDM2s (not really a fair compairson as the RDMs were MSRP $1200). The 522Ds look great with the grills on. Aperion's customer service seemed to be on par with Axiom's. The customer service guy was very nice and accommodating even after I told him my opinion on the sound of the speakers.
That is about the only good thing I have to say about the Aperions. I hooked them up in a two channel configuration and put on some music. My son was there with me to listen. After about 2 minutes, I looked over at my son and he had this contorted look on his face. He said," turn it off, I can't stand any more". I agreed. He left the room and I stayed and listend for about 15 more minutes trying to be fair.
These speakers had a very harsh crispness in the upper frequencies I can only describe as bright (not the "detailed" kind of bright), the kind of "bright" that makes you reach for the remote to turn down the volume. The mids (particularly vocals) were "shouty" in an "in your face" kind of way very much like a barking dog. The Sound stage was flat as in a wall of sound rather than a perception of space, depth was non existent. Bass output on these speakers is not even worth mentioning.
I consider the Axioms to be one of the most well balanced speakers I've ever heard making them easy to listen to. By contrast the Aperions were the most unbalanced (related to frequency continuity) I've ever heard. They were the most fatiguing speakers I've ever heard.
The next day I gave them another chance thinking that maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind or something. I listened for about 30 minutes this time. After my listening session I headed over to the Tylenol bottle to releive the headache and then promptly packed them up and went right on down to the UPS store and shipped them back to Aperion. Other Aperion speakers such as the 522D-PT may be great. They certainly look good on paper.
I don't mean to insult owners of Aperion products nor the company itself. This is just my honest opinion and reflects my tastes in music playback toys. YMMV. I strongly urge you to listen for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
