I just finished putting my M22s back in their places and am now ready to do a massive brain dump. The M22 and M50 showdown was not as conclusive as I thought it might be. Ken did a good of describing the setup, but he forgot to mention that we level-matched the two pairs of speakers with an SPL meter prior to doing our in-depth listening. We also had the speakers stacked atop one another with the front baffles lined up. My M22s were upside-down so that the tweeters were at similar levels.
In general, I found the M22s to be more articulate/airy/detailed in the high-end than the M50s, expecially with well-mastered instrumental/acoustic material. Buena Vista Social Club was the best example of this. While doing a switch from the M22s to the M50s while the music was playing, it was immediately obvious that a fine level of detail was no longer resolving as clearly. The soundstage also seemed to suffer slightly. I described my impression to Ken as a series of concentric rings, where the further out you get from the center, the wider the soundstage and the more detailed the sound. Switching from the M22 to the M50 was like removing the outermost circle or two. In all fairness in regards to soundstage, the M22s seem to be much easier to place than the M50s.
Also in general, I found the M50s to have a fuller/broader sound, cleary due to their ability to produce a great amount of tight bass. I have a feeling the bass could improve further with some positioning tweaks, but as they were the bass was never boomy.
An area where the M50s were clearly preferable to the M22s was with older recordings and more poorly mastered material. Dust for Life a rock band bordering on metal (at times). Their debut album is mastered pretty hot, and it was quite harsh on the M22s. Switching to the M50s tamed down the brightness to a very listenable level. Switching back to the M22s was like hearing nails on a chalkboard. Perhaps this is the sort of stuff people listen to when they label the m22s as metallic?
What I need to stress is that I really enjoyed both speakers greatly, even though the differences between the two became more and more apparent as the listening session went on. It was refreshing hearing two different interpretations of the same music. Often we would switch back and forth unable to pick a favorite. It's also important to note that the differences between the two speakers would fade the longer we listed without switching between them -- psychoacoustics at work!
So, was there a clear winner? I left with my speakers, and Ken kept his. Neither of us seems to be jealous of the other's speakers. And that's a good thing. I think I speak for both of us when I say that upgraditis is not something I need right now.
Oh, and that cobbler/bread pudding was excellent!
