Well, you started with a safe topic. Why not add speaker break-in and $500 cables if you want a real good fight
There is not a lot of agreement on this board about whether receivers had "characteristic sounds" or not. There is more agreement that a high quality big-ass power amp will make the bass sound more solid but even that is not unanimously accepted.
If you believe in receivers having characteristic sounds, from what I remember Marantz is over on the "warm and smooth" side (eg. don't pair Marantz with Paradigm), Yamaha is over on the "crisp and thin" side, with Denon and HK in between with Denon a bit more on the "crisp and bright" side and HK a bit more on the "warm" side. Paradigms are supposed to be on the warm side and better paired with Yamaha/Denon, Axioms are supposed to be on the "crisp and bright" side and better paired with HK or Marantz.
I don't believe a word of it. Within normal operating range, a good receiver is a good receiver. The most popular receivers on here are Denon and HK, probably in that order, if that helps.
I have not heard the Paradigm Monitor 3's (I just have Atoms) but from other posts it seems pretty clear that the Axioms and Paradigms *do* have different sounds -- the Axioms tending to the "forward" side and Paradigms tending to the "smooth" side. Both seem to have pretty impressive imaging and great sound, but they do seem to have different characteristic sounds.
The M22s sound like they might be a real good fit. I'm a bit surprised by your comment about sibilance because the Axioms are reputed to be a bit brighter than Paradigms. The general consensus on here is that recording quality makes a big difference -- if the recording has the treble pumped up to sound good on crappy playback equipment then you're going to get sibilance on any highly accurate speaker.
Without having heard the Monitor 3's, my guess is that the M22s would give you clear, "forward" vocals but I doubt they will fix the sibilance you are hearing. If you list the recordings where you hear the sibilance there's a pretty good chance someone on here will give you the timestamp when the worst of it happens and explain what was done wrong in the recording
Not sure if your handle indicates you're Canadian or just voted for Kerry. Either way there are a lot of Axiom owners around who would be happy to give you a listen. Let us know where you are located and someone will probably come forward. I'm in Toronto which is really close for about 30% of Canada
I would vote for ordering the 22s but that's probably not a big surprise.
