I recently comapred a number of speakers in the $800 or so Canadian price range. I auditioned B&W 602.5, Energy C5 Paridigm Monitor 7s. I ended up purcahsing the monitor 7s for their combination of price and sound. They were probably the 2nd best sound but hundreds cheaper than the B&W. Well what about AXIOM you ask. Well I tried to audition some but my long story is below. I will add to this by saying the dealer I went to Had M40 and 60s and 80s. He said he had no 50s and thought they were the WORST sounding of AXIOM (maybe because he had none). The 40s did not impress me AT ALL. The 80s were very nice but nearly 2 x my budget. The 60s were offered to me for $999 "best price" More than 200 more than I paid for my Monitor 7s. Maybe AXIOM got a bad shake because of my experience but from what I did hear to my ear both Brand have their strenghts and weaknesses so get what your ears tell you. Here is my tale:

visited 4 different dealers. One I listened to JM Labs and Paradigm, another B&W and energy, a third Kef and PSB and finally Axiom and Wharfdale at dealer #4.

The first 2 dealers were fantastic. Both had nice HT listening rooms with the setup I wanted to hear and allowed me to listen to the same movie chapter. Then it was on to the audio listening room where I could a and b the brands and different modles in the lines. I listened to the same 3 tracks on each speaker with and without sub. Probaly spent close to 2 hours at each place. These guys had one theory tell us your needs and price range and then let your ears decide. Both gave me a reasonable discount off list to start and said to come back when I had listened to more.
The third was nearly as good actually favorably comared his brands to others "if you like x it sounds kinda like y that we sell. He did not have as good a listening setup but he did his best.
I felt BAD that I could not buy from both dealer 1 and 2 as they did an excellent job and put in the time. I'd feel good about buying from either.

Dealer 4 is the focus of my story:

He had no separate listening room just a couch in the middle of the store with speakers in front of it.

I tols him my budget and asked to listen to speaks comperable and on an AMP that was close to mine in power.

The guy starts out by telling me that his Axioms will blow away anything I have heard and they are award winning. No way anything can sound as good. Things were starting out bad.

Then he pops my CD into a cd player hooked to a reciver that costs over 2x as much as mine with about 50 % more power. Then he starts screwing around with the treble and bass. It took me 5 minutes to convince him to put it on direct so I could hear the real sound. I was pretty impressed for such a bad room grat sound real solid bass. I said amzing sound for only $700! The guy says OH no these are the $1500 80s (almost double my budget!

So he puts on something closer to my budget. Still not bad but I couldn't manage to listen to a whole song. I amde a comment like better bass than the energy but not as detailed as the B&W. He said these will sound better than B&W I'll put them up against any B&W these are award winning. This is about where I decided that even if I thought these speakers were the greatest thing ever I would not buy from this guy. NEVER tell me what I should like or shouldn't. How the heck can you go inside my head and know what my ears hear. If somehting sounds crappy to me I don't care if it is a $10,000 speaker I don't like it.

I'll never go there again. I am a bit sad because I'd like to give Axiom half a chance but not go through that junk. I guess I'll never know.