Nicely said Thom For the money, Axiom makes great sounding speakers that compare to many much higher priced brands...

Look...another thread on AVS, someone asks Ascends or Axioms. Guess who's there again - Alimentall(case)!

What did Axiom ever do to him lol...

My question is, is Alimentall making a fair statement on speaker design? Axiom themselves state the woofer has no crossover and the woofer is allowed to roll over on its own.

Onix Rockets also use aluminum cone drivers but they use the crossovers that Allimentall state are the bare necessity--24db/octave. Energy Veritas also use a very steep crossover. A lot of stuff I've perused online since he made these statements talk about the need to crossover before these cone resonances come into play.

I'm wondering, why has Axiom not chosen to do this? It's obvious a lot of people like Axiom sound; now the question is has Axiom decided to engineer this type of sound to people who prefer this type of sound over conventional speaker design?

As far as I know only the M3 (and maybe the M50) run without a crossover on the woofer. I vaguely remember a comment that the larger woofer happened to roll off at about the right frequency for that combination of drivers, and that the sound was better with a "no crossover" design than any of the other configurations that were tried. Couldn't find a reference though, so take it with a grain of salt.

Perversely enough, from the dozens of reviews on the M3 it probably comes across as the smoothest sounding of any of the Axiom speakers. If there was any hint of midrange resonance I have to think SOMEONE would have commented on it.

The rest of the Axiom line seems to run conventional crossover designs, presumably 12dB/8va but not sure.

Ian .