Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Axiom m60 vs. b&w 683

Hi,

I'm looking to see if any one has heard the m60's and b&w 683's and could give me a comparison. There isn't anyone demo'ing in my area within 2 hours so its hard to gauge what the m60's will sound like.

I've heard comparisons of the m60 to the the b&w 700 series. B7W just released the retooled 683 to incorporate a driver from the 800 series and reviews say its close to the b&w 700 series.

Price wise the b&w are a bit more expensive. I can work a deal for them for $1250 and the m60's are about $1000.

I'm looking for a floor standing speakers for a medium sized room. It will be powered by either a rotel, nad, or denon. It will be split evenly 50% between movies and music.


Any help or advice would be great. P.S. I've been through this board and other sites trying to find comparisons for the last month but its hard to find a person who's heard and can compare both brands.

pete

Welcome Pete,

I can't comment on the 683's, never heard them. All I can say is that I was >< close to purchasing some brand new 703's at a local high end AV dealer. Luckily I was able to listen to some m60's at the time and boy was I glad I did not spend the extra money. To me the m60's sounded better overall than the 703's, if that helps.

Also keep in mind, if you order from Axiom's outlet you save 10% off the regular prices.

ps: I now own the m80's which are dynamite. For the small difference between 60's and 80's, you might want to consider 80's as well to avoid upgradeitis in the future.

The m60's are fabulous speakers though...

I'd like to suggest you find out why the 683s have a minimum power rating of 25W. BTW, my 80s are absolutely phenomenal. I can't get enough of them.

I'm new to this field. Hows does the minimum wattage affect speakers? I'm trying to see if any one can tell me how the b&w 683 or 700's sound with a little more details on the dynamics, speed, sound stage, etc. I usually get a bootom line they are close but I'd like to know a bit more details.

Its been really hard to decide since there isn't any one close to me to check out the axioms. Its going to be hard for me to spend $1k on speakers I haven't heard or read direct comparisons.


Thanks for all the help guys, keep it coming.

Where do you live, have you checked the audition thread? Or, you can send a PM to Amie or Andrea at Axiom, they sometimes have people that will audition but don't have their names on the list. Or if you say where your live, there could be someone on this forum that does not have their name on the list.

For me I thought the m60's had a little better in the low end (bass) and more detailed highs and midrange. If I recall, the B&W's had a kevlar woofer? I prefer aluminum construction. Plus I could purchase 2 m60's for about the same price of just one 703. Also, customer service was very important and it is hard to beat Axiom on that...

I'm actually really curious to find out if that's a mistake in the B&W literature. Why would a speaker that is rated at 90dB/w/m require a minimum of 25W. Come to think of it, what does the minimum power rating for a speaker mean anyway? It sounds like manufacturers are making assumptions about how minimally loud people want to listen to their speakers.

Yes, I'm not sure what min wattages means either. I'm new so if any one know I'd like to know.

Heres where I'm coming from. I really want to like axioms but its hard to buy something for $1k with out hearing it first. B&w retooled the 683 to be very similar to the 700's and CM7 for MSRP of $1400. I can get a deal for about $1250 which is close to the m60's.

Since the price is so close and based on reviews it should theoretically sound very similar. I don't know how to decide since there aren't many reviews on b&w's.

What makes it harder it seems that b&w owners tend to be fanatics, b&w or die type of people rather than objective. Its hard to get a good review.

I'm in the Denver area. I searched the post and some guy 1.5 years ago was trying to find someone close in the area to but the last person who demo'd hadn't logged in 2 years.

Does any one have a dealer close to them to check it out?

A few other differences is that the Axiom's are a bit more efficient at 93dB versus the 90dB on the 683's. In addition the crossover freq's 200Hz and 2khz on the 60's versus 350Hz and 4Khz on the 683's.

In regards to the min wattage rating, I'm sure it is related to clipping issues and underpowering high end speakers with cheap avr's at reference levels.

This thread may help you.

Randy, good catch on those cross-over frequencies. A 4KHz x-over on the mid/tweeter sounds high to me especially with the large mid-driver that B&W is using.

You really need to listen to both in my opinion. It's very difficult to tell from specs because these speakers are closely matched even in terms of dispersion.

What a coincidence! Just last week I was at some fancy audio/visual store in manhattan (on 58th street between lex and 3rd ave -- though I can't remember the name of the place for the life of me). They had a number of stunningly beautiful demo rooms, including one room that featured the flagship speakers from Wilson Audio(an MSRP of about $135,000) and another featuring a bizarre speaker from B&W called the Notilus. They seemed to specialize in a very select few speaker companies, Wilson, B&W and another company called Linn. I was fortunate enough to be given a quick demo of many of the different speaker lines in these companies and one of them was the B&W 600 series, I was especially interested in these because they were about in the same price class as my epic 60/500 series. The 600's are a beautifully designed speaker, and in the 5 minute demo they gave me of them, they performed very nicely -- a very warm soothing signature, but it doesn't hurt that the rooms were acoustically treated and the speakers were being powered with, by the looks of it, some extremely high end seperates. I don't imagine you could go wrong either way between the 600's or the m60's.

If I may quickly pay a compliment to the M60's, I spent that day listening to some of the best equipment in the industry, in rooms treated by experts, and with interconnects that cost more than my whole system(ONE of the speaker wires connected to the Wilson Alexandria cost $4500!!) and when I got home, my m60's sounded not even slightly worse than it did the day before. Don't get me wrong, my system cant hold a candle to those sonically, and the M60's are just a tad bright for my taste, but they perform much better than the price difference would indicate, and I don't imagine the 600's specifically would be an upgrade over them(WAF maybe, not sonically though). From there, the choice is yours.

B&W Nautilus

How were the Linns?

Linn seemed to have a thin line of speakers but what was there was pretty wonderful. There speakers and electronics seemed a little more real world than the Wilson's did. I have to say I was rather dissapointed with the Wilsons, although I listened to them for less than 2 or 3 minutes. They were massive, ugly boxes that cost more than most mercedes' do and didn't sound as good as their price. For me the show stealer was the B&W diamonds(i think thats what they're called). They played some nice jazzy songs, and I have to say that some of the trumpet lines just melt into your ears.

If I may offer one piece of advice to the topic creator, the only thing I ever regret in my system is the AV reciever, a yammie v2600. I can't say with confidence that I will never buy another do-it-all AV reciever again, unless its only for processing. Do yourself a favor and get a rotel or nad.

Hey, thanks for the response.

On the advice...I meant to say I CAN say with confidence I will never buy another All-in-one reciever. The upconversion and the DSP's have proven absolutely useless. Unless you're going with a higher end Denon that has those fancy silicon optix processors then go the seperates route instead, with companies like Emotiva and Rotel, there aren't anymore excuses not to.

Pair up the M60's with dual ep500's and the Qs8's surrounds, and add that to a rotel or a nad and you can feel confident that there aren't ANY speaker packages in this price class that can top your system in any significant way.

A little side note on the dual subs; ever since adding the second ep500, i've been astounded by how well bass is now integrated into the room... one was good, but at this point I feel like dual subs is almost essential. I could never go back. If you can't get dual ep500's then try dual 350's or dual Hsu's. I can't begin to describe the immediate and dramatic difference it has made on LFE loaded movies.

I was referring specifically to the sweet spot when I made those comments. Its tricky to put into words the difference dual subs has made...I don't want to say it has more impact now because a single ep500 doesn't lack impact, but whatever the ep500 was doing before is now twice as good and twice as smooth.

As for the amps, I got my lpa-1 just yesterday and it's absolutely blown me away. The things that have improved most are the things I never even considered, such as surround effects, which sound clearer and cleaner than they ever have. Although Dialog sounds bright, it doesn't ever get quite as irritating as it did previously but I'm not expecting that to be completely fixed until my new tweeters get here. Overall, I didn't anticipate this much of a difference, while certaintly not night and day, it is atleast 15-20% better than before. Now all I need is acoustical treatment.

Dual subs sound better at your sweet spot probably because that's where there is a dip in your response. And two subs have smoothened that dip out.

As for the improvement in surround "understandability", do you think that may have something to do with an improvement in your bass as opposed to the LPA-1?

I've had the dual subs running for over a month now, the lpa-1 was only hooked up yesterday, so I can say with certainty that the lpa-1 was the result of the improvements. I'm just amazed by the results i've gotten from the lpa-1 and have been listening to music and watching movies non stop since I hooked it up. That 15% was exactly what I feel was missing. Not to flog the yammie too much, as im sure that something is damaged in it, but there just is no comparison -- my system never sounded this good.

Dual subs, especially if they are positioned on opposite walls, will even out peaks/nulls throughout the room, not just the sweet spot. 4 subs on all four walls is even better.

I haven't yet played it at very loud volumes, I've heard Emotiva's have had some reliability problems and I don't want to risk straining it at ear-splitting levels. I've been listening at comfortable levels, appx -12db. Everything sounds so smooth and crystal clear at this level, I'm tempted to blast the thing, but I'm going to wait a few weeks before putting it to the test. As for increasing surround volumes, I wonder if switching to the external amp has made some inconsistencies in the level matching but if it has it isn't dramatic. I will re-check everything when I get home this afternoon.

If anyone in NY is interested, or if you're a tourist, the name of the place I went is called Innovative and it's on 58th street between lex and 3rd ave. If you're an Axiom owner you can go and hear for yourself all that you're NOT missing. Hearing all these incredibly high end speakers has confirmed to me how good Axioms really are.

And for kicks, pretend you're interested in purchasing the B&W diamond series and ask for a demo, pictures dont do those things justice, they have to be seen and heard in person to be believed.

hi guys,

I went to audition some more speakers that the m60's are supposed to be comparable to.

I first tested the Paradigm Studio 60's. Man, what a huge box for the speakers, but any ways I didn't like them at all. They felt to laid back but the room that it was housed in was a bit small for that sized speakers. I tried the monitor series but it seemed flat to me.

Next was the b&w 683 cm7's, 704 and 703. Like everyone says, the 703's are awesome. I really like the forwardness to them and they didn't sound bright to me. As I tested the speakers from the 703 down to the 683's I found the sound stage to shrink and the clarity less tight.

Can you guys tell me if what I'm hearing is inline with what you have hear and read so I can tell if the m60's are for me? I'm new at this and still training the ears.



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