Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners M3 compared to the M22

I know the M3 vs M22 must have been discussed before.

I have a set of M3s and a set of M22s right here with me and I want to ask a question to others who have done a direct comparison of these 2 speakers.

Do you find the M3 to have a much more harsh sound than the M22?
It is much more apparent when listen to hard rock / metal music.

I can't really listen to metal on the M3 speakers without using Yamaha's YPAO set to check Natural (it trails off the highest frequencies) After that I like the M3 very much.

The M22 sounds best with parametric EQ turned off. Just plug em in and go. There is noticably less bass from the M22 though.

Has anyone else observed the same thing?

I would say I didn't notice tha M3's sounding harsh at all. Did you try to listen to both with no EQ happening and even resetting the receiver back to defaults, for some reason or another, some receivers do not always turn off the EQ even though the menu says it is.

To mimic the bass hump the M3's have on the M22's, turn up the bass setting on the receiver by 2-3 db, then you will have lots of bass .

I've never heard them myself, but I've never heard the M3s described as harsh. I think something's wrong somewhere...

If anything, the m3 should be more laid back than the m22's, which has dual tweeters. Neither of them should be described as harsh.

Dual tweeeters? TYPO!!! M22 = dual mids

Maybe the different crossover is putting more power to the tweeter on M3 and overdriving it ?

Or just a bad driver; can you check one channel at a time ?

+1 for the "M3s normally sound a bit more mellow / laid-back / smoother than M22s" opinion.

I had them both here during audition.



Yup for sure. The M22's I have aren't nearly as "well behaved".
They put out more punch and bite. Grrr I likes it.

Thanks everyone for the replies. These M3s are my fathers. He has had them for a long while now. I liked them a lot at his place. He has some serious gear. Two big Parasound amps, Anthem preamp and other NHT/Adcmon amps for the rear channels / subs.

He uses M2s for surround and slightly larger NHT speakers for the rears. Both subs are identical NHT boxes. The center in a big Pardigm speaker. The M3s were the front left / right.

Anyway, I was always impressed listening to his system. Enough to order my own set of Axiom M22s.

Well now he is playing with other speakers, so he offered me to try out the M3 as he thought I might like them better than my M22s for the heavy loud type of music I mostly listen to.

Thing is when playing Elton Johns rocket man they sound fantastic. If I put on some Manowar, they give me a headache.

While the M22 seems to be the more even speaker across the board. Almost as if it doesn't want to offend.

I'm going to try the M3s in my living room and see how they sound there. Thats where the 52inch W series Sony is, so mostly video game explosions. But I'll play some music and see how I like them there.

A lot depends on the engineering quality of the cd your listening to, with Axioms crap recording techniques will sound like crap. That is why some say Axioms are harsh or bright. I have a lot of 80's metal cd's that don't sound good anymore since I went with Axioms. However, cd's recorded properly, sound jaw dropping great.

But those recordings should sound even crappier on M22s, shouldn't they ? Not much, but a bit...

true.