Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Old and new Black Oak finish

I'd be surprised if the QS8's in this thread are not the "new" black... I imagine black QS8's are probably some of the most popular speakers Axiom sells, so to have old inventory of them seems odd.

I would suggest that Axiom might have changed MDF suppliers which may be the slight difference in old/new colours. They may have had some sheets of the 'older' black oak that were used up before the newer batch went into production.

Most likely that is exactly the case, although I would imagine it was the vinyl supplier that changed stock, unless the MDF comes to them pre-wrapped?

The standard finishes have the Vinyl attached to the sheets of MDF from the manufacturers, the custom(high gloss ect) Vinyl finishes are applied by Axiom.

Cool, good to know

This is indeed an interesting thread. I myself just ordered all 6 of my speakers going on 6 months ago, so are they the old finish or the new? It will be necessary to know since I still have 4 QS8's to purchase for this system, and I will want them all to match naturally.

They don't appear to have any silver sheen to them, however I am color blind... so I'm really of no use in determining their color.

If it were me, I'd make a point of calling Axiom when the time comes and let them know you'd like to make sure the new Q's match...maybe they can tell by the serial #'s on your "old" Ax's. I guess it comes down to whether they have the "older" sheets of MDF or if they've used them up or not, I dunno. I'd also like to get a couple more QS8's down the road. Maybe someone from Axiom can chime in on this.

Ok guys I tried to take some better pics so you can see. There is really quite a difference between the two. Hopefully this shows the silver-ish color of the new finish. The silver color is actually made to look like wood grain rather than an actual grain in the vinyl like on the old finish. Now don't get me wrong, the new finish does have a grain or I'd say more of a texture, which is basically just lines straight across and looks nothing like an actual wood grain.

The first picture is, from what I was told, the old finish which is what my fronts and center are. They are solid black in person. I received these 2 months ago. The second picture is the new finish on my QS8, which I received a pair of three weeks ago and now again yesterday.

great pics, yeah the new m22's that I just received are the same as your top pic, hmmm. maybe they sent me some that a person returned.

Well i have ordered color samples of both
(because i want to match it with my actual JBL spkr).

in my case, Old black is a perfect match.

by the way, The old black is named : Custom Black (per Axiom sales dept).
The New Black is named : New Black.

Ordering samples of both is an nice way to determine your match, it's cheap an better than picture, anayways you can return it via an RMA request.