Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners m80 v3 harshness / Receiver

A bigger hole in your wallet?

At $14 grand I would hope they throw in a beak or two...

Thanks Fred !


The sound qualities and virtues of the M80 are constant and remain the same. To your point, the acoustic of a room will modify the sound which you hear. When this happen why associate the defect heard to the speaker rather than pointing out the guilty factor - the room acosutic ? Would that make it a more honest evaluation/judgemrnt of the speaker and, at the same time, a more exact appreciation of the situation?

You are correct on that last point Jc. I did not intend to suggest it was the speaker, but rather the speaker/room combination.

The only totems i've heard was the Totem Staff (Tower Speaker). I don't remember what the price was, although I didn't think it was super high. Maybe it was just for one speaker tho. I should hit the shop again and check it out. If they are priced high used would be an option, although that kind of scares me. And, after all, I am still leaning towards the M-80.

Three years ago, when I was finalizing my choices of speakers (just before I learned about Axiom, actually), I was dragged by a friend to a "listening contest" by a "unindentified company" that wanted to win over an important reseller in Montreal (for whom my friend performs installations once in a while).

We were seven and all seven were generally impressed by all the speakers we heard and thought it was probably a virtual tie between the three, assuming probably a slight plus for the "marvel speaker that only takes 250 hours of break in". The three speakers were: Totem Wind (the "marvel speaker"), Paradigm S8 and some Boston Acoustics (I can't remember which model exactly).

Once the speakers were unveiled and that the actual sequence in which we heard was matched with our scores of the 20+ tracks (half classics, half rock), the saleman was in shock that the points given elected the Paradigm S8 (by a large margin) and the B.A. a bit ahead of HIS Totem Wind.

Red-in-the-face, insufficient break-in period was blamed for this "charade of a test" (organized and supervised by him!) and a fight almost broke out with the store owner accused of "sabotaging" his highly superior speakers! And that, of course, we were all ignorant non-audiophiles!

Fun time. A few months afterward, I got M80s and I am still VERY happy with the road I chose.

Thats a funny story.

Bonjour Éric !

I love your story ! ! ! Thanks for sharing!

Merci!

Hi Fred,
I know what you meant but the reason why I was bringing it up is that I received too often comments about Axiom speakers being bright. All the time, these callers/emailers are referring to comments from the Axiom and other Forums.

I'm enjoying this thread. I'm liking what I'm hearing. I could add that bass is a high priority to me, being a bass player.. that seems to be another area where axiom has an edge over totem.