Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Shelf Mounting, and M3v3 vs M22v3

I've very impressed with the amount of low end that the M3s put out so far . . . they don't really sound like little speakers at all.

the more you pay, the better they sound

That has not been my experience. If you modify that to "The higher the list price, the better they sound" then I might agree to a certain point.

See this thread for what I'm talking about:
http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=211682&page=1

Well, we've decided on the keeping the M22s after all.

The M3s do sound like they've got a lot more low end than the M22s. With all five speakers engaged while watching TV/movies (including my required sound test movie, the 5th Element) the M22s just seemed to blend in more seamlessly though. If I was really being picky, I'd say that I could notice a slight difference when sound was moving from the mains to the center channel. Having the sub on seemed to help the M22s a lot.

For our music test we listened to a lot of different stuff, Coltrane, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Radiohead, the Eagles, etc. The M3s only outshone the M22s with the sub on one particular track, 'Mouth's Cradle' by Bjork . . . it's like they were made for that tune. They pulled out some low sounding grunts and vocal noises that I'd never really noticed before.

If I was listening to them just on their own, I might have kept the M3s, but with the sub the M22s sounded a little bit more detailed/clear with music and more balanced with the other speakers as a home theater.

I guess that it goes without saying that everything sounded much better than the speakers/reciever in a box that I was using previously. All testing was done with my new Denon AVR-1912. Hopefully this will keep me happy for a long time . . . because our audio budget has been depeleted for many years to come.

PS - I really like the QS-8s too . . . we've got them mounted behind our listening position (due to room shape) and I was worried about how the surround effect would work out. They make the room feel much bigger and work well no matter where you're sitting.

Steve, I'm sure that you'll enjoy your M22s, as I have mine for a little over 10 years now. It's always interesting when the M3 vs M22 bass is described and sometimes the M3 is credited with even "a lot more low end". This illustrates again how the boost in the upper bass around 100-150Hz that some speakers(including the M3s)have can give the impression of greater bass extension farther down in frequency. As I've pointed out several times, the larger M22 enclosure is actually tuned just slightly lower than the M3 and the real bass extension is a bit deeper.

it really didn't sound like the M22s were going lower than the M3s(although I know by the spec sheet that they do).