Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Hearing Things A six month long test of an Axiom Tower vs. ???

Good morning, guys ... a long overdue update is in order. The last few weeks have been busy ones. A mini vacation (lots of golf), a start up of a new company owned by my financial services company, getting an 18 year old ready to go away to university ... and some changes to the system.

The switcher is installed, and works REALLY well. Being able to do instant AB switches is so important to comparing two speakers that nothing else comes close. Of course, this does not mean people should not try - it's just much more involving with level matched, blind AB tests.

There will be a long write up of all the speakers here sometime in October - just in time for the winter season (and also when I have the time to put this all together).

For now ... All four speakers are incredibly good, and also fantastic values.

The Axiom amp (ADA-1000-5) is now in the system - four channels being used off the switcher. The Axiom amp is a big step up from the Marantz receiver. I was not expecting this to happen, but each speaker is "better" with the amp. I may even add a 1500 to the system this fall for these types of tests.

As we slowly head into "indoor season", look for some AB testing between quite a few affordable speakers. I have a pair of Ascend 340's already, and will be looking to add more speakers to the mix.

Also look for a test between an affordable bookshelf speaker with a budget subwoofer against a pair of more expensive towers.

Hopefully we can get some pics of all this in the near future.

Billy p - a long overdue thank you for a very nice post.

That one should be interesting.

I think the best sound I've achieved (sounds like live music and 'wall of sound') was with a pair of M3Tis, a Velodyne DSP subwoofer, a 5 watt per channel SET tube amp and an Ah! Njoe Tjoeb tube output CD player. (Mapleshade Clearview Double Helix Cryo treated weird thin speaker wires for those of you who are offended by audio voodoo)

I have improved my way out of audio nirvana. I now have very expensive systems, with lots of drivers, lots of tweeters, lots of watts, but none as sweet as that little 2.1 channel tube amplified book shelf system.

The bookshelf system sounded better - because YOU were younger :-)

My sweetest sounding system for music is also my 2.2 bookshelfs + subs - M2s on Axiom Stands & 2 X EP400s driven by my 35 W/Ch Integrated Tube Amp (KT88s) - mostly SACDs run through it.

No Tone Controls nor DSP chips - just Vol. I like it...

TAM

What did you say BapchaMan? I couldn't quite hear you. Good point! My ears are not getting any younger or better.

Tam! My little SET is a KT88/12Ax7 amp. Very sweet!

I've been listening to the M100s. Wasn't loving the sound quality from a Sony CX90ES CD Player, so I stuck a FiiO Taishan DAC into the optical output of the Sony, ran the analog R/W outputs from the FiiO instead of the Sony, and WHOA! To those who say all DACS sound the same ... I was going to say come on over, but on second thought ... Suffice it to say, big difference ... all for the better.

As a "firm believer" in doing blind tests, I also admit to many times hearing changes with CD players, amps .. etc ...

In each case, a swap of equipment was made, no agenda attached, and it was immediately noticeable that a fairly large difference was being heard.

The latest was when adding the Axiom ADA-1000-5 amp into the system when we hooked up the switcher.

Both the Legacy Signature SE's and the M100's seemed to become even more open sounding, with better defined bass.

It's likely that the much higher current ability of the stand alone amp was the "cause" of this. BUT ... having heard this with CD players, DACS ... it's interesting. I could not demonstrate anything "scientific" to show meaningful results ... but my ears heard the difference.

AND ... we conducted our first AB blind test of speakers this weekend. The listener (who is a trained opera singer and has a pretty good ear) had no idea which speakers she was auditioning. In fact, she doesn't even know the names of any of the speakers I have hear.

All she knew was "A" and "B" ... I was doing the switching.

Before long, she was saying "A" or "B" when I switched speakers. They were level matched using pink noise, and we used music she liked.

She had a STRONG preference for one speaker over the other.

Everytime I switched back to "B", she was smiling. She loved "B", but only liked "A" a little bit.

I have done some of my own blind tests, with surprising results.

More on all this later.

I suspected/feared this for a while but after some work (and luck) with room treatments I'm now thinking that the "great sound of my youth" was more a function of willingness to put up ugly room treatments than age. I hope.

Getting tempted to drag speakers and electronics outside before the snow starts falling and see how things sound without the room getting in the way.

Maybe I'll compromise and drag everything out to the deck, now that I have a deck (yay).

I wish you would take them out to your deck and report on their performance. And let us know how your grilled green onions turn out.

Guys ... The Martin Logan ESL review is up on Home Theater Shack and can be found here: Martin Logan ESL Review




The Axiom M50 review is doe, and posted on the Axiom forum here: Axiom M50 Review