Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo Bowers & Wilkins comparison

Hi,
I was with my niece the other day at the Magnolia room inside the Best buy and the sales guy showed her some Bowers and Wilkins bookshelf speakers. Starting from $500/pair to $6K/pair of bookshelves. This was my first time I was listening to those speakers and even the $500/pair book shelf was really really good. I am curious how they compare to the Axiom bookshelf and floor standing speakers ?

I own a pair of M60s as my fronts, VP150 center and QS8 surrounds with a SVS PC2000 sub.

thanks
Sri

Not sure which B&W model(s) you heard but there were some double-blind tests run during one of the GTG's at Axiom (maybe the 30th anniv party ?) between M3 and B&W... CM5 I think. Nope, must have been 805s...

Here is Alan's write-up; there are other comments in the forums but my searching skills came up short.

http://www.ecoustics.com/articles/axiom-m3-bw-nautilus-805/

It's always surprising how good well-made bookshelf speakers can sound.

As Bridgeman can attest , the best way to know for sure is to put them in your room and live with them for a while. Read his Write up about his visit to Axiom recently. The room you hear a speaker in has more influence on the way a speaker sounds than any other factor. Also what you hear is not what someone else hears so it is really subjective.

Way back in 2004 I listened to some B&O 703 towers and I ended up with Axiom M60s at the time.

Haven't heard the newer v3 or beyond axioms but I did own a pair in the past, I would say that the BW are superb speakers for the most part and you would be easily happy with a pair. I cannot say for sure which is better but I moved from axioms to many speakers and eventually ended up with BW.

Currently I have the BW802d3, Sonus Faber Olympica 3, and BW PM1.

Wait a few years till your hearing starts going and then any speaker will keep ya happy.

Very Nice

B&W and Axiom have a similar sound by most accounts. Axioms tend to be a little easier on the wallet by comparison, but you'd likely be happier with either. You might also check out PSB, they have some nice bookshelf speakers at reasonable cost too.