Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler What Happened!

Holy Crap!!!! I leave the forum for 3 years and everything changes.
- Speakers with 7 drivers
- Wireless speakers
- New center channel
- New surrounds
- Bluetooth speaker
- Ep500s with no port
- Amplifiers

Been gone too long, lots to get caught up on.

There are even speakers with 11 drivers and EP600 and 800 with no ports. There's also an EP800NME. Soon there will be speakers with digital cross-overs. Oh...and there's the "secret" project they're working on where 1 Watt of power will produce 135dB at 3 feet. I'm afraid your system is so out-of-date, there's no hope of you ever catching up so you may as well just give up now.

Oh pfft... that technology has been available up north for at least a hundred years:

Blasting Box

There sure are a lot of cool things happening though.

Axiom even has the big-ass bookshelf speaker we kept asking for (you can see two pairs of them in my sig below).

Love to see the innovation from a Canadian company! It's important to stay competitive and try to be a leader.

My Epic 80 system (with VP180 and EP500) sounds and looks as good today as it did 13 years ago.

I also notice a slight increase in pricing over the past 3 years or so. Maybe all those reviews telling Ian that his speakers sound as good as ones twice the price are having an impact.

How did you get a VP180 13 years ago? It was introduced in May 2010. If you have a VP150 or VP100, get rid of it and get the VP160v4.

I got the VP 180 in 2010. Sold my VP150.

I gave my 150v2 to my bud and got the heavenly 160v4. My bud replaced his KEF center with it and was very happy. However, he comes to my place quite often for movies and music and finally realized how superior the 160v4 is. He's decided he needs one and is no longer willing to put up with a centre less than the 160. He's now using the 150 cabinet as a planter and the drivers are hanging in his trees to scare away magpies. I love Axiom gear because it's so multi-functional.

VP 150 as a planter - Perfect! Driver scare magpies - even better!

Yes the VP150, although not bad, doesn't compare to the 180 (or 160).

I'm still using a 7.1 system and we were watching Star Trek Beyond last night, and I am still amazed at how good it sounds. No one was complaining that I needed a 2nd subwoofer or speakers in the ceiling. Just rich, detailed full range realistic sound. I never regretted buying my Axiom products!

I understand that Axiom has moved even more of their production in-house (from offshore) over the last few years - good to see but probably brings some added costs as well.

On-shoring should improve the bottom line because the cost of quality should decrease, labor productivity should increase and sales volume should increase due to higher customer confidence. Likely the price inflation is due to a 30% rise in material costs in the last 5 years and the need to fund more R&D to improve vitality.

Not sure I agree... it takes years before you can get away with charging for quality, and in between you just sell better stuff for an only slightly higher price.

Problem with productivity is that there are so many ways to measure it - output per hour is probably higher onshore, but output per dollar is probably lower. Usually the latter is what I see discussed as "productivity".

Agree that material costs and R&D are going to be a significant factor though.

I never said Axiom is charging for increased quality; only that cost of quality should be lower because Axiom's cost to maintain quality off-shore was much higher than on-shore.

I'm trying to say politely that when you build offshore you rarely get the quality you want (because the cost of quality goes up exponentially) and so you typically end up shipping with lower quality levels than you would like.

I think we agree on the facts, just not on what we do with those facts

You see, John? That's the problem with politeness; clarity, completeness and accuracy are sacrificed. Suffice it to say off-shoring for Axiom sucked ass and I'm really happy with what I hear now.

I can attest to that first hand from my visit 2 weeks ago. 100% of the assembly is made in house and many of the parts are also manufactured onsite. I don't think the little electronic parts like resistors and capacitors are manufactured on site and are likely purchased in bulk, but their assembly onto the circuit boards are done by hand by Debbie Debbie also mentioned the only thing manufactured off-shore are the wire harnesses.

As for price increases, by moving manufacturing on-shore, Axiom has more control from a currency fluctuation and quality perspective but has to deal with higher labour and material costs.

The increase in costs is most evident when I get a cached page load up showing prices from 3-4 years ago getting me all excited and when I click "details", the current price shows up! Bummer, guess that second EP-500 I want will have to wait!

"I don't think the little electronic parts like resistors and capacitors are manufactured on site..."

Shame on Axiom...LOL! Axiom would need an entirely new factory, with completely different machines and skill-sets to build these.

Holy Crap this forum is still around

Only the speakers have changed.

Bahahaha just literally laughed out loud..