Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Gene DeSalla's latest video with a stab at...

I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to learn. "Quite neutral" isn't neutral. Certain rooms favor certain speakers. That's why we have anechoic chambers.

Craig, I have a lot of difficulty with this kind of testing. Don't get me wrong; it's fun. But I just can't see how it's scientifically valid because speaker positioning comes into play, the room comes into play and how your head is tilted and whether or not you need to fart comes into play.

This is why we have anechoic chambers, spinoramas and calibrated test equipment. Of course all of those results require interpretation by a human and no two humans that are diametrically opposed will come to an agreement about interpretation.

Now I know Harman, Axiom and others do this type of testing and Toole says it must be so but I damned well know the devil is in the details.

The final arbiter is me, in my rooms and the actives rock!

Mojo - sometimes you swerve into absurd (but you are still likeable). Can you show a listening test done in an anechoic chamber? Of course not.

Can you show a room that is completely neutral? No.

There will always be a room involved. This is why we do ABAB then BABA testing. It makes sure each speaker is treated fairly.

You stated that Gene is "knowledgeable." Yet, every test his hack site does is while staring at the speaker in question, and for which his company is paid to laud .. er .. review .. and you think this is what constitutes "knowledge."

And the speakers are auditioned in .. are you ready .. a ROOM.

When you are given a proper protocol for a blind test between two level matched speakers, you suddenly have an issue with the room being there.

I don't accept any testing Audioholics does. I like reading stuff by experts on his site like the recent room acoustics article Toole published. I don't even look at ads.

Even with ABAB and BABA, it could be biased. After doing ABAB I may be too tired and bored when doing BABA or hungry or horny. Harman is arguing with themselves daily about their methods and they're supposedly the best. LOL!

So any ABAB and BABA is all in fun. I still think it's worth trying to do this so that people can be brought together to talk. You see Craig, the true value of ABAB and BABA testing is to bring folks together so they can talk. The value is in the discussions and not the test results.

I say we put Gene in Axiom's anechoic chamber with whatever speakers he wants, lock him in, and never let him out. hehehe

I've run into him at Cedia before. He struts around and thrives on the attention he gets.

There are so many opinion-only based videos that he has put out there. Heck, keep in mind that he has his own published video saying that Atmos is a joke, and later that DTS:X is amazing. His reasons for bashing Atmos as a gimmicky fad are the same reasons he says that DTS:X is so great.

This is an indicator of his entire career. His videos with Hugo were laughable at best. Scripted (poorly), and Hugo would have pre-planned questions that were one-sided that Gene would answer. The two were quite silly to watch. Now Hugo is gone, and that is good. He was almost harder to listen to than Gene, even though Gene was the puppet-master in the videos.

Note that I haven't even gotten into the history of Gene and Axiom, but specifically wanted to give an example of his nonsense that has nothing to do with Axiom at all. That video that I mention was from a while back. I stumbled across it by accident and swore that I wouldn't (intentionally) watch any of his biased videos ever again... Until recently when YouTube just auto-played one of his videos that it thought was related to something else that I had finished watching (which is where I heard that Hugo "left the company").

I think that if he focused on giving his opinion, but stating that they are his opinion, vs stating his opinion but stating it as fact, then he would be someone that I could possibly tolerate. I just greatly dislike people that are deceitful like that. I used to feel like I was on a crusade to "save the world from the lies and deceit" even when not intentional, but that just wears me out. That is why I haven't really posted much in this topic.

I used to really jump in to share my knowledge (based off of research, not opinion) for a few key home theater topics... Dolby Atmos and DTS:X (mainly back when they both first came to home theaters and people struggled to get information), room soundproofing, and room acoustics (for beginners or people that don't want to get to the step of measuring their rooms, but general acoustical treatments). I used to jump in to try to share factual information when people were going down a wrong path and offer insights and ideas, but again, it gets tiring trying to save the world from themselves.

That being said, it would require a full time effort to correct Gene's mis-guidance and false information. I don't have that energy any more.

Nick, Craig left us. I hope he comes back steaming mad. When he's mad, he tells us things he otherwise wouldn't.

There are some interesting aspects of this video that I always find fascinating. From a purely factual viewpoint, the crossover he is picturing is from 2007 and it was discontinued in 2008. At the end of this post is an excerpt from the review by Gene in early 2008 where it shows that these speakers sold for $330 pair. So, to put the price of $598 beside a picture of a component from a speaker that sold for $330 is simply being dishonest in order to over emphasize the negative. On top of the crossover upgrade we have also upgraded the woofer, tweeter, input, and cabinet on these speakers since 2007. But what I find so curious is what drives someone to the point of dishonesty just to bash someone? And this is really quite minor for Gene antics. Some of you may remember when Gene was posing on our forum as an owner and bashing us. Even more egregious was Gene’s promoting of people to go on other forums and bash us whenever anyone made a comment about Axiom. I know this was happening because Gene pissed one of them off once and he sent me the mail trail between him and Gene.

So back to the question; what causes someone to react this way? A viable answer would be they are religious and you are talking heresy to them. In that scenario the heretic (me) needs to be severely punished for not agreeing with their dogma. I think I should add that I see the blame for things falling apart between Gene and myself as lying entirely with me. I know better than talk about the results of our scientific investigation with someone who holds strong beliefs about what they can hear. But in Gene’s case I missed his change from being interested in the results of double-blind listen testing to being dogmatic about what he can hear. In our last visit together, I set up a double-bind listen test to demonstrate that one of the beliefs he was promoting was not actually audible. He did the test and could not hear any difference. His reaction was not what I was expecting. I was expecting he would find the result interesting and revealing of one of those myths in audio, which previously Gene liked to expose. Boy was I wrong; the reaction was anger and comments like “well I can’t hear it on your speakers” and “we should incorporate his suggested changes in our design just for the sake of being able to claim they are over engineered” (over engineering is now a good thing in Gene’s belief system).

So here we are a decade later and my punishment continues. The fact is that Gene really liked our V1 and V2 products back in the day but now he claims that speakers in general have gotten better since then, and I am sure that is true for many brands, I know it is for ours.

Audioholics Review from February 2008:

Despite the few shortcomings I found with the Axiom Algonquins, they certainly proved to be among the best sounding speakers I've heard in this price class, and especially in their genre of outdoor speaker systems. Their ability to give you a full spectrum of sound, solid bass extension, and plenty of efficiency and power handling makes them ideal for those looking for quality bookshelf type speaker systems for their gaming room or covered barbeque area. Seeing how most outdoor speakers underperform sonically, I'd venture to say the Algonquins would really draw attention to themselves to visiting friends and family members whom aren’t accustomed to having high fidelity sound outdoors.

The fact that Axiom offers color matching to further blend into your room décor is an added bonus that virtually no other manufacturer offers. Their prompt and unparalleled customer service and very generous return policy makes them a safe buy for anyone not sure if these speakers are right for them. My only caution is to be mindful of placement as I don't recommend fully exposing these speakers to all of the weather elements outdoors since they are a ported design.

After spending a few weeks listening to these speakers in my workout room, they have earned a permanent position and have dethroned my Klipsch AW-525’s. I can't think of a higher recommendation than that and only hope one day Axiom decides to offer a no compromise line of speakers to go after the ultra high end of the market and show off what they could do when budgets are freed up. In the meantime, I will be making good use of my Algonquins.

Axiom Audio Algonquin
MSRP: 330/pair (including delivery anywhere in North America)

For clarity ... the post that Ian just put up has a reprint of the AH review.

It was Gene who did the review.

Somehow, it went from one of the best speakers in its price range to a red circle with a line through it saying no.

This is called an agenda. And it isn't an honest one.

Craig, I fully agree he continues to have an agenda and it is not honest.

Yay! We are in agreement.

I lived through the initial freak-out and backlash from Gene era. It was tough. As an Axiom owner for 15 years now, I felt unable to name what brand speakers I owned for fear of unjustified criticism from people that had no experience with Axiom, and only the minions that Gene sent forth to bad-mouth the entire Axiom line.

Gene is a tool... Like a worn down screwdriver that can't do anything helpful any more and is only good for stabbing at things.