Axiom Home Page Forums AxiomAir Discussion AxiomAir General Discussion Force or Freedom?

I don't hear boominess with either Air inside the house.

If you place them on a large, hard surface and turn them up, they will boom, rattle and roll.

I've found it useful to stuff the bottom port of the Freedom.

I suppose if you don't like these limitations, go buy a one Watt bluetooth POS or a "real" speaker system.

In my living room I much prefer my M2OW system. In every possible way.

The Kickstarter Force had a siliconey feel to the back. Tactilely, it was kinda cool. But dust adhered to it and made it difficult to clean. I like the plastic of the latest generation much better.

I must have a hybrid since I bought it as a refurb ... probably got yours!!

Like you describe, The N3 I recieved has a rubbery outside but it must have an upgraded processor since it doesn't need a dongle for bluetooth. The white rubbery parts have turned a bit yellow in places and the thin edges of the top plate has chips (making it look a bit disheveled). This probably is from years of banishment to and hard labor in the shop.

I originally bought it for music outside (thinking I could move it between the back deck, front porch, and patio) but those spaces took a few years more then planned to materialize ... Since I was not fond of the boom (which I found really annoying on certain songs) it got banished to the shop and occasionally the garage.

I have a feeling that things have changed since I formed my original opinion. I only recently upgraded the software and haven't given it a 2nd listened. With all the glowing reviews I bet Ian and co. must have tweaked the DSP code. If so ... the Air may see daylight soon.

The Air does not have a DSP. Trade it in.

You can still do some filtering. How complex is dependent on the real-time performance of the PI and OS.

I rolled out of bed this morning, pumped out a cappuccino, and now I'm enjoying Freedom on my deck. I know Axiom went through hell bringing the various Airs to market. This stuff is not easy on so many levels. But it so worth it in the end. From a Canadian company nonetheless. This is a great platform and I hope it continues to flourish.

So far so good on connectivity and uptime of the firmware and software. What a difference from the Kickstarter days!

I've had both Airs 80 feet away from my router. That signal has to get from the far end of my basement to the far end of my yard. It has to go through a floor diagonally and through multiple walls. I've had no drop-outs via Spotify and web radio.

Guillaume has done a good job of overhauling the firmware and software. Admittedly I haven't tried to brick it but I remember when I got my Kickstarter unit, all I had to do was look at it wrong and it would stutter and die. The only problem I've had so far is the volume control through the Android app. I changed it from natural to linear and could no longer get max volume out. I re-started it through the app, changed it to natural and decided to just leave it alone. I've done a few other things like change the name, save radio stations, etc and all has worked well. I find interface responsiveness is quite good.

I haven't tried anything but wi-fi so I can't speak to other functions. From what I've experienced so far, both are well-baked products.

Looks like your getting into it. When I received mine I had to fool with it to get it working. Don't remember what I did but at the time I was thinking it was not quite an appliance yet. Anyway, once I did I it just worked ... Think that was in 2016. Except for doing a sim re-flash to the latest air version (a couple of months ago), I've only have connected my iPhone or iPad and played music.

The boot time before the flash was a bit frustrating though ... Glad to see it down to 30 second or so ... it's possible to do better (less then 1/2 sec if you cutout all the unnecessary stuff, hardcode the linux kernel configuration, and ...) but I can tolerate 30 seconds. Wonder if the air sleeps and if so, how much power it uses in this mode.

It's about 34 seconds to boot up. That's just fine with me. Consistency and reliability with functionality is more important to me than speed. The Kickstarter Air was neither of those.

I've noticed the Android Spotify app loses the Air. I can't blame this on the Air because the Spotify app also loses my Chromecast Audio, Chromecast video and Firestick 4K from time to time. The Spotify app crashed badly once on my Firestick 4K. I had to uninstall and re-install it.

This Spotify behavior has happened twice today. Both times, the AxiomAir app could locate the Air. I had to soft-boot the Air through the AxiomAir app before the Spotify app could identify it.

Sometime this weekend I plan to put the Force and Freedom side by side to do listening comparisons. I already know the Force sounds better but haven't taken it further than that.