Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Weaiting. And waiting. FedEx sucks!

So my LFR660s shipped on the 20th. I got one speaker on the 26th. One! And one speaker on the 27th.
There's *no* status on the DSP. And the amp is customs purgatory. It is extremely frustrating to have speakers sitting in the living room and not be able to use them.
To make it worse, we have a bee colony between our living room wall and the chimney, and the bee guy is coming next week and will be opening the ceiling near where the speaker would be. So if I don't get to play this weekend the speakers will be sitting there until next weekend. ARGHHH !
That's for reading my rant.

This, coupled with my poetry, may just send you over the edge.

I hear your pain Cork, been there done that! It's the worst! Make sure you look over the boxes before accepting delivery, the longer it stay's in Fedex's hands the more likely you'll see damage.

UPS is worse. They leave stuff on your doorstep, no doorbell ring, no call or email, rain or shine. Nothing like having a $800 monitor being soaked all day that you didn't know was arriving.

Ups is great if you work at home and have a front porch. The text/email works for me. It pops up on the screen, you open the front door and it’s there.

UPS is better in my area, but I think it's pretty much luck of the draw on that count. UPS at least brings the package up to my garage door, and usually under my porch. FedEx usually leave it out on the street; like this time where I had a large tower sitting out on the curb while I was at work. Fortunately my wife came home and brought it in.

FedEx has given me more trouble then any other shipper

Can't say i've had more than packet sized Fedex parcels. Not as popular here for shipping. I really hate the UPS customs charges. I much prefer USPS (to Canada) if the parcel size fits the limits.

Having a Ring or Nest doorbell really helps too.

So all the components finally came and I had a chance to compare the M80s to the LFR660s, and ... I liked the M80s better. I'm as surprised as you are.

It wasn't hands down; I'd say about 40% of the music I used for the comparison sounded better on the LFRs. (I used old/new recordings, a mix of rock/blues/jazz/classical, and a mix of acoustic/vocal.)
I'd say the imaging on the LFRs was better across the board, but I found that that aspect didn't matter to me that much. Another significant difference to me was that on the M80 the music generally appeared to come from the speaker, whereas on the LFRs it came from a right/left column (horizontal separation was pretty close between them), and I definitely liked the LFR vertical presentation better. On the other hand the M80s sounded more punchy/dynamic. (I did adjust for volume, but not using a meter.) But what really swung it for me is that the songs that that I really enjoyed, the ones that put a smile on my face, were on the M80.

Maybe the problem was that I really should have been comparing M80s to the LFR880 or M60s and LFR660; but there you have it.

Another interesting tidbit was that my wife liked the M80s better too (in more-or-less blind test; I didn't tell her anything and she kept her eyes closed). After her selection I filled her in and she posited that our older ears are losing the highs and the M80 compensated for that more. It makes some sense.

And in passing I'll add that the M8- sounded much better with the ADA1000 than using my 10 year old (8 ohm) Onkyo. Shocker, right?.