Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Axiom vs Paradigm

Ok I'm new to this board so PLEASE don't everybody jump on me at once. I'm building a new home and I want a very good home theater,music room. I recently listened to the Paradigm Monitor series and I was impressed. I was wondering how the Axiom compared to the Paradigms??
Thanks in advance for the info.

Hmmmm.... Well, they are both from Canada!

Oh, you wanted to know contrasting information....

You'll have to hear it from someone else as I couldn't tell you. I just wanted to start the responses with a goofy note.

Welcome to the boards, you will get straight forward, honest, and yet fun, information here.

Paradigms are real nice speakers. From an informal sample at work, anyone with good ears looking for good speaker value either owns Paradigms or Axioms.

A lot of people divide the Axiom lineup into two "families" depending on whether the midrange is handled by a 5.5" or 6.5" driver. The M2, M22, M60, M80 are the "5.5 family" while the M3, M40, M50 are the "6.5" family. The difference sound-wise is that the "6.5 family" has a bit of a dip in the midrange (centered on 3-5 KHz), which makes vocals a bit softer, makes the speakers sound more "relaxed" and tolerant of bad recordings, but also loses you some of the incredible clarity that Axioms are known for.

In general, the Paradigms seem to sound and perform more like the "6.5 family", ie the laid-back ones rather than the super-accurate ones.

Which is better ? Hard to say. There are good arguments for both, and both families of speakers are passionately defended on this board. I tend to lean towards the "more clear" sound side of things so I own M60s and M2s... but I bet I would be happy with either the 6.5"-based Axioms or similar Paradigms.

I started by ordering M2s and was just blown away by the sound -- they had a clarity that I had not heard in that price range before. A few people (including Axiom) have said that you have to go to the Paradigm Studio line (one up from the Monitors) to match the Axiom's clarity. That matches my impressions but mine are based on very casual listening NOT serious A/B testing.

This seems to be the general trend. You can get speakers as good as or better than the Axioms from other companies but you have to get up into the high end lines and spend a lot more $$ to get them.

Anyways, good luck with your choice. Speaker shopping is always hard work. Remember that there are lots of Axiom owners around who don't mind showing off their systems.

John

I can only add one data point from my direct experience. I used to own Paradigm Monitor 7's and now I have M80's, I know it's not a fair comparison. The M80's are vastly superior. I have listened to the Monitor 11's and like them a lot, they are probably fairly comparable to the M80's. I say probably because I haven't done a direct a/b comparison. Overall you will probably get more bang for your buck out of Axioms.

I posted some time back (could it be more than a year already?) regarding my A/B test with the M60's and the Paradigm Reference 11's. Essentially, in a side by side test using a Marantz SR-8000 amp, we couldn't tell the difference. From a technical stand point, the Paradigms have a flatter frequency response than the Axioms but nothing that would make you sit up and notice. From a price point, I don't think you'll find many speaker systems that will provide the sound that the Axioms do for the price.

Sean

The Reference speakers are quite a bit more expensive than the Monitor line, though... (??).

I guess that makes my M60's a much better value than I thought. Coool!

Sean

toadiefan,

If you can find a B&W retailer nearby, the B&W 703s sound almost exactly like the Axiom M60s. The 703s are more than 3X the price.