So in one (or two) of my ramblings on here, I mentioned a couple of guys at work that were building new homes. One guy went the expensive option, buying somewhat lower quality gear for an over-inflated price via an installer. They didn't provide any configuration or calibration services for audio or video, and for those that remember, I was there when the guy connecting everything up getting the subwoofer connected. His "calibration" was to turn the sub up until it started distorting the audio and say "Yeah baby, listen to THAT!"
Anyway, back to guy #2. He is more, how do I say, "economical" in his choices. He is not afraid of a little DIY efforts, or saving money. Well, last month Axiom had the "20% off Factory Outlet" sale. He was looking for some inwall fronts, and I started pricing things up from 6 different speaker lines (Axiom was obviously one of them, and one was crazy priced and dropped early from the choices). With the sale going on, I told him that it was a no-brainer to go Axiom. He didn't go with the biggest setup in the world, but it was still a stretch for him to spend $1,200 for 7 speakers (after the 20% factory outlet discount and 5% discount for ordering 5 or more speakers). His current system in his house that he just sold was some $400 bundle of a low model Onkyo receiver and a 5.1 panasonic speaker setup, so spending 3x that price just on speakers is pushing his personal confort a little, plus he will still need a sub later on.
Anyway, so he said that the ship date (maybe it was the estimate receive date) is this Friday.
I am going over to his new place tomorrow night after work and we are running smurf tubes, speaker wire, and a bunch of HDMI throughout the house. I haven't see the house in 3 weeks, and it just had the electrial roughin walkthrough yesterday, so he needs to get the wiring done asap so that they can start the drywall. Of course, as luck would have it, he is in Scotland next week for work.
I wonder if there is still some "referal" bonus for something like this. I mean, he has been to my house a couple of times for both demos, and full movies (Safe House and something else), and I was the one that did the leg work on the product comparisons. It wasn't hard to get him interested in buying Axiom after hearing my setup, and when the sale price had them right in the same price range as lower quality stuff.
I don't know exactly when he bought since I was out of town for work the week of May 20th, then out of town again from May 29th - June 6th. Then he was out since then until today. He was so excited to tell me this morning that he bought Axioms.
For those wondering, the choices that he was looking at were:
Axiom Audio
Boston Accoustics
Infinity
Klipsch
Polk Audio
And a couple of "combinations" of the above
He should have ended up with:
(2) M2 v3 In-Wall Front L/R
(1) VP100 v3 In-Wall Center
(4) QS4 v3 Surrounds
I tried to get him to jump to three M22s for the L/C/R, but I don't know what he did. He just told me that he "bought the ones I told him to." I told him a few things, so maybe he went with the M22s, but knowing how concerned he was about price, he probably stayed with the M2/VP100 combo.
Anyway, he won't ever be on the forums... Not that type of person, but he is another member of the Axiom family nonetheless.
PS. I will take some pictures of his theater install as things move along since people like to look at stuff. It will be pretty basic since it is a shared family room space and he isn't doing any sound proofing or acoustial treatments, but still. I like pictures.
