Certainly acceptable, but still a bit cautious. C'mon, throw caution to the winds and put on the Rachmaninoff 1st Symphony and then follow up with La Sacre du Printemps.

Well you sneaky little devil. Nary a peep; nary an insinuation. Not even a hint. Congratulations.

Ken, congrats and another welcome to the posse, I'm also looking forward to hearing your comparison of the 50's and the 80's.

Wow! Congrats Ken. How did you manage to keep quiet about it?

Unlike everyone else, I want to hear a comparison between the new M80s and the cat.

The cat only hits her top vocal form if you withhold food for a couple days. That's borderline cruel, so I doubt Ken would be up for that.


Congrats on your new babies, Ken!

Hey, what's my cat doing in California?

That's quite a confession, Ken! How exciting! Your cat looks mighty protective of those new speakers! Are you sure he's going to let you listen to them?

Hey congrats on the new digs Ken! From the looks of the pictures the cat is quite happy and the plant is perfectly content, shoot the Christmas tree even looks joyous ... so where is the pictures of that big 'ol grin on Ken's face?

I too am curious of your observations comparing the 80s to the 50s, especially since the 50s have always been regarded as very laid back while the 80s have sometimes been described as, uh...you know.

They're not uh, you know. They are more crisp, with a better soundstage. And the bass! It's incredible how much these things put out, especially relative to the 50s. Of course, I've hardly exercised them; they got set up around 8:30 PM, and I do live in an apartment...

Kali's definitely my cat. I should know, we just paid through the nose to get her surgery. That's why she looks a little mangy--they shaved most of her back and gave her an 8 inch incision!

Congratulations and Merry (Axiom) Christmas!

Why the decision to switch to the 80's? I thought you liked the 50's? Or is it more of a wanting the bigger and better? I'm curious to hear what you think of the difference more for movies/rock music then classical. I have the M22's and have thought about switching to the M50's one day.

Congrats Ken, I am jealous of you m80's guys. I hope some day I can join the posse so Rick will leave me alone. ha ha lol

I bet that HK is sounding pretty good right now?

I can't beleive Ken beat you on getting the M80s .

Very Cool, Ken. What finish?

looks like Vermont Beach...now he just needs to replace the 2600 with a Wii.

M80tis (Vermont Maple)
QS4s (beech)
VP100 (Vermont Maple)
Cambridge Soundworks Powered Subwoofer 1
Harman/Kardon AVR525
Yamaha DVD-C750 Universal Changer
Zenith 27" TV
TiVo Series2 300 hr
Panasonic VCR
Atari 2600

As to replacing the 50s with the 80s, it all came about rather suddenly. Some very generous family members decided to give me an early prezzie, so I kind of debated a little bit, and settled on going whole hog and getting the 80s (especially after my wife voted for that!)

The 50s will be going in the office/baby room. I still like the 50s a whole lot (and would have been very happy with them for a long, long time), but the 80s just add that little something. After Xmas, I'll get 'em set up right proper.

Guess I get to start nagging you now, Randy! I think that's one of the perks of the M80 posse.

I still think you should have gone with a sub. That whole conversation is the main reason I decided on the EP500 upgrade.

Ah, but then I wouldn't have extra speakers!

*cough*



Congrats on the sweet upgrade, Ken. I think I might've gone for an EP500 if I were in your shoes, but Axiom's top of the line speakers aren't too bad, either. After Christmas, we should set up a proper listening session. I can bring my M3s over and we can make M83s and see how they work.

congrats Ken.........enjoy the 80s........they are truely great sounding speakers......and they look pretty good too.....

I was kind of thinking of M130s, but I doubt that would be very stable.

Ken, congrats on the new 80s. I don't know how you held out this long on getting a 2nd set of Axiom speakers, given that you are a shareholder in the making.

Please make sure to get lots of enjoyment out of them.

Take care.

Ken - you devil!!!

Congrats on the 80s; you're gonna love them.

BTW - this doesn't fit in the confession category. This is CLEARLY an epiphany!

Ken! You Turkey Buzzard you!! You snuck on over to the other side!!

Ok....unabashed confession #4,000,001; if I had a choice, now that I'm used to a more foreward and somewhat brighter sound from my Alessandro MS2i, I would most certainly switch over to some M60s IF my cabinets that the M50s are housed in....that the Wife insists remain right where they are....were a scant 1/4" higher inside! M80s are WAY WAY too tall to replace the M50s, but even the M60s are a tad too large to fit in the location deemed absolutely "cast in concrete" by the powers that be.

....so the M50s must remain.

but, uh......for the last few months I've kinda considered myself an associate member in the "other" posse as well.

Aw shucks....
Rich.

Heh... The 50s are great speakers. And without doing a back to back vs. the 80s, I can't guarantee that what I'm hearing is different, let alone better. But I strongly suspect it is.

Let's see... how to make Rich feel better yet still feel great about my new speakers... Hmm....

......heh heh heh...as somewhat of a kindred spirit...shouldn't really be much of a problem.....besides, other than at Christmas time; my ROOM SUX anyway!!!

.....I probably couldn't hear much of a difference either!!

I always thought of Ken as the M50 posse Prez. So, in my own way, I'm a little stunned by this confession. Almost as stunned as I was reading Ray's original confession. It's going to take me some time to get over this. I thought there were some things you could always depend on. Ray's M60s and Ken's M50s. Apparently, nothing is sacred in the world of Audiophilia. , I think.

OK, how about this? The M50s are for my two channel listening now. Does that sound impressive?

Of course, I'm not certain how I'm going to power that two channel listening. I'm either going to run speaker cables from the multiroom terminals on the 525, or run some RCAs and buy a (very, very) cheap stereo receiver.

The problem I'm running into is that there's this wall in between the two rooms. Stupid wall.

I guess I have confession to make, also. As most here know, I've been itching to upgrade to towers from my M22s, for quite some time. I've flirted with the M60s, but I have a couple things I have had to consider. #1 is the cost issue and #2 is the physical space I lack in considering the M60/80s. And today I find out there is a pre-Christmas sale on some PSB t45s at my local dealer. The PSB are scheduled to arrive this afternoon on the truck, and I have a little cash to burn. They would fit the budget and would fit better in my room, physically. I'm extremely tempted. I realize I'm probably shooting myself in the face considering the M60s are probably a much better choice, but the deal is awfully good.

If it is a better match for your needs and budget, and you like the sound, I would say go for it. Good luck with your choices.

If I do it, and that is a big IF, I'm keeping the QS8s for surround duty. There is nothing that gets those babies off my walls.

OK, first chance I had to give them a real workout. Stuck in Alison Krause & Union Station Live, DSOTM, Tool-Lateralus, O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and Opeth-Blackwater Park.

I may not make it off of Lateralus.

I listened to the first on AK, which sounded great (no shocker). Then I listened to Money, which sounded amazing, especially the last minute or so of it.

Now listening to the first track of Lateralus. Didn't realize that my DVD changer plays CDs straight out the 5.1 jacks, as well. I think I'm going to have to work on the placement a little bit (again, I'm shocked; I pretty much just plunked them down where they fit.)

Wow. The drums on the first track of Lateralus are incredible. I was feeling like I might maybe possibly have a little too much treble (yes, I know they're ruler flat, so thanks much Tool engineers...), but they really sound good.

The Patient just kicked in (right about 2 minutes or so. Wow.

...

O Brother: wow. Sounds like there's a work gang right in front of me.

And now Alison Krause is right in front of me. With a choir. Hi Alison!

Oops. Forgot to notice anything in particular--just enjoying the music!

The imaging on these puppies is great.

Didn't get to Opeth. Oh well. Next time!

Earlier in casual listening (at much lower volume), they also sounded quite good!

.....let's see....if I do some major surgery on those cabinets and hog out about another quarter inch or so....and sell off one of the Grandkids.....

Geez Ken, i just saw the post. How many years did you wait for the M50s and now within how short a span you own two models?!
You must've won the lottery.
Party at Ken's place.

It was a few years, indeed... And to be completely honest, that was a few years for any Axiom speakers.

I was all set to pick a pair of T45 or T55s and enter them into an extended listening experiment with the M22s. But the store, of course, was out of stock. Now, I'm starting to wonder what's going on with this dealer. They had recently moved to another location. Originally, they stocked the upper lines of PSB and B&W, but now they only stock the image line and the 600 series of B&W, and they recently added Yamaha speakers to their line up. I auditioned some demo B&W 603S3 towers which were being sold off for a 40 percent discount and I thought they sounded dreadful. If you want anything else, you have to order it. Another thing I noticed is that all of the old salesmen/audio experts who were in there 30s and 40s have disappeared and have been replaced by teenagers. It kind of makes a guy wonder how long they will actually be in town. And how difficult it will be to get work down on anything I purchase from them in the future. Once again the M60s/M80s are starting to look more inviting.

I think a lot of stores are feeling that they have to decide whether to focus on high end audio, keep their margins, but with relatively low sales levels, or to focus on home theater, cut their costs and margins, and have a chance to grow or at least remain reasonably large. I guess your store has made their choice.

I imagine they are making those changes in the hope that they *won't* go away.

It's sad, really. Even if dealer A does a good job and adds value, if dealers B, C and D do a crappy job then we start to lose faith in dealers and end up buying online at the lowest price we can find and rely on communities like this to provide the support and guidance that we used to get from dealers.

I have to admit I have seen so much bad info from dealers in the last couple of years (while my friends were shopping for HT systems) that it's hard to argue in favour of the old "reasonable margins, experienced staff" dealer model any more except for the high end / low volume suppliers who can afford to be picky about who resells their gear.

Congrats, Ken! I'm very happy for you, even if you did leap-frog the true gem of the Axiom lineup.

Looking forward to hearing them some time.