Mildly interesting if nothing else:

http://www.audioholics.com/news/audioholics-social-media-presence

TAM

"Mildly interesting if nothing else" should be in my Sig line.

In the first sentence, they've "lead" the industry instead of "led." Heavy is the crown.

Wow! Officially turned off of AH. Thought I was just on the outs. But now official.

"We are super great. See?! Look! And Hugo! Oh wow, look at us on a tear again! "

Insert super loud fart noise here. Bored.

They voted themselves as #1? Too funny.

I get what they are getting at. They have YouTube videos where most other web forum originating sites don't (but most/all of their videos are just like this article, talking about how great they are and not just giving unbiased reviews, tech updates, etc). They may have a lot of people on Facebook too, but if you look at their stats, it talks about the # of posts to their Facebook page. If you go to their Facebook page, the posts are by them and are almost all advertisements. Wow, that is a helpful Facebook presence.

I stopped looking after that. They toot their own horn, even though their horn is a kazoo. There is some intelligibility to what you hear, but it is masked in the self-promotional "buzzing" of the kazoo.

Agreed. The hardest part is hearing what they are saying and knowing that it's valid. Hard when facts come from a figure you dislike. The vibe is never very fun in the vids or articles. They always come across as bitchy or "here we go again with these dummies." Becoming more and more editorial.

The whole handling of ATMOS as it was introduced was laughable. They ate some crow over it.

Maybe they should model themselves more like the outrageously successful Mythbusters. Hard not to like those guys no matter what they are doing or blowing up that day.

Resurrected old, dead thread (2013):

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/whats-the-deal-with-axiom.84361/page-4

Why??

TAM

It is unfortunate, but AH forgot the most important aspect of being an asset to this hobby: This aspect is being objective.

The moment one decides to like or dislike a company's products based on friendship or the opposite of friendship, is the moment one no longer can be taken as a credible source.

I'm baffled. It doesn't even seem to be new content he woke the thread up for.

It's Gene. He doesn't make much sense in anything that he does. Unless you consider horrifically bad self promotion (at least in his videos) as "making sense."

What's worse are the blind lemmings that follow this guy's every word. Sure, Gene could say that I am a blind lemming for owning Axioms, but I bought mine 11 years ago after a lot of research, listening to other brands, but before even hearing the Axioms. I liked them so much that I didn't worry about the more expensive brands that sounded similar. That is also why I later upgraded my VP150 to a VP180, added 2 more QS8s, and bought 4 M3 on-walls just last fall. I like the speakers, I like the company.

Better products out there? Sure. Some costing the same or maybe even less, probably. But most of those other companies are barely above paying someone to build a DIY type speaker (not that some can't look nice). Some do offer nice looking products. But how long will they be around? I think of a maker of amazingly great subwoofers right here in my state of Iowa. Elemental Design was basically a "garage" business in the small town of Newton, Iowa. People RAVED about how great their products were, and things were going great for a while. Then, and I don't know the details, they started having issues, put current stock on clearance, and closed up shop. to this day, I don't think that anyone who has owned one of their products has had anything but extremely positive feedback. They has everything going for them and offered tremendous performance and at a reasonable price, but didn't last.

I'd take someone who has been around a while, has a product that I like, etc. Sure, the pricing has gone up a lot in the 11 years of ownership, but so have the costs of R&D, materials, and construction.

The sad part about Gene is his ego overshadows anything that comes out his mouth. That belief that just because that is the way that he feels, any other opinion must be wrong.

I liked Paradigm and would have bought them if it was not for the price. I tried Axiom and really liked the sound as well for about 1/2 the price of what I would have to pay for the Paradigm. I really like the live soundstage that the speakers give. Others may not as much and that is their opinion.

I refuse to even create an account on Audioholics as i see no need to support his ego.

I became "a little shameful behavior in the past" and red lined rep for things I said HERE! A little bird ran and told him He said. My activity ceased there.

Hi Gene spies.

I took issue with Gene rehashing the same old material by activating a pretty much dormant thread. Needless to say it was quickly edited(not by me though) to avoid me getting banned...fwiw...I really don't care as I'm fairly sure I done with that forum.

I have my reasons why I have not posted here for sometime and I no longer own Axiom speakers but I've just grown tired of Gene and his futile attempts to dis-credit the Axiom brand over at Audioholics time and time again.

Btw... I just wanna give TAM a shout out for all his efforts on various forums...keep it up...Tom

Regards,

Bill

Nick - this is a well stated post. One of the lessons learned from my end in the 4 years of Chase Home Theater is just how hard it is to get good people to deliver products to customers.

Chase Home Theater was started with my brother in mind - he was going to handle all the logistics and assembly, while I provided marketing and paid for all our products up front.

As with Axiom, our stuff was largely sourced with North American raw materials, or "American Made" (keep in mind America is actually two continents, not a country).

I am still living the "pain" of trying to get people to deliver products to customers. I currently have customers who have been waiting since May for products that should have shipped IN May.

My brother was a "disaster" in terms of this - and his replacement is far worse.

Now that I am back doing the on line reviews - and actually enjoying the hobby again, the experience with the business end has really given me a new appreciation for companies getting products delivered.

The Axiom products I ordered took about 5 weeks from order to delivery, and this includes the custom oak finish.

It was a visit to Axiom - seeing the production line, the anechoic chamber, the blind listening lab - that made me pull the trigger.

Today, in terms of speakers, most ID companies order containers of products from a Chinese source. They have no in house R&D.

I have had a chance to hear several of these products, and have seen the fit and finish.

The M100's, VP-180, M50's and EP-800 look fantastic, and the build quality is first rate.

I know Axiom will be there tomorrow - better than I will for my old customers. That is something I personally find embarrassing - all those customers who were excited at purchasing our Chase products only to see me "close the doors".

The people who rip into Axiom are also the same people who would never take a blind listening test. This is why I am hopefully going to have a real listening "studio" at my place, complete with the ability to do blind listening tests with switching done at the pre-amp level, and also level matched.

It will be fun to let people hear different speakers under blind conditions.

Our hobby deserves more honesty and sanity than it has now. And I hope to be a small part of both.

Speaking from personal experience, if you say something that ticks them off, you don't get banned but, in the eyes of Gene, you are then placed on a permanent "s...list" indicated by the little icon under your "forum user name" which if you make any follow-up comments the icons automatically give free reign to their loyal flock of contributors(including Gene himself) to say anything they want about you and/or the comments without any repercussions whatsoever. Needless to say, I haven't written any comments in years, however, my name with the icon is still listed and I can't seem to find how to remove it(frankly, I no longer care).

Funny how not that many years ago they made two trips to Axiom in Dwight and in a follow-up in depth article raved about the company, design philosophy, testing and R&D. How times change when things don't go their way.

Axiom must be on their mind. Another long dormant thread resurrected for no good reason - subs this time:

http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/axiom-subs.89250/

Check out my 'Signature Block' in Post #3 from Feb 2014. That is about the seventh iteration that someone there recently has kindly given me - it gets longer & more complex every time, ha!!...

TAM

This quote from Gene is priceless:

"Our subwoofer measurement procedure sets the industry standard for objectively evaluating subwoofer performance"

Their "procedure" was to hire Paul Apollonio and then Josh Ricci to do the CEA 2010 test using software anyone can purchase. To call this "setting the industry standard" would be about as logical as a Chevrolet dealer claiming he did the development work on the new Corvette Z-06.

CEA 2010 does no listening tests. It is purely a set of numbers using pulses that start at 0.325 second at 20 Hz and .08125 second at 80 Hz.

An arbitrary THD level is set using CEA 2010 standards, and no actual blind listening tests have been used to determine whether these THD levels are relevant.

CEA 2010 tells a small portion of a subwoofer's real world performance. The sad part of CEA 2010 is it has made a bunch of self appointed experts in the arena of subwoofers.

Sound quality no longer matters. No - all we need to know is how loud will a subwoofer play for 0.325 second at 20 Hz without the 40 Hz harmonic exceeding a set SPL.

If we tested loudspeakers the way the "experts" test subwoofers, Cerwin Vega would be state of the art.

Well done!

For this dope DeScala to think he has any credibility left in the A/V field, at least to those in the know, he clearly is living in some sort of alternate reality.

If you really want to have a laugh, check out some of their video reviews of equipment particularly the one about Aperion speakers. The presenter is trying to be a stand-up comedian, fortunately for him, without an audience. I suspect future videos will have a laugh track in place.

Yeah, but there are those blind lemmings still... LOTS of them.

I'm going to seriously derail this, but I'm curious:

Has anyone else found, with this thread only, that if they click to show only NEW posts in this thread, they are brought to the first post instead?

yup

I think it's an attention-getting tactic from TAM!

Agreed. (Same happening for me too.)

I don't need no stinkin attention. I'm too old for that...

TAM

In the world of audio, there are two kinds of companies. Those who gather the dirt and those who dish the dirt. One doesn't want to be on the dishing end when the gatherers have their day.

You are getting old. You forgot to add, GET OFF MY LAWN!

With our 2 month drought out here on VR Island with no end in sight, Stage 3 Watering Restrictions were imposed yesterday - no lawn watering.

So in a couple of weeks, it won't matter if anyone walks on my lawn as sadly it will be burnt up, brown & not scrubbing CO2 nor producing O2. That's the way that our 'greenies' out here want it I guess...

TAM

Surrounded by water, but not a drop to drink

Yup. Today on VR Island, the sun is mostly blocked by forest fire smoke that has permeated high into the atmosphere.

This condition is keeping the temps in check which is a relief from the 28 to 33C temps daily that we've been experiencing for the past couple of months. And no rain as well...

TAM

Welcome to the new world weather. We've had an unusually wet and surprisingly nice July. Only one day over 30 C.

We're getting Van's rain and beautiful weather.
Oddly cool some nights though, must be the extra moisture.
The smoke is nasty here too and its probably about to get much worse.
Its a nice change to have better weather than the island. Suns currently rising earlier and setting later than down there too.
I wish it was always this nice up here.