Where is Fedex?! The M80s have been out for delivery since 9:40 am.

Yesterday I called Fedex because tracking info was not updated all weekend even though the XPA2 had arrived at the regional facility on Saturday and the rep told me the scheduled delivery of the XPA2 was postponed so I went to the grocery store yet quickly returned home after suspecting a ruse. Sure enough the XPA2 arrived a few moments later!

Do not under any circumstances underestimate the devious ways of Fedex!

Yes Fedex strikes again! Looks they only delivered one speaker!

Well called Axiom and the rep states, "They [Fedex] always say that [that there's only one package]. They don't have a clue where it is but we'll find it! Call us back tomorrow."

How amusing! Guess I'll demo one speaker and do a toe to toe comparison with the speaker it will be replacing!

Well that sucks.

Thats always interesting. I can't remember if you already posted this, but what are the M80s replacing?

They are replacing a pair of Polk Reference Series Monitor 10Bs circa 1989-92? Interesting so far the Polk sounds better, more open and less boxy, but I've had to balance the volume (turn volume way up for the M80) because the Polk is only 6 ohms. I've been very happy with the Polk 10Bs given a number of nameless upgrades to connectivity however I've noticed that Polk speakers in general haven't seemed to get great reviews, perhaps a $400 speaker 20 years ago might sound better than a $600 speaker now? I thought that the march of technology would demonstrate the superiority of the latter. Connection issues exist, more about that later but it makes sense to me now why AL recommends more watts for the 4 ohm M80s, the XPA2 was an insane amount of power for the Polks but does not seem excessive for the M80.

At the time of audition at Jason's (myrison) I thought the epic 80/600 setup or even the M80s/VP150/Qs8s no sub beat the Polks for musicality (although to me the bottom line is it's all about HT folks) but of course that was not a side by side comparison.

This is of course is a bizzare situation/speaker setup so any true audition/comparison awaits the arrival of the second speaker.

BTW I hired a handyman to fix the kitchen drawers that were broken and my wife thinks the Axiom looks prettier than the Polk so the plan for world speaker domination continues!

Hey SK, congrats on the arrival (sort of). When my speakers first came in, I received 2 M80s and one QS8 in one shipment, so I had a bizarre first audition as well, though at least with the 2 front speakers I could do decent stereo listening. How frustrating! (the rest did arrive the next day, so they weren't separated by much)

Jason

That's good news! It's funny, now that the fam is in bed just now I was listening to VH1 at lower volumes and actually now the M80 sounds better (more accurate than the Polk) and I suspect the reason the Polk sounded better on HT was that it was more dramatic in an exaggerated, but not necessarily realistic across all content, sense. Hopefully I'm on the right track, I suspect once I am listening to the M80s in stereo and can crank it up with a natural balance (no SPL meter) I will hear the potential I have sensed since the audition in realized form, thanks for the moral support!

I think your appreciation will certainly grow after you get the other and as you listen to them. I moved from some Polk bookshelf speakers to M80s, and at first I didn't know why I'd spent the extra money. The more listening I did, the more I realized just how much more they were capable of, especially at theater-like volume levels. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts after you spend more time playing.

How odd, I posted a response a half hour ago but it did not go through, must have hit "delete" rather than "send", oops!

To reiterate, I appreciate your response, and I suspect you have hit the nail on the head, it seems the Polks may have a limited dynamic range, for example I was playing Peter Gabriel's Up and it sounded beautiful except I had to lunge for the remote control and my daughter had to plug her ears after a dramatic shift in volume and the volume was only set at a a tiny jillionth of a smidgeon to begin with.

The ability to match dynamic range to source in an aesthetic manner I believe is a crucial element of HT and clearly music as well given the current example.

OK so I checked out what's happening and my setup is FUBAR, will post back when I can fix things and give realistic assessment of my impressions, please disregard previous posts until such time . . .

Ouch!

More FUBAR'd than auditioning the Epic 80 with no sub plugged in? I'm sure in perspective it's not that bad.

Good one! Axiom called and located the package, it was on a different truck with a different tracking number but arrived in town last night and is out for delivery today.

Fedex delivered the 2nd M80!

Now for the hard part, I have no working preamp to power the XPA2. Last night I realized that I was only getting the right channel out of the Rotel preamp (via the headphone jack which apparently is broken) which of course messed up the speaker comparison because I was unable to vary the volume by channel/speaker to give the M80 more gain like I thought I was doing.

On Monday evening when I finally had a chance to look at the Rotel and see that it had no pre out jack I ordered an rxv 663, however I just called the company and they have been out on holiday the past two days so the order has not even been processed.

Looks like my only move now is to hook up the M80s to the Rotel (50 wpc into 8 ohms) and see how they sound.

It's unfortunate, I was getting a great sound out of the XPA2/Rotel combo with just a tad of noise at rest due to the unorthodox connection via the headphone jack and would have been very pleased with that while waiting for a real pre/pro to arrive, but one channel or mono or whatever I'm getting obviously doesn't cut it. I opened up the Rotel of course but the headphone jack is encased in plastic so there is no way to operate on it.

Have both M80s plugged in now and the sound is just spectacular! Definitely getting chills from listening, love the detail especially on the strings and female voices, that I've noticed so far. I have to turn the Rotel up 3/4 of the way and it's still underpowered, hesitant to turn the amp up more and expose the speakers to any distortion.

Sound is just as I remembered from the audition, thanks Jason!

Excellent! Welcome to the club of happy M80 owners (and listeners )!

Yet another happy M80 owner, congrats!.

Thanks guys, my wife auditioned the M80s tonight and stated that they were very intense, modern looking, and had a great subwoofer , all meant as compliments, so it looks like we are on track to smoothly flesh out the rest of the surround system without any opposition due to the WAF.

The sound absolutely blew away the Polks I am replacing, especially for HT content, we watched The Fringe and the background music was just so cool sounding and atmospheric, which is exactly what I felt was missing before.

I don't find the M80s to be bright at all, it's funny how people could even say that, I guess everything's relative to what you're familiar with.

I'll probably order the rest altogether so I can get the 5% discount off everything, the only hitch is the ep800, I can't put that in the cart unless/until I get an invite to the owner's club

Congrats. I bet you will be watching more movies in the near future. I can't wait to hear what your wife says when the big subwoofer arrives!

I would bet if you talked to Axiom they would honour the Owner's pricing on the EP800.

SK - congrats, I'm really glad to hear you're happy with the sound! (not that I had any doubt)

Just call Brent or JC and tell them what you're trying to do. I don't think there's any secret password required to prove that you are an Axiom owner, which you clearly are anyway. You should be good to go.

Jason

Congrats gld to hear you like what you are hearing. Certainly worth the call to Axiom to find out, can't imagine why they wouldn't either.

Thanks, yes the beauty goes on, even at very low volumes the detail is superlative, it's so much more focused than what I am used to, the emotional content of the soundtrack and also the dialogue are crystal clear, I used to play electric music and have needed to employ subtitles at times to recognize dialogue but no more, I can understand every word and nuance even at low volumes, waiting for the rest of the system will be challenging but I do believe the ep800 will be worth the wait . . .

It is the low volume playback that really makes the M80's shine, well at least to me, as I tend to listen at low volumes more often than not. That was what I really liked about the M22's as well, very articulate and clear at low volumes.

Yes exquisite is the word that comes to mind, I must admit, I expected excellent sound but not to exceed my expectations to such an extreme degree, I currently maintain such a sense of wonder that I can afford to capture so much beautiful, subtle sound in my humble abode, I have to keep going back to listen because it is just beyond belief. You've got my wheels turning now about the M22s as well, if not somewhere else in my own home, I may have to talk my best friend at work into buying them for his HT system that is still in the formative ideational stage.

I appreciate everyone's input a great deal, because I never buy any tech product these days unless professional reviews are backed by nearly unanimous consumer endorsement, with the only acceptable outliers being due to disgruntlement about some feature that is a deal breaker for one consumer but not a must have feature for me.

I called JC at Axiom and he states that he will place a request to send an owner's club invite to my email early next week, at which time I will immediately place an order for the EP800, 4 qs8s, and a VP150. As hard as it is to wait I believe part of the zen of all this is in the discipline to have the patience to get the best.

You certainly aren't kidding around with an order like that. Congrats!

SatKartr, it's a lot of fun to read your posts about how much you're enjoying the system (and the great thing is, it just gets better from here).

It's great to see how it worked out given the rather auspicious beginnings at our audition.

Jason

And it just keeps going. 6 months on and I still get that wow feeling.

Yeah, I still have those moments where I'm like, "Wow, this is coming from my own home system."

Finally after several requests got the password to the owner's club and placed the order for the 800 and all the rest, now the marathon wait begins . . .

Oh, you mean the torture.

Yes torture would be the appropriate descriptor!