This is pretty big news in the the Axiom fam. It's been awhile since we've seen an upgrade to the the old Boston Cherry. Well, Ian was nice enough to send me the latest and greatest despite all the crap I put him through over the last couple months fussing about this and that with the build times and shipping non-sense (which I get, covid this, covid that!) but anyways, got the new M2 and M3 Boston cherrys today and what a HUGE upgrade, they now look like REAL wood, OMG, it's a big upgrade! You can see knots in the wood and feel the texture of the contours. It's more like a sweet high end knotty mahogany now. I love it, adds lots of class to any room. I just wish I got the high gloss finish.

I added my old M3 to the pics below for comparison. The photo does not do it justice, there is a HUGE difference, hard to see in pics. Edges are rounded now too, doesn't look like a vinyl anymore, it looks like real wood!







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You did put the new tweeter in the old M3!

It is real wood veneer. All new Axioms are now. No more vinyl.

I'm getting a new lid for my Force. Your waxing poetic about the Boston Cherry was making things difficult for me. As much as I think I'd like it, I want to try oak espresso.

I have Cherry Chestnut 125s and a Freedom lid and love them. I really think you'd like it. I have walnut espresso M2s and those are yummy too.

Something I never thought I'd like is the walnut caramel. I hate the taste of caramel. But GEEEEZ! Axiom's melted caramel on the walnut warms my cold cold heart.

Walnut nutmeg is definitely not my thing. It's the shade of an orangutan.

No tweeter swap yet, still listening.

What are your thoughts on speaker break in, truth or myth? It seems to me that the sound does improve as you break them in.

back to the new boston cherrys, these guys look like they were once a solid piece of wood and then hollowed out and made into a speaker.

There must be a tweeter swap. You have an M3 with a black dust cap and a v4 tweeter. The black dust cap is old.

Speaker break-in is real. I'll bet dollars to donuts the family of curves between a broken in speaker or subwoofer and virgin ones are different.

Yeah, the finish is lovely.

yeah, I swapped the tweeter on my old m3, the old ti tweeter is on one of the m80 on walls. I haven't changed anything on the new M2 or M3s and I don't plan on it, EQ adjustments take care of the brightness I enjoy.

I really wonder if Axiom is using us as Guinea pigs. My M5OW have less bright highs than the M5 bookshelves from a couple of years ago. The M5OW are also less bright than the M2OWv4 from a year ago. Now you're saying you like the brightness of the Ti.

I'm just curious is all. The M5OW sound wonderful. Of course it could be their plentiful bass and mids cause the highs to sound less brilliant relative to the thinner-sounding M2.

Rebulx, are you thinking of getting M22s? If you do, strongly consider the ebony finish. I have it on M50v4 and love it.

I would be happy as a clam to be a guinea pig for Axiom! lol. as i'm sure you would be too!

Yeah, I love the brightness of the ti's! My first hand experience with the new on walls is they need good break in, great amps, crossed at 80hz, and then lots of EQ... when I dialed them in with the EQ, they were no longer muddled. All speakers, including different brands, sound muddled to me on "through" eq mode. Not a fan of the mid range eq, I always drop it some.

When Ian told me he was generating return labels for my on walls...I about died! I love them! It just took awhile! There is no way i'm sending these things back!!! lol, he laughed and was happy I sorted it out.

Are your M2ow all aluminum woofers?

Yes, they are.

Regarding muddled and EQ, it's your room as are my rooms. I've taken every Axiom outdoors except the actives. It's a whole different sound out there. No EQ needed at all!

As I've said before, no EQ needed on the actives BTW.

My personnel preference... the M2 bookshelf's (as I don't have the M2ow) paired with a nice sub will sound much better. I don't know why, but they do. Having said that, the M80ow with ti's trumps them all, as it should. The more I break these M80 on walls in the more I love them. I listened to Michael jackson's live at Wembly stadium, human nature, performance tonight with the 80s and a sub and omg, they are quite fantastic.

So whats the DL on the new M5on walls, mojo?

The M5OW can go louder with greater bass and mid-range detail. They sound more like real music.

An M5OW/good sub combo sounds better than an M2OW/good sub combo. And M2OW/good sub combo sounds better than just an M5OW.

There is a caveat. You may not be able to control the bass from the M5OW. If all you have is a legacy-style stereo receiver, you may be better off with the M2OW.

Another thing I noticed is the muted shimmer of highs with the M5OW. I don't know why. It could be the larger bass and mid-range presence in my room. It is by no means bad and some may prefer it. Treble adjustment works well for an added touch of airyness/shimmer.

it's a weird thing that even though the M5OW sound better, I miss the M2OW.

I just got my M5OW's mounted and am loving them so far. ARC Genesis had no issue taming the bass from them. Haven't really cranked them yet, but hope to do that the minute I have the house to myself (a rare occurrence these days).

It sounds like you finally have some stability with your fronts, bman. It's been an evolving process for you.

I am curious if ARC did anything to the highs.

Haha "evolving" is putting it nicely, but I think I can finally stop fussing about speakers and TV's and just enjoy the setup. Also happy to report that my marriage is still going strong.

ARC was set to only apply corrections below 5000Hz, but I can set that limit to whatever I'd like (need to play with it). I've previously tried setting it to 500Hz and below, but found that movies sounded less detailed.

Yes, I can see how setting to 500Hz and below would take detail out in your reflective room. Imaging is the result of 700Hz and above. Reflections that are too strong mess with image perception because they persist too long.

Regarding your marriage, you obviously are not listening loud enough.

Love to hear more on your ARC xp Bman.

ARC makes a massive improvement in my room, and does a far better job than Audyssey XT32. I'm sure I could improve things further if I had the time to experiment and tweak, but the default 20-minute setup sounds great to me. Anthem is releasing a new line of receivers/processors in December, and I'm sure those will do an even better job of utilizing ARC (new calibration mic for one).