A local audiophile is coming over to my place with his Axiom M3ti and we're going to be having a shootout between several speakers. I'm looking forward to hearing the M3ti since I've never heard this particular speaker and it's been a long while since I've heard an Axiom speaker (since I owned the M22ti).

We're going to be putting these on 31" Omnimount stands and positioned about 8feet from each other and the seating position (equilateral triangle). The M3ti will have the handicap of bass extension, so we will take that into account. What I will be looking for will be imaging, stage, and overall vocal focus (disregarding the bass).

The gear we will be using will include the following gear:

Njoe Tjoeb 4000 CD player or Squeezebox 3 -> Cary Audio SLP-98 Tube Preamplifier -> Plinius SA102 Class A SS amplifier -> Axiom M3ti /or/ AV123 Strata Mini /or/ Martin Logan Summit

I will post pictures and thoughts from me and my friend later this week. We are hoping to get together on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Thanks,
Joey

Very good, Joey; will be interested to read your impressions vs that rather pricey competition(the ratios of about 1:5:30 are a bit unusual for a shootout).

Yes it will be intersting to see how a $320 bookshelf pair stands up to $1600 and $10,000 floorstanders.

Onix Strata Mini Martin Logan Summit

why are you comparing apples to oranges and grapefruit?

Should be a fun shootout, Joey. Looking forward to it. It will be fun to see how close or how far apart soundwise these speakers are from each other. Pics would be awesome (hint hint).

>>why are you comparing apples to oranges and grapefruit?

Because with speakers sometimes the apple wins

Seriously, as long as the conclusion isn't just "the inexpensive speaker wasn't as good so I'm going to tell everyone that speaker sucks" these comparisons can be really instructive. I was really surprised how well the M3s held up in a direct comparison with M60s, for example.

It does honestly sound like the term "listening session" would be more applicable than "shootout" with those price differences.... but I'm picking nits...or Freakin' Nuts....or something like that....

No argument there... but the attendance at "shootouts" is much better than at "listening sessions"

The entire session is moreso because the guy who is visiting me with his M3ti is wondering how they perform against the AV123 Strata Minis and whether or not he finds that they are worth the price jump from the M3.

This wont be like what happened back in the day with my M22... this will be a far better and behaved review. I am quite excited to hear the M3ti after quite some time of not having heard any type of Axiom speaker. I'm interested in how it does in my room with my equipment also.

My room isn't the best, a lot of you guys here probably have better rooms that I do. All my audio gear is in my room because I found that my living room is way too "live" in terms of echoes and what not.... so dont expect some grand photos of the 3 speaker sets when I post them here in a few days.

I will comment on several aspects of sonic reproduction, namely:
1. Highs
2. Midrange
3. Bass (with the knowledge that the M3 should not be held accountable for not being full range)
4. Imaging
5. Soundstaging
6. Coherence, overall
7. Realism

This will be fair listening session.

Joey

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Quote:

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why are you comparing apples to oranges and grapefruit?

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Because he can. :P