Another good budget speaker - Axiom Message Boards

A year ago when i was looking at putting together our HT and stereo components, i was searching for that always elusive great deal. A good, solid speaker, quality but not made by the hand of the almighty nor priced as high. There were several brands competing for our hard earned cash but it came down to two, Axiom and Angstrom.

Of course Axiom won out (see my old post here), otherwise i would most likely be posting on another forum, however the Angstrom name had recently come to my attention again. Out of curiousity, i went back to the Angstrom. website to look around and they have done a ton of updating since i was last there. A friend of a friend has some of the Obliggato floorstanding loudspeakers in his shop and apparently they are quite a lovely item.
I'm interested in taking the chance at hearing some Angstrom speakers again tempting myself to see whether i really did make the better choice over a year ago. Certainly i'm happy with the Axioms but the brain continues its own debate as to whether you have ever made the right choice for one's components.
So i perused for some reviews of the Angstroms while i pondered the idea. Unfortunately Angstrom is not a particularly well known name. In fact, most ppl i've come across have not heard about them at all. I won't get into their long and ever changing history since the point of this post was to simply bring to light yet another inexpensive, but otherwise quality speaker.
Here is a link to the Inner Ear report on the Obliggatos. I pretty much ignored the usual flowery, double speak but the most interesting section is found in the "Technology" paragraph. After reading that, go back to the top of the review and remind yourself that the listed price is in Canadian dollars!

If anyone ever gets the chance to get ahold of some of the Angstrom speakers for review, be sure to post any thoughts.

mmmmmm....looks like real wood. That sure would be nice on some axioms =)

Hmm... Didn't know the Angstrom brand till now. Thanks for the introduction, chess. Looking at the web site, the midwoofer driver used in their Obbligato flag-ship series looks suspiciously alike the midrange driver on the B&W Nautilus series. Is it possible that the driver is made by B&W (or a common OEM source?).

Lately, I am auditioning lots of "higher-end" speakers. I also recently listened to the M80s in a local friend's house. To my ears, the Axioms really shine -- they comfortably compete with other brands several times the price. Sure some other brands are "mellower" and "smoother" than the Axioms, but those ones, regardless of price, almost inevitably lose the superb sonic detai and cripsness of the Axioms.

I guess you can rest assured that you (we) made, at the very least, one of the best choices for the price range.

nice looking speakers.

and they're located about 30 mins away from where I live. I wonder if they have a showroom or something..

sushi,
Those Angstroms definitely had a very nice sound. The driver make was identified by a local pro (friend) as Vifa and this was also listed somewhere in their past specs that i had but can no longer find. They do apparently design the drivers themselves but Vifa makes them. I am not 100% sure if this is still the case for all of their drivers or not.
The MSRP of $3200 CDN for their top of the line, floorstanding Obbligatos, weighing in at 87 lbs each, wood finished, built with Acoustic Roc (concrete composite material) having 10" integrated sub drivers in its own sealed compartment in the lower end is extremely impressive. I would love to hear them. If they are anything like the sound i heard with the Angstrom Modular line, the price is very worth it.
Again, the point of the post is to bring up another, very unknown (unlike Rockets, Ascends, Axiom) but quality, inexpensive speaker line for those who are always searching.
Finding them might be a touch difficult. One may have to attempt to contact the company to see just where/who sells them. Just offhand there is a place in Ottawa and Waterloo that i know who sells them. I'm not so sure about the US but you can find some reviews on Audioreviews.com about them.

Until i can get a pair of those Modulars here at home for auditioning, my Axioms are still number one. We had the opportunity to pair the M60s up against some vintage Boston Acoustics T1000s the other night. The Axioms still stand.

chrono,
You could try and find out if the company has its own showroom but i doubt it. As i mentioned in my last post to sushi, they are a bit hard to find.
THere are several S. Ontario dealers that carry them but the list Angstrom has is a bit out of date. For example, OZ Enterprises is a business i used to buy from and has not listed them on his website for quite some time.

My brother has been using a pair for the last 5-8 years. They sound good. Its an older model bookshelf(unfortunately I don't know the model) but I was able to compare them to the M22 I had at the the time and the M22 (to my ears) had a little more detail. The M22 was a little forward. The Angstrom was a little more laid back but detail was still there. At high level though the M22 kept together. My brothers bookshelf started showing signs of distortion. I doubt it was his NAD integrated becuase it is a good piece I think it was his speakers. No real scientific test were done as I am not that critical. The Angstroms finish do look great even back then.

I thought Angstrom was going into a receivership a couple of years ago. A dealer who heavily carried it many years ago dropped the line to carry PSB which he says has better dynamics.(opinion which can be biased)

Take a look at their history and you will see alot has happened to the company over the years.
They also used the NRC facilities in Ottawa for speaker testing many moons ago (i'm not sure about the present).
The original speaker designer left Angstrom and helped to start up Paradigm only to buy back the Angstrom name some years later. This certainly lends credibility to this man's ingenuity in speaker building
Since then the name has been bought again but it appears that the speaker designs are remaining close to what they have attempted in the past. I'm not sure if the original designer is still there or not. Perhaps Alan knows more about the Angstrom situation having been plugged into the business scene in that area.

I mean, come on -- they don't even have an anti-standing wave cabinet design!

Who said they sounded better?
Was that Semi?
Who said that?

They do sound good, not necessarily better. But the price to performance is on par with Axiom. Customer service and finish selection are however VERY far apart.

Yet another speaker site that makes it near impossible to find pricing at a glance. I find that immensely frustrating.

"At a glance"? I couldn't find pricing even after a thorough search of the site. Neither could I find any info on their "top-o-the-line" speakers. Just pictures. What's the deal?

In reply to:
Yet another speaker site that makes it near impossible to find pricing at a glance. I find that immensely frustrating.

Try to find any spec info on their speakers. Alot of that information is missing as well. I did say that their 'customer service' is rather negligible.
The Inner Ear Report has some listed MSRP of various Angstroms they have reviewed. A total 5.1 Angstrom Modular system would have cost me about $2500-2700 Cdn. My present Axiom system was $3400 after taxes.

Any company with a website that lacks so much information doesn't get my money. It's just stupid!

Well Ken now you see a part of my own reasoning as to why the Axioms won the speaker decision battle a year ago.
Cost isn't everything be it higher or lower in value. A company's service record with customers goes a REALLY long way in securing sales. Axiom customer service and access to information is outstanding, more than any other company i've yet dealt with in my lifetime.

Well, I'd make an exception in one case: Magnepan. But everyone knows that I'm a freak for those things. And their website is slightly better than the one referenced in this thread.

You want to see a truly awful site for speaker info?
Try to find ANY speakers whatsoever (aside from their 'wallpaper' pics) at Sonus Faber.

I think this is the case in general, if you've never even heard a speaker, let alone heard of the speaker company, it's preferable to find all the information you would want on their website.

If, on the other hand, you're heard the speakers and heard of the company, you'd be more forgiving of a website that's lacking.

I think the companies should remember that a website is first and foremost a sales tool. If your store sucks, so will your sales.

Oh god, and it's got music. To me, a website with music that plays automatically is totally unforgiveable. (sp?)

In reply to:
unforgiveable. (sp?)

you coulda just said evil.

Yeah, but sometimes, evil is cool. Good... is dumb.

I see your schwartz is as big as mine.

Oooh, bring it on!

Now we'll see how well you handle it.

I heard a whole bunch of Angstrom speakers about a year ago and met the engineer (I can't remember his name). They had an audition at the sound and image festival here in montreal. I was extremely impressed, and almost bought a pair (can't remember which ones). Instead, I asked him for his business card and said I'd order off the net after making a few more auditions, but the price was too much compared to Axiom.

Also, when searching about them, I found many, many complaints about their customer service being deplorable - they take their sweet @#$%^ time to get back to you. You also might have to wait a month or two with a defective driver. At that point, Axiom was a no-brainer.