I want to set a system in my living room for music only. If I will be using a subwoofer, is there any advantage to M3 over M2 bookshelf speakers?

M2 with subwoofer should be superior to M3. M3 better without subwoofer.

You should definitely get flatter response with M2 vs M3 if using a subwoofer. That said, it's possible the M3s might be able to play more loudly if that is a factor.

M2s with a 100 Hz crossover can do a pretty impressive job though.

i currently for my bedroom have 3 M2v3 speakers for front's and they are incredible. when listening to 2 channel with a sub the M2's do a great job. I know how this sounds but at times they challenge my M80's (exaggerating a little)until you get to some real deep low end stuff then they get smoked!

I'd go with the M2's and a sub, no question as I'm constantly reminded and surprised at just how great those M2v3 speakers sound. adding them to my bedroom was the best thing i've done in quite a while!

Oh yeah, I've got a pair of M2's that i'll be using in the basement and yep, with a sub!

DV, welcome. With a good sub handling the bottom two octaves(20-80Hz)the M2 is a superb speaker for musical enjoyment. It is somewhat more accurate than the M3 in the upper bass/lower mid-range.

If you go the M2 route, let us know how it works out.

I use them as dual centers to good effect. I took them to my brothers a while back to try out in stereo. Except the weak bass, they are an amazing sounding speaker.

If your going to crank it up now and then, get the M3's, you can add a sub later.

If you're going to crank it, get the M80s. Just sayin'...

I should probably mention that there seem to be a lot of people running M2s with a sub very happily (including me) while I don't know many running M3 with sub... so my comments about being able to play more loudly with M3s than M2s are guesses based on driver size / efficiency / power handling more than "known from experience".

I ended up moving from M2+sub to M60 without sub for a while because I wanted to sometimes turn up the volume to a level where the M2s were uncomfortable (in my case it was Heart's "Mistral Wind" that the M2+sub couldn't handle cranked up to 11). M60s handled the content & volume just fine, of course.

I don't expect that M3 + sub would have performed the same way, for what it's worth.

I'm running an M3 with a sub. It's actually in my son's room and I went that way to play to his type of music (classic rock). It sounds a bit "heavy", but works very well in that context (he's very happy with it). If I were looking for the classic neutral Axiom sound I'd go with the M2. I should mention that I don't have the M2, but I have the M22, so I'm using those for my comparison.

I am using a pair of M2v3's as nearfields with a cheap BIC 10" active sub on my recording/mastering DAW computer rig with fantastic results.

Amplification is via a fully restored classic (circa 1978) Kenwood KA-8100 integrated amp.

The M2's IMHO are reference quality to my ears and are as good or better than any "pro" studio monitors I have ever heard.

The great thing too about the M2's is their natural bass rolloff so that I do not need to use the crappy high-pass output of the sub's crossover to feed the M2's. I simply feed the M2's in parallel to the sub which uses it's internal crossover LPF-only for itself.

--MM--