First, I must shamefully admit that the speakers did not have first sound until about an hour ago, over 6 hours since I brought them home.

Second, these things are *&$%ing amazing! I love them! (M50s...) I started with Sting-Brand New Day, just the first song, (as Jen, my wife was home and it was, you know, midnight and stuff) I wasn't blown away. Then I put in a mix of that album, Dixie Chicks-Home, Buena Vista Social Club, Sweet Honey in the Rock, and Bela Fleck-Tales from the Acoustic Planet II-The Bluegrass Sessions. It is amazing. I can hear all sorts of stuff I've never heard before. The Dixie Chicks sound fantastic, the piano's in the room on the Buena Vista social club, there's all sorts of neat effects on Sting, I can really hear the string bass on Fleck (and a bunch of other stuff I don't necessarily want to hear!). Sweet Honey sounds great, better than in concert. Jen is also quite impressed. Woo hoo!

The finish looks nice, although it doesn't match my stuff as well as we thought the sample did.. Oops. They look way, way better without the grills, although I have not convinced Jen of this. Her first reaction upon seeing them was that they were "Big and ugly. And big. And ugly." Oh well...

Anyway, that's the short of it. Peter, Adam (?) and I will be comparing them with M22s at some point soon, and I'll try to do a more organized, proper review.

Having fun are we, Ken? Will someone explain to we why it is, when someone gets their new Axioms and posts about their arrival, I start feeling exactly as I did when mine arrived?

I'm very happy for you Ken. And I'm looking forward to hearing what you, Peter, and Adam feel are the similarities/differences between the 50s and the 22s.

Congrats.

Most excellent. Plan on spending the day with these guys!!

This was posted at 3:45am.
Just how late were you up Ken?

Hope to hear more about your first experiences with the new speakers (Buena Vista is a great choice for quality recording and it remains as one of my auditioning pieces for whole cds).
Get some pictures Peter, pictures!!

Till about 2:30 PST.

OK, I've got them pumping right now on Metallica. Holy crap!!! These suckers punch out that bass! (about -20 on the H/K 525, 6-8 ft away from me, 5-6 ft separation. I turned off the sub for fun when the tight punchy bass started, just to see what was what. Most of it, needless to say, was the speakers. Wow.

More impressions forthcoming...

{edit} nope, actually at -23. I just turned it down a bit because it was too loud for my fragile ears...

Man I can't wait to hear these, Ken. I know it's a little early, but how's the midrange (thin, warm, etc)? If they've got a little more midrange warmth than the M22's but otherwise sound very similar (with extra bass, of course), I may be sold on 'em - when I can afford and want to spend money on a stereo system .

Midrange is great. I mean, since I don't have much to compare them to, but the sound is very full and accurate.