Before getting into the specifics of the listening sessions, I want to talk about timbre matching. If you’ve spent any time at all on any audio/home theater forum, you’ll be told that it is important to match your front three speakers. Part of me has always had this nagging doubt in the back of my mind. If you level match, the differences should be negligible right? Well, wrong. I have owned Axioms for a while but I reviewed a pair of Onix Rocket RS450s. After the review, the speakers were homeless for a while. So I left them set up. They look nice and people would ogle over the finish. But I found that when playing movies, I would be straining to hear the center channel (even though levels had been matched).

This was especially prevalent on the Pixar movie Cars. The vocals were recessed to the point where I had to bump up the center channel 3-5 dB just to even everything out. You see, I like to keep things as “pure” as possible (within reason) so if the source is two channel – I listen to it in two channel. As I don’t have digital cable, all TV and most of my music is in two channel. Therefore, I didn’t really realize the problems with timbre matching at first. Once I hooked up the m60’s, I found that many of these problems went away. The soundstage during multi-channel music and movies was also much better realized in the space… something that you don’t really know you’re missing until it’s back. Of course, given the option, having three identical speakers across the front would be the ultimate, but for most of us that isn’t really viable. Now with a projection screen and a dedicated room… there is really no excuse.

Often, it is the first few moments of listening to a new set of speakers that are the most revealing. It is one thing to hear a large soundstage at Gene or Clint’s house – they have huge speakers. But they also have different rooms, different acoustics, and frankly, I’m not used to listening in those spaces. The first thing, the VERY first thing I noticed was a considerable increase in the size of the soundstage. I’d say at least 50% larger. I was amazed. With the larger speakers, I expected a difference, but not one that was so noticeable.

Once again I popped in my Rives Test CD2 to get an idea of the usable bass from these speakers. According to the website, they are good down to 37Hz (+/- 3dB). In my room I could hear the speakers attempting output at 20 and 25Hz (a light flapping as the drivers pumped their little hearts out – completely inaudible with any other output from the speakers). I definitely had some useable bass at 31.5Hz. At 40Hz, there was a considerable increase in SPL which was comparable the higher frequencies. While not full range, these speakers should be able to produce all but the most demanding bass passages. At reference levels, the m60’s v2 made my couch vibrate. In my book, that’s a winner!

Finally, after setting the m60’s to “Large” and the subwoofer to “off” on my Denon AVR-3805, I got down to some serious critical listening.

CD: Jacintha Here’s to Ben, A Vocal Tribute to Ben Webster
This album was made as a tribute to the famous saxophone player Ben Webster. Jacintha’s soulful vocals are backed by a piano, a lightly fanned snare, the occasional cymbal, and a standup bass guitar. The whole album is very well recorded with the utmost care taken to preserve the quality of the original performance. If you like slow jazz, this is a good album. Jacintha’s vocals are soulful and beautiful. The musicians on the album do a stellar job and should be commended. If I have to make a serious criticism of the album, I’d say that the noise floor is a bit high. It is annoying to hear the “hiss” cut out between tracks. Best of all, this is a SACD hybrid meaning you can enjoy this album while you’re waiting for your better half to OK an SACD player.

The m60 v2’s presented a convincing soundstage and lived up to their “revealing” reputation. Every breath, every move of the lips was recreated so accurately and untainted, so that at times I literally felt like the microphone (especially during Track 3 – Tenderly) was right in front of me. The m60’s put out a very respectable amount of bass and I felt I was missing very little if anything by not having a subwoofer engaged. As I turned up the volume to reference levels, I never felt the m60’s or my Denon straining. While I don’t think a little more headroom would hurt (the sound quality started to decrease as we reached and surpassed reference levels), it definitely wasn’t needed. And I was playing it LOUD.

CD: Sting Ten Summoner’s Tales
I’ll be honest, I’m not really a Sting fan. My favorite Sting “performance” was in the David Lynch version of Dune. But recently I found a box of CDs that was tucked away in a closet since we moved here from Los Angeles (says my wife, “I knew I had more CDs than that”). So I spent the better part of a weekend loading them up into the HTPC. One of those CDs was Ten Summoner’s Tales. As I was flipping through the menu, looking for albums to use for this review, I wanted something a little more rock and a little less jazz but with a fairly high production value. I stopped on this one thinking I’d found it but while I got the fairly high production value, I got more pop than rock and more country than jazz. So, in the end, I’m still not a Sting fan. But I don’t have to be a fan to recognize whether or not the speakers are distorting the music. In this specific case, I’m looking to see if all of the guitar, snare, and other “high” instruments become “piercing”. Once again, if you spend any time on audio forums you learn that Axioms are “bright”… unless you talk to an actual Axiomite who will tell you that they are “revealing” or “accurate.” So what’s the truth?

Well that depends. It depends on your room, on your ears, and most of all, your speaker wire. OK, that last one was BS but the first two are true. If I had to use a word to describe Axioms as a whole, I use the word “unforgiving.” These are the type of speakers that say, “Hey, I’m just playing this stuff, I didn’t record it!” That being said, the m60’s seem to be a tiny bit more forgiving than the m22’s. The m22’s are brutal in their dedication to accurate sound reproduction. If I had a recording studio, I’d want m22’s in it. At least then, you’d know what you were recording. The m60’s, while maintaining what I would call an extremely high level of fidelity, don’t seem to be as hard edged as the m22’s. To use an analogy, the m22’s give you the bad news straight; the m60’s at least pat you on the shoulder while they deliver the news.

I flipped between a “Large/Off” (speaker size/subwoofer) and “Small/On” to see how well the m60 v2’s were handling the bass. No problems there. There was a bit more tactile bass with the sub on, but I didn’t miss it when it was off. This reaffirmed my belief that for 90% of the music out there, you just don’t need a sub if you have a decent pair of floorstanding speakers. I will say that at times, at extremely high volumes the m60’s did get a bit fatiguing but less so than the m22’s. Personally, I almost never listen to anything this loud (95+ dB). This seemed to be as much a function of the type of music and how well it was recorded rather than anything else. With all the guitar, snare and keyboards in Ten Summoner’s Tales, not to mention some of the high notes Sting can hit, I really couldn’t listen to it for very long at that volume. At reference levels, the music was so in your face that it felt like Sting (or whoever was singing at the time) was performing behind you.

Recommendations

Of course, I'm not without a few recommendations. As I mentioned, I had a hard time getting the feet on. I'm not sure if it is unique to the High Gloss finish process (with the 12 hand applied layers) or not, but I'd like to be able to seat the feet quickly and easily. One common comment about Axiom speakers is the flimsy grill and I'll echo that here. The material isn't all that tight and the frames tend to bend under pressure. For most people, grills are little more than an aesthetic addition. For someone with young, learning to walk, children I'd prefer something a little more sturdy. Lastly, even once the feet were seated, the speaker still wobbled a bit. It was if the metal inserts were moving inside.

Conclusion

I’ve got a fairly small room and I’ve always wondered what a true floorstanding speaker would sound like in here. Would it be too much? Would I be able to tell the difference between them and a bookshelf with a sub? Would I ever convince my wife it was a good idea? Well, in order, No, Yes, Yes. While the m60’s are obviously able to fill a much larger room than mine, I wouldn’t say that they were too much. If someone was trying to cut a few corners in their budget would I say that the m22’s (or another bookshelf/sub combo) would be a considerable step down? Not at all… in my size room. The m60’s need a sub for movies anyhow. But if you have the money and you want a significantly larger soundstage and more SPL, the m60’s are a fabulous choice.

To my mind, Axiom’s new VaSSallo series speakers finally gives discriminating buyers a chance to have a reasonably priced high performance speaker wrapped in a high-end package. Sure they cost more and it won’t make it sound any better but now you can match the furniture. You can brag about the real wood veneer. You can point to the custom tag on the back. You can shut up all your friends whose only real complaint they could ever come up with against Axioms was the vinyl finish. While many might not see the extra cost as justified, others will. And that is what is important. Axiom is offering a little something for everyone and they should be commended for it.