Recent Floorstanding Speaker Reviews

The Axiom Epic 80-600 system was absolutely unbelievable - like having the power of Mother Nature right at my fingertips. The excellent build quality, high performance, and top notch customer support and service offered by Axiom make these an easy recommendation. As good as this system was, Axiom's recent dramatic price increases have put their products into a price class of much higher caliber competitors.

Every once in a while we'll take in a set of speakers from a relatively unknown company in order to see what's available on the market and if some independent shops have some value products available for consumers. Canyon Audio is a manufacturer based in Nevada who works with some domestic designers to have custom modifications made to products which are then manufactured overseas to keep costs down.

For many years I have revered the THIEL speaker cabinet designs and construction. Being a DIY speaker builder, I recognize their efforts on time alignment and minimization of diffraction which tends to be less common among the vast array of traditional speaker designs.

The designers at Von Schweikert had some great goals in mind when creating the VR-2. Just to name a few, phase correction in the crossover, full frequency range, and my favorite, transparency. I wanted to remain as objective as possible in my approach to reviewing the VR-2 speakers so I did not read any reviews, entertain any user opinions, nor did I do any research on these speakers until I had experienced them first hand.

Canton was founded in 1972 by four hi-fi enthusiasts who joined together with the goal of always producing the best speakers of their class. Canton is a combination of the Latin word "cantare" (to sing) and the German word "Ton" (musical tone). Canton started officially with 35 employees on 1 January 1973 assembling speaker enclosures. Their initial development work was done in a living room.

RBH Sound has been manufacturing high performance loudspeakers for over 25 years catering to the high performance (mind you not necessarily high priced) and custom install marketplaces. Yet their name isn't as widely recognized by consumers like some of the big guys out there. Fortunately name recognition is not always a reflection of product quality or performance. The RBH T-2 Signature Tower speaker system exemplifies a company committed to producing high performance product. I can't think of a better example than this particular loudspeaker manufacturer. The T-2 system is a true performer, capable of handling all of the dynamics and subtleties of music with ease. A must read review!

The first thing I noticed about the Axiom Epic 80 System was the incredible presence and detailed highs. The clarity and imaging put forth by the M80s was refreshing and worthy of designating them as a movie theater killer. As good as this system was, Axiom's recent dramatic price increases have put their products into a price class of much higher caliber competitors.

See how 5 budget speaker towers from Pinnacle, Polk, Infinity, Bose stand up to each. Does price and size dictate performance? Read our comparison review to find out.

This is an preview article of the Energy C6 Tower speaker, C-300 center channel, RVSS surround speaker and ES-12XL subwoofer system we had the opportunity to demo at a local dealer back in 2000. The setup was good, and the system overall performed well, but did have some shortcomings which are discussed in this article preview.