Why substitute out a good driver (the 5.25") for a 4" driver, when the 5.25" works excellently for the midrange?
Let me straighten it out a little bit.
In the M22s (a 2 way design) there is a crossover to filter out the low frequencies from the tweeter and probably a crossover to filter out the treble from the pair of 5.25" drivers. Therefore, they get the midrange and everything down. They are more capable of producing bass because there's a pair of them. (more area=more bass). In this case, the 5.25"s are serving as woofers.
In the M60s (a 3 way design), there is the crossover to filter out the mid/low from the tweeter, a crossover to filter out the treble/bass from the 5.25" speaker, and a crossover (probably) to filter out the treble and mid from the pair of 6.5" woofers (which is a fair amount of area to produce the bass). This gives extra bass over the M22s (well, that and the increased cabinet size, ports, etc.) In this case, the 5.25" is serving as a midrange.
In any case, it's just a matter of symantics.
I won't go into why Axiom doesn't use 8" drivers; one assumes it's because they don't want or need to. M22s sound a lot better than Paradigm Monitor 9s (a speaker with a pair of 8s in a 2 way design as you describe).
Last edited by kcarlile; 06/03/04 10:59 PM.
