Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Advice from Axiom Owners Advice

Not for our ears.

$800? That's easy. Get the M2i's from the factory outlet and mate them with a Hsu STF-1. You'll be in quite a small room, and with a sub filling in the low end, that may be your best option.

I've owned the M22ti, I currently own the M2i, and I also have the M60ti and the (now discontined Mzeros). I've also owned the Hsu VTF-2, and have heard the Hsu STF-1. (so all of this is coming from actual listening experience )

The M2i is a really great sounding speaker. Very articulate and clear. The only thing it lacks is depth. A good sub can handle that. With your budget and room size, I couldn't recommend highly enough the M2i from the outlet and a Hsu STF-1 subwoofer.

You may wonder why I so highly recommend a Hsu sub? From my listening experience, they're they sub to beat in the budget subwoofer market. Move up the monetary ladder and they start having some competition (Axiom's own EP500/600 being the subs to beat at that level!), but under the $700 mark, I don't think anyone can touch Hsu.

The same can be said for Axiom's speakers. It's all about bang-for-your-buck. To obtain the level of sound quality that you'll get from a pair of Axiom speakers, you'll need to spend much, much more elsewhere.

So...M2i and STF-1. That'll leave you $240 to buy music with! Once you hear that combo, trust me, you'll wish you had money left to go out and buy all sorts of new cds!

I was thinking the same as spiffnme on this one, with a slight twist:

Axiom M3's and Hsu STF-2. For college life, I can't image it getting much better. Unless it was a set of M50's and STF-2 or STF-3... But even with FO, you've busted your budget.

Only reason I suggest the sub route, is that you want to watch movies. I love my 50's alone for music, but for movies they are lacking the depth that a sub gives.

They've blown away everything I've demoed locally, including Paradigm, B&W, Klipzsh, Polk, etc... Put it this way, you have nothing in Best Buy that is of the same league.

Big Red,

Instead of getting the M2s or M3s, I would suggest the M22s simply because you will not be in that room forever. If you have an $800 budget, you can probably get the M22s from the FO and a good sub for under your $800 budget and be set for when you are out of school and move into a bigger media/theatre/listening room.

Future proofing at the start is a good thing to do! Rather then getting the M2s I would personally get the M22s if you can swing it and be future proofed for a bigger room in the future.

Completely OT, but am I the only person who expects to see a U every time they see STF-?

You were until now.

Hi BigRed,

I'm an owner of both M22ti's and M3ti's. I would say that if you are going to use the speakers on a desk for near-field listening the M3Ti's are great speakers, with or without a sub. And they would be fine for general listening as well. But you might want to consider the M22ti's because they would "scale up" to a larger room or into a home theater type of system very well.

Personally, I use M3Ti's in my office without a subwoofer and just enjoy the heck out of them. For my HT, I use the M22's for the fronts and they work very well with the EP350 sub to create a pretty slammin' setup. I wouldn't recommend the 22's as mains in a much larger room than mine though (12 x 16 x 9).