Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Hearing Things A friend came over to audition the Axiom

...after 1 hour, he said he prefer his old B&W 603's sound
The Axiom is too "bright" for him....and he's aiming for another B&W now....

To each their own.

You win some, you lose some.

I thought that my friend’s B&W 703s sounded a little better, not as “forward” or “revealing” which I preferred, at least at the time, as my M80s but not nearly enough better to justify the price.

I should take my M80s back over to his place or better have him bring his B&Ws over here and compare them again now that I’ve gotten more accustomed to the “Axiom sound” and have more quality recordings which take advantage of it.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the 603's, if that is what he likes, so be it. At least he was honest.

mpyw;

That is interesting, because when doing the blind test at Axiom, I found the B&W's brighter than the M3's. Granted M3's arn't 80's.

... and the 603 floorstander is not the same model as the B&W bookshelf that was used in the blind testing either...

True, I believe those B&w bookshelfs at the Axiom blind test were from higher in B&W's lineup than the 603's. Anyway, as others have stated, if your friend prefers them it's entirely his choice.

Hi Adrian and all,

Yep, the B&W 805 was a Nautilus model, the high-end line from B&W, which at the time it was introduced was $2000/pair. B&W now has a "diamond" 805, priced at an absurd $5000 a pair, which looks much like the Nautilus 805.

The B&W 600 series are the lower-priced line from B&W and, like Polk models, I've found them to be quite inconsistent in sound quality from one model to the next, or from one line to the next line. This inconsistency is not uncommon in brands that offer various lines of loudspeakers.

The other factor that you have to allow for is the tendency of owners of specific speaker models who come to accommodate the "sound" of their speakers as their reference, warts and all, and come to hear anything that's more neutral and accurate as a kind of shockingly new and different sound that they won't like unless they participate in a blind test and don't know what they are listening to.

Over the years I've spoken to some audiophiles who have been using what I view as mediocre old speakers for decades and who simply don't want change or are unwilling to acknowledge that just maybe their old speakers aren't very good. It's an all-too-human tendency.

Regards,
Alan

Have you listened to the Revel Ultima Salon2 Alan? I think the M80's and the Salon2 would be the ultimate of blind listening tests. They seem to have similar design goals.

I was watching the Iron Man 2 extra features and the recording for the music soundtrack was done at Abbey Road Studio. I noticed they use B&W speakers as reference. The one room had multiple speakers I think in some sort of MTM design placed horizontally across a wall (on-wall). Do you know the purpose for that? Seems like a rather strange arrangement.