Axiom M60 Speakers, $2000 Per Pair
{37.5h, 9.25w, 15d, 48 lbs, 92 dB SPL, 8 ohms, 10-250 w/ch}
Two 6.5” Pure Aluminum Woofers, One 5.25” Pure Aluminum Midrange, 1” Titanium Tweeter
Bryston contracted Axiom, a friendly Canadian company down the road a piece, to make its speakers under contract over a decade ago. The project was a home run and the companies merged. The resulting company is called Bryston. Bryston has retained the Axiom brand name for speakers that are very high quality, but not quite up to Bryston POWER capabilities. Brystons have a 20 year warranty.
Axiom M60 is made in Canada with a five year warranty. Almost all other speakers in this price range are made in China by vendors we can’t even pronounce. They ship dozens of brands out the door with a plethora of names on their boxes. Just wire them money and eventually your container will arrive.
Bryston manufactures with TLC in Canada. Every driver it makes has to pass a battery of tests. Every finished speaker has to survive Bryston’s torture chamber before it is pronounced good to go.
Mass production in the far east has laborers taking drive elements off the production line and screwing them into boxes. Nobody else is running every single driver through a gauntlet of eight QC tests. You can end up with drivers of wide variance from Chinese suppliers.
In British hi-fi news (10-24 issue, p59) they reveal Chinese built Monitor Audios have a tweeter variance, left to right speaker, of just under 3dB. This level of discrepancy is audible. Further, you have to wonder how far off their mids and woofers are. Instead of the finished speaker “looking” like a crystal clear photograph, its sonic image will be a tad blurry.
Bryston’s QC is so tight that the most its drivers could vary is under 1dB. That level of variance isn’t perceivable.
Axiom is built to the same standards as the Bryston drivers, though the Brystons have bigger magnets and longer voice coils to deliver more POWER.
M60 is a rich, full and smooth sounding tower. If you’re looking for a fabulous $2k tower, please support N Americans instead of Chinese mass production. The Chinese speakers are invariably thinner in the bass because they’re trying to keep weight down. More annoying is, they’re brighter on top- in attempts to grab your attention. Axioms don’t sound like TVs with the vivid level cranked up.
