Yeah that was a rather interesting thread. Don't want to belabor the point, as I don't have anything against Axiom, in fact I was considering them myself at a point before I read other such info. Just search for "Axiom bright" on that forum and you will find several more posts. I also found interesting that Axiom owners' thread is pretty dormant - there has not been a post in it in past few MONTHS, as well as it has much lower number of posts overall than other similar ID brands such as Salk, Ascend, Aperion etc. While not indicative of anything definite, it does show (to me) a marked lack of interest in the brand, and perhaps for a reason.
Then again, quite a bit of this hinges upon how critical of a listener you are (or want to be). If you are more interested in movies/gaming, you may not notice anything bad with Axioms (they may be pretty good as they seem to provide a lot of detail), or even with music if you don't listen too critically. But even then there are better speakers to be had for that money. And if you are a critical listener, there is a very good chance you may (will?) hear the differences.
As for the RAAL, you will hear arguments both ways if you search the Salk forum (like in everything else!). Any advantage of that would obviously be in the top frequency range, and it is a very personal thing how sensitive one is to these differences. The OW2 is claimed to be a very good dome tweeter - and it is. But I - just me - have grown to be very sensitive to the higher frequencies and how they sound. I think it is the trickiest part of speaker design - how to provide maximum detail without crossing to the 'bright' territory. The OW2 does an excellent job and MOST will be (and are) extremely happy with that, and I was too. Until I heard the HT2-TL with the RAAL at a local owner's place. To me it sounded even smoother and was extremely appealing to me - crystal clear without any hint of brightness whatsoever. It is quite possible the difference may have been due to completely different electronics / room acoustics, but I didn't have a way of doing an A-B comparison. One of my primary reasons for going with HT2-TL was due to this - I guess I will know if it was justified or not once I get them in a few weeks time. There are of course several other differences too - much better bass and an overall extremely effortless presentation due to better woofers that made it all so musical. But this is surely getting in the region of diminishing returns for your money, and only you can be the best judge of whether it is worth it to you. If you do decide to consider Salks, calling/emailing Jim may be the best option as he provides advice and info in a very objective manner and does not push products/options unless warranted (in my experience).
Which is also why I mentioned you will be best served by auditioning a few local brands and see what you like or dislike about them, and then lookup how the ID brands compare with brands you heard on those metrics. Try Polk LSi, RTi (they both have quite different presentations IMO), Focal, Paradigm, B&W, Klipsch and any other premier brands you may find and see what you prefer.
I hope all this makes sense and I don't come across as preaching, as that is certainly not the intention!
hyeah:
