The Art and Science of Sound: Axiom
It’s safe to say that, unless you are an audiophile or read a whole lot of home theater reviews, you probably don’t know Axiom. Much like our current favorites, the previously-reviewed Orbs, Axiom sells directly to consumers and does custom manufacturing, cutting out the middle men and selling audiophile quality at high-but-reasonable prices. These aren’t your Logitech or Altec Lansing speakers, content to put out a dozen or so watts per channel. No, this rig features 55 watts per channel, more than some low-end home theater setups.
Meet the Axiom Audiobytes. Available in a wide variety of finishes, from walnut or cherry woods to glossy blue or orange, ours were a plain but attractive black that fit nicely with other equipment. Removable grills are standard, and we liked them better off, to more clearly see the woofer and tweeter. The speakers are bigger than most desktop models though not too heavy at about 6.5×5.5×4 inches and a bit under 3 pounds each. However, there is a catch- the quite large, heavy, but necessary amplifier. Instead of building it into a separate subwoofer (more on that shortly), they moved it into it’s own piece, that can be as large as some computers and even heavier. You can, and should, hide it out of the way as much as possible, but in cramped environments it may be difficult. Placement is still important though, as we needed to reach the amp to power it down, as well as adjust the volume. No remote is included, nor a volume dongle, so you’ll likely end up reaching for the amp.
After plugging everything in, using the included cables which are long enough but no longer, we sat and listened for a while. At normal placement, which is to say flat on the same surface as our monitor, sound was crisp, clear, distinct and with excellent separation and power. It was slightly muffled though, so we lifted the speakers a bit higher and tried again- it made quite a bit of a difference too, so we definitely suggest finding stands (none are included) or doing your best to set the speakers up near ear-level. Without adding the subwoofer, we tried several types of audio and video sources, and found them to be at their best in more cinematic sounds, handling fuller arrangements amazingly well. For some music, notably your average Youtube video or MP3 pop song though, we didn’t notice a major difference between them and other 2.1 test speakers.
So we added the 12×8×14 inch subwoofer Axiom offers, a passive model called the EPZero. Offering three positions- flat, medium, or full- at first it seemed surprisingly mild. Even on the highest setting, the subwoofer doesn’t offer the thumps and shakes that you may be accustomed to from many others. In fact, we double-checked the connections, and adjusted positioning, and were surprised by the relative lack of bass. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; there’s far too much unrealistic bass pumping out there- but those looking for boom may want to look elsewhere. We had no issues with volume output though: thanks to the massive amp, the Axiom system was able to produce extremely loud sounds without distortion. We should also mention the pretty generous five-year warranty that Axiom offers on this system along with all of their others.
The target audience is a bit hard to discern here- audiophiles whose primary system is their computer? Are there any of those? But they must be out there, and we wholeheartedly recommend that they listen to the Axiom Audiobytes. Others, those who want a fuller home theater system or who primarily listen to MP3 files or game on their computer, will want to look elsewhere, at a 5.1 system perhaps. The sheer physical size of the speakers is worth considering as well, especially considering the pretty large subwoofer and the relative lack of bass provided. And, finally, there is the cost- about $350 for the set of speakers and amplifier, and an extra $179 for the subwoofer. Available directly from Axiom, online.
