Some preliminary results I was a bit surprised to find (all tested on their own, w/o the sub, so far):

- The Nightingales do not have good bass extension, despite the large cabinet volume and the down-firing ports. The bass is very tight, but not very deep. I would almost suggest that the specs on the Odyssey site are not accurate. I was really hoping they would blow the Axioms away, but they didn't. They were more airy and seemed more transparent (I think that's the term: when they seem to not be there, not as localized), but the midrange on down to the bass was better integrated on the Axioms.

- The Meadowlarks have better bass but lack the midrange and trebble of the Nightingales. They also have what I would call mushy imaging: it's there, but not very acurate. That said, of the two, I'm leaning towards the Meadowlarks. For small quartets (Jazz, Classical), they are hard to beat. Only with orchestral works (Mahler, Hofvannes) do they really begin to show their limitations. The Axioms have better imaging, trebble, and while they have less bass, what the Axioms do have is tighter. Interestingly, when playing some Massive Attack, the Meadowlarks were really trying with the 6" woofers bellowing wildly, but they did not break up even at high volumes: that was very impressive.

- Maggies are a mixed bag. I love the fact that I can stash them in the closet when I need the space and I'm almost considering hanging them up on the wall when not in use. The Sound, while certainly lively and dynamic, doesn't really give me the wow factor everyone was talking about. They also don't handle high frequencies as well as I expected (they sound rolled off), and of course the bass is non-existent. This is a big problem for me. The Axioms had better bass, equal midrange, and better (or I should say, more controlled) trebble. On Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, the clarinet sounded much "higher" and ethereal on the Axioms than on the Maggies.

- Ohms aren't ready yet. I should really get crackin on these because I'm running out of time to be able to return them. Right now they are edgy and maybe it's the lack of furniture in the room, but they are very bright. Not much bass either. Again, I have maybe 20-30 hours on them, so this is probably not fair to them.

Again these are preliminary findings, and all w/o sub, so I have a lot more work to do. But I just wanted to set the stage for the weekend. I've been doing a lot of thinking about my SVS cylinder sub and I really expect it to do well on music. On another thread, there was some discussion on how it is not as tight, but I expect that the sub will be just fine. It blew me away several years ago when I bought it, so let's see if that's still the case.