Goodmans Axiom 80

Goodmans is a British company of yesteryear well known for exceptional sounding drivers of superbly quality. Beginning in the 20’s, Goodmans production spanned the rest of the 20th century. But of all their models of drivers and speakers over the years, none is more famous than the Axiom 80, shown below. A legendary driver, the Axiom 80 has an anecdotal reputation for sounding very clear and for being “the best”. Its expense and relative rarity only add to the legend. It's a driver unlike any other, and although many have heard of it, few have actually heard it. I’ve been searching for a clean pair of Wembley-made Axiom 80 drivers for years now. They are often available from eBay Japan with lofty price tags, but aren’t seen very frequently on the US market. At least not by me. So when I serendipitously acquired two orphans just days apart I felt like someone was smiling down me, and I was very excited to get them mounted up into my big Telefunken cabinets and playing music. But it’s rarely that easy is it?

I’ll start by saying that the Axiom 80 are the highest quality feeling drivers that I’ve ever held in my hands. Previously that accolade would have gone to Oleg Rullit, and his Aero 8 are now a close second. Both speakers are industrial art. I could easily imagine the Axiom 80 on a pedestal in an art gallery exhibited as sculpture. They are really something to behold. And at just over 9 pounds each, these are densely overengineered and represent what is perhaps the ultimate full range driver design.

Dating to around 1948 and in production until 1959, the Axiom 80 was the brainchild of Ted Jordan, and really are unlike any other speaker driver ever made. Lacking both a traditional surround and spider assembly, the 10 inch Axiom 80 feature flexible double cantilevers attached to the far outside of cone and to the underside of an external peripheral ring. This allows the cone to move in and out in a very precise piston-like manner, eliminating bending and flex and creating extremely low resistance. These factors, combined with a super powerful magnet, make the Axiom 80 sound extremely clear and precise. It also limits the driver to 12 watts, and the tight cone-to-basket gap means it is particularly vulnerable to dust and other contaminants. On top of that, the cantilevers have a reputation for coming unglued from the cone or ring, creating an unbalance. Ironically, despite the severe overbuild, the Axiom 80 is actually a fragile driver. And at 70-80 years old now, each driver’s condition will be unique.

Both of the Axiom drivers I purchased were advertised as flawless, but sadly only one of them actually was. The driver I purchased locally (mounted in a 50’s era Klipsch Rebel cabinet and originally sold by Audio Exchange, Jamaica NY) had a small chip in the whizzer cone, and although it played fine at most frequencies, there were certain places in almost every track that was distorted by a small buzzing sound. This made it hard for me to spend any extended time with them in stereo, and I ended up using the single good driver in a mono set up for a few days, running it back-to-back with a couple of other drivers just to try to get a sense of what the Axiom could do. At first, I thought I liked it better than even the Isophon PH2132, but after a close back-and-forth session, my wife and I determined that it was the brightness of the Axiom that was drawing us in. After listening for quite some time, we ultimately felt that the lack of bass couldn’t be overcome, even by that dreamy midrange. And of course, the Axiom is not optimized for an open cabinet. But the clarity is really remarkable, and the in the-the-room factor is just out of this world good.

During my review of the Hyondae Sound Ti-755a, I visited Early Bender at his warehouse in Crewe, Virginia. Early and his dad Walt handled many of the Axioms back in the Audiomart days, and he was able to quickly diagnose and fix the problem on my troubled driver. Instead of the whizzer cone being the culprit, it turns out that one of the cantilevers was detached from the cone. A very common issue with these, as previously noted. Somehow I didn't see it. Early was able to glue it back on, and since then it has been trouble free, playing loud and perfectly clean. He also measured the drivers, and a DATS sweep shows they are remarkably close to each other. Good news!

Putting my drivers back together into a stereo set up and giving them some time to break in revealed that the Axiom 80 is quite a performer! The lack of bass improved markedly as the drivers ran in more, and now that I have 40 or 50 hours on them together, the sound is stabilized and pulses into the room with a much more balanced feeling than in the beginning. The open baffle bass has filled out by 50% or more, and I can say that they sound quite a lot better now than they did in the beginning, although the bass energy still has some room to grow. I know I sound like a broken record on every speaker review, break-in / break-in / break-in, but it’s true and even I forget sometimes how long it can take, and how profound the changes can be. Especially with ancient gems like these that maybe haven’t been played in decades, it does take a little while to loosen up get back in the groove, so to speak.

The Goodmans Axiom 80 is a living, breathing voice in the room, and it excels at presence. This is an up-close and in-the-room driver! Like only the very best full range drivers do, the Axiom 80 brings out all of the little things in the program material and places them on their own little pedestal in the sound stage, kind of floating in front of you. For instance, an artist like Camille often uses samples of her own voice as percussion or rhythm elements in her tracks, and from the Axiom 80, each one of those little spits, tongue-clicks or raspberries pop out on their own floating in space, and it’s quite easy to hear them differentiated from the background. On well recorded and mixed material, all of the layers are opened up like a flower opening its petals, free and open. It’s really remarkable, and the Axiom 80 is a heavyweight in this category.

One of my long-term test tracks is Bob Dylan’s Girl From the North Country. It's a very basic recording of course, stripped down and bare. I really like small scale recordings like this one. Bob has a strong vocal actually, and on an early set like this you can hear an innocence in his voice as well. I like it as a test because of the subtle emotion in his vocal, and because of the very powerful harmonica sounds. Some speakers make the harmonica nearly unbearable. Others gloss over and veil it. The Axiom presents it very smoothly. It has harsh peaks, not quite eye watering, but there is body inside, and on the Axiom you can clearly hear a few misses and the inhalations in between. It has a reedy sound. On many drivers its just glare.

The Axiom 80 excels at realistically reproducing clean and intimate recordings of course, but it falls down a bit on larger complex music that requires a bigger and more fully fleshed out body. Music with huge crescendos, tightly woven and fast moving stuff like some African and Electronic music, or recordings that are just gritty and grimy, will be less pleasant. But there are still surprises; even dense and narrow recordings like The Stranglers Golden Brown have a clarity and presence that is interesting and unexpected. Its clear, however, that the Axiom 80 is not the driver of choice for Punk or Metal. (Coral’s 8A-70 excels there!)

Efficiency is another strong point of the Axiom 80. It seems to be generally accepted as being around 98 db/wm, and it certainly sounds that way in real life. This driver plays louder than I can stand and without any apparent distortion from a 1 watt single ended amplifier like the 6BX7 or the Handel 6V6. More power doesn’t seem to do all that much to change the dynamics or impact, its very engaging with just a watt of power, so a small amp is more than enough in my experience. The Yamamoto 45 likes everything and that is no exception here. I’ve found the Axiom to be ideal with both 300B and Type 50 as well.

Some features that may not be as desirable are power handling and perhaps cabinet choices. The Axiom 80 is rated at only 12 watts. That's not very much. I do of course play with a lot of small wattage amps, but 12 watts eliminates a lot of other choices. No Psvane parallel single ended 845 on these drivers unfortunately, especially in an open backed cabinet. The Axiom 80 is a low QT driver, and was not intended to be used on an open baffle panel. Goodmans originally specified a large box. Over time, mine have graduated to making modest but sufficient bass in the OB, but the magnet in the Axiom 80 is extremely powerful by pretty much any standard, and combined with the lack of backpressure in an open baffle, I’m trying to be careful to avoid over excursion. I experimented with covering the back of the Telefunkens with closed cell styrofoam panels, and I can definitely feel the back wave pressure against it with the palm of my hand. I thought the rear panel might further improve the bass response, as the sealed off Telefunken is actually a pretty large closed volume. But strangely I didn’t notice much change in the bass energy, or overall sound quality for that matter, and eventually returned to the open back. I have been using a curtain suspended behind the driver (a nod to the original design) to provide some level of back pressure support.

The Axiom 80 is a real performer if your taste runs to small watt amps and music with a gentler and more organic sound profile. These are not going to be the driver for everyone. Although I think, unlike perhaps the venerable 755a, most everyone who hears the Axiom 80 will agree that it sounds great. You don't need the secret decoder ring to appreciate its perfume. It is not the speaker I want for heavy hitting program material like Metal or Electronic. But then few drivers on my site do those genres well. The Axiom 80 are not common, and they are not inexpensive. But they are supremely high quality, and with the right content they offer an emotionally charged, you-are-there experience that a listener will have quite a hard time matching later. It took me 20 years to find my pair, and a few minor headaches to get it all going, but for pure visceral palpability, on the right (and sometimes the wrong) recording, this one is masterful. For the intrepid and adventurous, highly recommended.

Two orphans. Both are early serial number Wembley made drivers, likely within the first year or two of production.

Look at those minimalist but BEEFY frames. These are just overbuilt tanks.

Since one of my drivers was problematic, I started out using the good one in mono. Here it is comparing to the Isophon PH2132; sort of my high water mark to date. The Axiom is perhaps a slight bit more “real” sounding, but it's a small difference. On the other hand, in the open baffle the Isophon makes more bass and that allows it to ground the program material and provides a richness to the presentation that the Axiom can’t quite match. The Isophon’s bass has more texture, and on a kick drum for example, its far more convincing.

Early Bender repairing my Goodmans Axiom 80 driver. The cantilevers are a known failure point on these drivers, but dust in the narrow voice coil gap is another common issue. Vintage audio can be finicky, but it is so worth it!

The Hyondae Sound Ti-755a seems to be the next best thing to a vintage Western Electric. Back-to-back with the Axiom 80, the Ti-755a has a bit more grunt and it sounds a little thicker and meatier. The Axiom has the advantage from an imaging perspective, and is pretty hard to beat on that front.

The Goodmans Axiom 80 are low power speakers. Here it is with a Tektron SE Type 50 amplifier, about 4 watts per channel, and just about perfect with the Axioms.

Beautiful speakers! The presence and the “you are there” feeling is extremely strong with the Goodmans Axiom 80. If you can find a pair and they fit your music taste, grab them!