I finally got my Paradigm Studio 60 speakers!

[billy p]

You also must realize that TLS Guy has a DIY system that very, very few, if any, commercial offerings could even come close to. His standards just may be a little bit higher than us mere mortals.

Nonetheless he should be a little more tactful...imo.

 

[JDawg]

Congrats on your speakers. I have been lusting after those same speakers for quite a while now. I am currently looking at PSB Imagines as well but everytime I see the Studios I get drawn back in. Did you get V4s or V5s? What made you decide to go with the CC590 center versus the cc690 (price or did it seem to be a better fit with the Studio 60s)? As far as break-in, I am no expert but I have heard that speakers, and Paradigms in particular, take several hours of break-in and that it will significantly affect their performance. Take what I say with a grain of salt though because I am a newbie at all of this - but I have done a fair amount of research. In any case, keep us posted on if/how the speakers change over time and your ongoing impressions of them.

Matt

I got the V5 and I went with the CC590 because the 690 was way too big and I would have a hard time finding a place to put it. The 590 was also on sale so I saved about $450. The CC590 is already a big center speaker so I'll have to make a shelf for it to go in so I can put my TV on top.

What are you using to drive the 60's? You said the store was using a separate amp which depending on how powerful it was will have some difference. Next to that I would have to think it's something to do with the room. How do you have the speakers setup? Where are they located in the room?

I'm using a Yamaha RX-V1800 to drive the speakers. I'm still curious to see if an amp would make any difference but I'm just not ready to spend a lot of money on something that might or might not do anything for sound quality.

The difference is the room, where you sit, where the speakers sit, and the placements of treatments (or lack thereof).

Anyone who is versed in acoustics will say that over half what you hear is the room itself. The answers might only vary in that some say it's a bit over half what you hear, and others will say it's upward of 80% of what you hear.

Common culprits might include being too close to rear wall as a listener, sitting in a bad null like mperfct suggests, having speakers too far apart, having speakers too close together, having them too close to side walls, having them too close to front wall, even worse being too close to both side and front wall (corner), and then the worst of all is just having a terrible room (perfectly square for instance).

In any case, when you said, "The only differnce is that they were using an separate amplifier to power the speakers . . .", that is not true, and I wanted to clarify that.

I forgot that the room could be the difference. I don't think the room in the store had any kind of room treatments done to it and it also had a huge opening to the rest of the store as well. I have considered room treatments but I just don't know anything about what to buy and where to put it in my room.

Anyways I finally got a chance to sit down and actually do some listening. I'm happy with how they sound and maybe its my imagination but I could actually hear more details and sounds I never heard before on my JBL speakers. The bass is lacking a bit compared to what I heard in the store but everything else about them sounds great.

So now my next question is what's the best way to hook them up? I can setup my RX-V1800 to bi-amp the speakers using the back surround amps. But since all amps would be drawing power from the same power supply and therefore outputting less power would this make any difference in sound quality? I would need to buy a new roll of wire and banana jacks if wanted to try this.

I was also talking to someone about my new speakers and he told me the 14 AWG RCA brand speaker wires i'm using are no good and if I want better sound I should get some 12 AWG wire from monoprice. I know bigger wires is better but only for long runs right? And I checked out monoprice speaker wire and they call it Enhanced Loud Oxygen-Free copper wire that supposedly sounds better. But copper is copper and they should all sound the same right? I guess its cheap enough that it wouldn't hurt to try it out.

 

[PENG]

He is entitled to his opinion but I can't help but think that he exaggerated the negatives to the nth degree.

 

[fredk]

But copper is copper and they should all sound the same right?

Yes. I don't have a chart in front of me, but 14 gage is good up to something like 60'.

I can setup my RX-V1800 to bi-amp the speakers using the back surround amps. But since all amps would be drawing power from the same power supply...

As you noted, its all one power supply. You won't gain anything.

 

[oppman99]

I am not aware of anyone arguing with you so unless I am missing something there is no need to........ You heard what you heard and others heard what they heard. For me, I had previously A/B a 2400 (less power than your 2500) with Anthem separates driving a pair of Studio 100 V3 with a few friends and none (including 2 piano players) heard much differences. Again, no arguments whatsoever from me, just different experience for whatever reasons.

I was referring to the two schools of thoughts on external amplification. On one side, the idea is that an AVR will be fine for most speakers and the other is the idea that an amp will provide better SQ. It has been debated in other threads.

 

[adwilk]

I have not heard the studio 60, but I did an audition of the studio 100 a few weeks ago with my friend Phil Marin. This was the first auditioning of a Paradigm speaker for both of us. I auditioned it in a good room at a dealer I have known for years. The test was the fourth movement of the Sibelius symphony No. 2 from Telarc. This is a good recording. The amplifying equipment was by Rotel. The speaker was mainly compared with the B & W 803s.

Both myself and Phil thought the Monitor 100 speakers were poor, and not worth the asking price.

Right from the first violin cord, the speakers disappointed. The treble was harsh and the mid range shouty. The bass was very tubby and bloated.

Nothing was well balanced. The violins were stealy with no bloom and the brass was of the flat out harsh, bore a whole in your head variety.

The B & W 803s speakers on the other hand sounded marvelous. I know these speakers were twice the price, however they were worth more than 20 times the price of the Paradigm. In fact in our view, the Paradigms could bring less musical pleasure than a lot of portable radios, to the music we auditioned. They are in my book, in the perfectly dreadful category.

They obviously weren't broken in...

 

[Davemcc]

They obviously weren't broken in...

Either that or they weren't bi-wired.

Oh noes, I did not just say that.

 

[adwilk]

I got the V5 and I went with the CC590 because the 690 was way too big and I would have a hard time finding a place to put it. The 590 was also on sale so I saved about $450. The CC590 is already a big center speaker so I'll have to make a shelf for it to go in so I can put my TV on top.



I'm using a Yamaha RX-V1800 to drive the speakers. I'm still curious to see if an amp would make any difference but I'm just not ready to spend a lot of money on something that might or might not do anything for sound quality.



I forgot that the room could be the difference. I don't think the room in the store had any kind of room treatments done to it and it also had a huge opening to the rest of the store as well. I have considered room treatments but I just don't know anything about what to buy and where to put it in my room.

Anyways I finally got a chance to sit down and actually do some listening. I'm happy with how they sound and maybe its my imagination but I could actually hear more details and sounds I never heard before on my JBL speakers. The bass is lacking a bit compared to what I heard in the store but everything else about them sounds great.

So now my next question is what's the best way to hook them up? I can setup my RX-V1800 to bi-amp the speakers using the back surround amps. But since all amps would be drawing power from the same power supply and therefore outputting less power would this make any difference in sound quality? I would need to buy a new roll of wire and banana jacks if wanted to try this.

I was also talking to someone about my new speakers and he told me the 14 AWG RCA brand speaker wires i'm using are no good and if I want better sound I should get some 12 AWG wire from monoprice. I know bigger wires is better but only for long runs right? And I checked out monoprice speaker wire and they call it Enhanced Loud Oxygen-Free copper wire that supposedly sounds better. But copper is copper and they should all sound the same right? I guess its cheap enough that it wouldn't hurt to try it out.

Just some quick points...

You'd probably need at least twice the power in a new amp over what your receiver would provide to notice any real audible differences.

Bi-amping/wiring will provide no audible difference.

Changing from 14 to 12ga wire will make no audible difference

Now, if you do all three of these things.... j/k

Play with placement and xover setup. I'm sure you'll be very happy.

 

[JDawg]

Just some quick points...

You'd probably need at least twice the power in a new amp over what your receiver would provide to notice any real audible differences.

Bi-amping/wiring will provide no audible difference.

Changing from 14 to 12ga wire will make no audible difference

Now, if you do all three of these things.... j/k

Play with placement and xover setup. I'm sure you'll be very happy.

I am curious to see if adding an amp such as the Emotiva XPA-3 or Anthem MC30 would improve sound quality. But there have been many people that have said it made their system sound better and others that didn't notice anything. However I did notice a big improvement in sound when I upgraded from my very first Pioneer receiver to a much more expensive Onkyo that had more power. So I do believe that having a more powerful avr or amp can improve sound quality in certain situations.

I was able to find some extra wire late last night to experiment with bi-amping and I heard no difference at all.

Thanks for helping to clear things up with the wire size. Now I know not to waste my money upgrading my wires.

 

[fredk]

Now, if you do all three of these things.... j/k

... it wil make a big difference in the thickness of your wallet.

 

[Warpdrv]

I am curious to see if adding an amp such as the Emotiva XPA-3 or Anthem MC30 would improve sound quality. But there have been many people that have said it made their system sound better and others that didn't notice anything.


Thanks for helping to clear things up with the wire size. Now I know not to waste my money upgrading my wires.

Noticing the difference with a bigger amp will certainly come into play when your are really pushing the SPL's on a regular basis - like playing a movie at ref levels for the whole thing - as well as if you have a larger room... My room is gynormous and filling that place with impactful sound was straining on a receiver.

Bigger wires are only necessary with longer runs... see this chart http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#wiretable
You don't need pretty botique name brand wires to get quality wire...
Monoprice or bluejeanscable will have just as good of wire for less money.

 

[TLS Guy]

He is entitled to his opinion but I can't help but think that he exaggerated the negatives to the nth degree.

I'm sorry but that speaker had all the problems I most abhor in a speaker. Harsh treble, a shouty mid range and tubby bass. There are modest systems I could live with much more easily.

Sins of commission are much worse than sins of omission in speakers.

They were very different from the B & W 803s speakers. They where not even close. I know which one sounded like a reasonable facsimile of a symphony orchestra, and it was not the Paradigms. I call it the way I hear it.

 

[PENG]

... it wil make a big difference in the thickness of your wallet.

This made me laugh. Jokes aside, more power can, and will make a difference in some situations but it also may not make any audible differences in some situations. It is always better to have power on hand that you may not need, because you may need it.

 

[JDawg]

Noticing the difference with a bigger amp will certainly come into play when your are really pushing the SPL's on a regular basis - like playing a movie at ref levels for the whole thing - as well as if you have a larger room... My room is gynormous and filling that place with impactful sound was straining on a receiver.

Bigger wires are only necessary with longer runs... see this chart http://www.roger-russell.com/wire/wire.htm#wiretable
You don't need pretty botique name brand wires to get quality wire...
Monoprice or bluejeanscable will have just as good of wire for less money.

I'm a little confused when it comes to playing movies or music at reference levels. When I calibrated the speaker levels I have the master volume at 0db and I adjust the trim for each channel until my meter reads 75db with the receivers test tones. When I watch a movie I have the volume at around -17 to -20db most of the time. Last night I was watching a movie and I decided to measure how loud it was playing and my meter measured around 80db during the action scenes. So even though I have my master volume at -17.5db but I'm measuring 80db does that mean its playing at reference levels? Or do I really have to have my volume at 0db to be considered reference level?

 

[fredk]

Thing is, with a simple calculator you can roughly figure out your power requirements and give yourself the appropriate power. Its physics not magic.

Look at your space, the efficiency of your speakers and how loud you listen, the dynamics of the music you listen to and plug in some numbers. That will give you a ballpark value to work with.

I ran through the numbers with my room in another thread. In my small space, I will likely never use more than 70W. I have 100w on tap at 8 Ohms and my speakers are [mostly] 4 Ohm where I have 145w on tap.

If the numbers told me I was close to the limits of my amp, I would consider an outboard amp.

 

[fredk]

I'm not entirely clear on that either. It gets more complicated because not all movies are 'calibrated' to reference. Some seem to be louder than others.

In theory, I think you should be setting your volume to 0 to play at reference. I'm guessing that reference represents the average volume for a movie and that action scenes would be louder than average.

THX gives a spec, but I don't know how often it is followed. Here's an example. I watched Band of Brothers last week. I watched at -10 and everything was clear without ever being overwhelming.

Tonight I watched Wolverene and I had to dial it back to -14.5. At times the dialog was a little low. Those two movies were not mixed the same.

 

[billy p]

You guys are getting old, I can't hear anything at those levels.... In all honesty I set the max volume at -5db's for my receiver because anything less approaches >100dbs and that is very LOUD.

 

[JDawg]

I've had my speakers for just over a month now so I just wanted to come back and let you guys know if there's been any change since I first got them. Well I don't really know if they sound any better after several hours of break in. I do know they sound way better ever since I hooked them up to a really old Pioneer SA-9100 amp from 1973. I mentioned in the beginning that they didn't sound as full or as good compared to what I heard in the store. I cranked up the 50Hz and 100Hz bass settings on the Pioneer amp and I couldn't believe how much better everything sounded! I was getting lots of bass and everything just sounded much much better! Listening to 2 channel music has never sounded this good in my room before. I tried messing around with the equalizer and bass settings on my receiver but I could never get it to sound like it does on the Pioneer amp. I'm really happy with these speakers now but I borrowed the Pioneer amp from a friend so I'll have to return it. Maybe I'll have to get a good used stereo equalizer from ebay to get the sound back to the way I like it.

 

[PENG]

I've had my speakers for just over a month now so I just wanted to come back and let you guys know if there's been any change since I first got them. Well I don't really know if they sound any better after several hours of break in. I do know they sound way better ever since I hooked them up to a really old Pioneer SA-9100 amp from 1973. I mentioned in the beginning that they didn't sound as full or as good compared to what I heard in the store. I cranked up the 50Hz and 100Hz bass settings on the Pioneer amp and I couldn't believe how much better everything sounded! I was getting lots of bass and everything just sounded much much better! Listening to 2 channel music has never sounded this good in my room before. I tried messing around with the equalizer and bass settings on my receiver but I could never get it to sound like it does on the Pioneer amp. I'm really happy with these speakers now but I borrowed the Pioneer amp from a friend so I'll have to return it. Maybe I'll have to get a good used stereo equalizer from ebay to get the sound back to the way I like it.

First of all, thank you for the feed back. I absolutely believe more power is better than less in most situations. That being said, there is no way the 36 years old 60W/75W 8/4 ohm SA9100 can do better than your RX-V1800. Obviously I have to believe you heard what you heard but I do strongly suggest you find out if there is anything wrong in the settings of your receiver. Did you power the Pioneer with the RX-V1800 preouts or did you connect you source (e.g. CD player) directly to the Pioneer? To be sure, use only pure direct mode for 2 channel music listening comparison with the Pioneer and better still, have someone do the switching back and forth for you after level matching both setups.

By the way the Pioneer's max power consumption is 400W so at the very most it could output about 100W to 120WPC. The RX-V1800 has a max power consumption of 1100W and for sure can pump out more power/current than the Pioneer in Stereo mode.

Again, if you listen loud enough in a larger room you can benefit from a power amp but I would suggest you get at least 200WPC, not a 60W and 36 year old amp.

 

[JDawg]

First of all, thank you for the feed back. I absolutely believe more power is better than less in most situations. That being said, there is no way the 36 years old 60W/75W 8/4 ohm SA9100 can do better than your RX-V1800. Obviously I have to believe you heard what you heard but I do strongly suggest you find out if there is anything wrong in the settings of your receiver. Did you power the Pioneer with the RX-V1800 preouts or did you connect you source (e.g. CD player) directly to the Pioneer? To be sure, use only pure direct mode for 2 channel music listening comparison with the Pioneer and better still, have someone do the switching back and forth for you after level matching both setups.

By the way the Pioneer's max power consumption is 400W so at the very most it could output about 100W to 120WPC. The RX-V1800 has a max power consumption of 1100W and for sure can pump out more power/current than the Pioneer in Stereo mode.

Again, if you listen loud enough in a larger room you can benefit from a power amp but I would suggest you get at least 200WPC, not a 60W and 36 year old amp.

I wasn't expecting much either from such an old amp so I was surprised that something so old could sound pretty good. I had the amp connected to the preouts on the Yamaha and I did have it on pure direct mode so that the EQ settings from the Yamaha wasn't getting EQ'ed again with the Pioneer amp. I also tried hooking up the cd player to the Pioneer amp without using my receiver and both configurations sounded the same to me.

I've gone over the settings on my receiver so many times that I'm certain that there's nothing wrong with them. For 2 channel music listening I have the front speakers set to large and the bass output to the front speakers only. I have tried experimenting with the equalizer settings in the menu as well as the bass and treble settings but it just didn't sound as good as the Pioneer. The difference in sound is big enough to notice because in bass heavy music I can clearly hear and feel more bass when using the Pioneer amp. With the Yamaha the bass is still there but just not as strong. Maybe its because the Pioneer allows for +/-10db adjustments for the bass and treble settings which is more than what the Yamaha can do.

Anyways I am considering getting an amp. I've looked into getting a used Anthem MCA-20 for $650 but I just got a quote for an Emotiva XPA-3 which is only a bit more than the used Anthem amp. The only thing I worry about is what if adding an amp doesn't make that big of a difference because amps are not that cheap.