I see I have missed a lot of fun today!
Today was the day set for moving the generator automatic transfer switch from the garage into the house. This was because the relay will not throw when it is 20 below or lower. My electrician's crew turned up at 7.30 AM sharp.
This was a long job, and I had no power here most of the day. The temp was 32 F getting to 33F for the highest. So I had to keep the oak firewood stoked in the fireplace. It kept the house at 70. However I was pretty much outside all day with the crew.
There unfortunately was a wiring error on the first test, and the fuse for the generator control unit blew. Once we had that sorted everything was fine. While we had everything apart, I redid the house grounding and the shop.
We drove three seven ft. copper rods into the ground for the house and one for the shop. We ran heavy copper wire from the panel to all three and a heavy duty cable for the Direct TV ground block and FM antenna. We also put in a whole house surge protector while we had the chance. It was almost dark by the time we were done. It was a very good day's work.
I have posted on the
Paradigm Studio 100 in quite a number of posts.
I auditioned this speaker cold and unexpectedly, because I was at this dealer I have known since the early eighties and he had just picked up the line. I knew no details of the design of the speaker. But since these speakers have been mentioned a lot on these forums, I was eager to audition them and expected great things. The room was good. The CD player was a high end one, I forget which, and the pre amp and amp were Rotel. I selected the B & W 803S speakers for comparison, because they were close by. Price for the Paradigms at that dealer $2,500, the B & W $4,500.
Now since I was expecting great things I chose a difficult demanding revealing piece of music: the fourth movement of Symphony No 2 of Sibelius.
As I think most of you are aware, I was very disappointed.
1). Bass spread everywhere and was ill defined. I could not discern the notes of the tymps.
2). The mid range was very forward and not well balanced. The trumpets on the excellent Telarc recording were all lip and no bell. They did not approximate the tonal balance of real trumpets. The strings had a steely quality.
3) HF was harsh, which contributed to the poor sound of the massed high strings.
4). The speakers failed to produce a believable perspective. I had sound being thrust at me. I like the sound to appear to come form behind the plane of the speakers. The speakers failed to give any illusion of depth.
The B & W, while not having the deepest bass, did nothing to offend, were well balanced, and gave a believable acoustic perspective with depth.
I only had a chance to evaluate that one piece, as paying customers turned up. It was easy to sell them on the B & W, speakers, fortunately the dealer had a barely used pair in perfect condition and they were an easy sell at $500 over the Paradigms.
Now I was certain there were problems with this speaker between 2 and 10 kHz, I was pretty sure they was peaking around 3 kHz. I was also sure there was trouble in the 100 Hz area. It is interesting to note the graphs Swerd has dug up show unacceptable ripple, indicative of a poorly damped speaker.
Obviously I would be very sensitive to that, as I have spent a good deal of my life producing critically damped speakers.
I doubt the graphs presented show the half of the story, I think a waterfall plot would show a boat load of trouble in the band pass crossover region, especially the upper one.
Now if you look at the specs of this speaker, you see design choices I have leaned in the world of hard knocks, to go out of my way to avoid.
1). A passive crossover below 350 Hz. I don't care how much you spend on caps and inductors, like the banks and IAG, they are just too big. They create a nightmare of a of a load. Also it is impossible to keep the bass tight, and I suspect this is a contributing cause of the bass ripple.
2). Band pass crossover points too close together. In this case 300 Hz and 2 kHz, not even three octaves. If you are going to make a three way you want around a three to four octave spread, and you need to get the crossover points out of the speech discrimination range. In other words, they need to develop a mid range that can be crossed over at 4 kHz or higher.
Obviously B & W have come to the same conclusion as those principles are followed in the entire 800 range.
The next issue, is that I only evaluate speakers using minimalist recordings of natural instruments. I know what those sound like. I attend live concerts every chance I get. Also I have made hundreds of recordings of live concerts. Musicians at playback know what their instrument and those of their colleagues sound like. I have had many a musician, on hearing my monitors on playback say "that sounds just like my instrument." That's they way ot should be.
Now music in the popular domain, is usually mixed on speakers far from flat, and you always mix to your monitors. So I often wonder if this fact has a great deal to do with the persistence of speakers that are far from accurate.
I have noticed among friends and associates, that classical music lovers choose from a very select group of speakers, and more often than not they are British. It is not generally recognized in the US that classical music in Britain has a huge following. There are major concerts around the country daily and well attended. The Proms in the Summer go on for two months, with a major concert seven days a week. Many days there are multiple concerts. The concerts are sold out, including the standing room in the Royal Albert Hall. The offerings are highly diverse and wide ranging.
This is I believe is a major contributing factor in speakers of British design sounding the way they do. Speakers to be sold in the UK have to be able to a decent job of reproducing the BBC concert broadcasts and especially the Proms. If a speaker can't do a believable job in this arena, it won't have appreciable market penetration in the UK.
This is a very different state of affairs than what we have over here, were I believe speakers are auditioned with a very different choice of music.
My friend and I have auditioned quite a number of speakers lately in the Twin Cities. It is interesting that we never have major points of disagreement in our assessment of the speakers we audition. He had just a s bad an impression of the Paradigms as I did. So far the only speakers we agree we could live with have been by B & W and Spendor. The rest have had shortcomings sufficient to make it hard to find listening pleasant.
I still maintain that good speakers are far and few between, and the exception.
