"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."
Not exactly comparing apples with apples, though. Regardless, some less expensive speakers can and do reproduce more faithfully than what you described.
"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."
That probably goes along with the 3KHz peak and the dip just below it.
"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.
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."
I was surprised to see the Fs come into play in the Paradigm- that goes against the 2.5-3 octave rule of thumb for crossover design.
"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 it should be."
This is mainly familiarity, IMO. We all recognize certain sounds instantly and when an audio system recreates the sound with a great degree of accuracy, it's a great experience. Too bad the marketing departments have taken over.
"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."
Music isn't recorded to sound real. Even back when radio was new, they found ways to make the sound "jump" out of the speakers. The songs that got peoples' attention sold better and that hasn't changed one bit, even with all of the changes in technology. Now, a lot of music is mixed so it sounds good through ear buds and an iPod. There's a major lack of dynamics and tonal balance, MP3 is the preferred means of storage and according to recent polls of white collar people in a moderately well-off range, sound quality is hanging off of the rear seat's backrest and convenience is driving the bus. Classical music is different. It's rooted in tradition and that can mean that it's not allowed to cater to the "pop" crowd, in the simplest form of the word. Classical music isn't supposed to jump from the speakers, it's supposed to recreate an experience. Some Jazz recordings were made wiht the same intent but even those have a wide variation in sound. Most Jazz and Classical labels have their own "sound", as you know and this is one of the things that makes someone prefer one to another. EMI and Telefunken have recorded many of the same pieces but the sound is different. CTI, Capitol and Blue Note had totally different sounds but that is usually lost on the casual listener. Pop music is about getting the most people excited and selling things. Unless a band records live in a studio or venue and the music is mixed with attention to where the musicians were positioned, it's all an illusion. One person can record all of the tracks, play all of the instruments and make it sound like a band through technological tricks but it's still not a real experience.
"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.
I still maintain that good speakers are far and few between, and the exception."
British speakers have been called "dry", because they're well damped. German speakers have their own signature, Danish theirs and less than before, American speakers could be considered to have a West Coast, East Coast or Midwest sound and Japanese were called "Boom-Crash". East Coast was more similar to European, West Coast was more bass-heavy and had a hotter treble but still a very present midrange.
You mention RAH- that can support many types of music because the acoustics are great. British speakers are made to sound real because the people demand that, not extreme levels of anything. Unfortunately, many people here are impressed by marketing and wowed by anything that is excessive.
Good speakers are all over, but 'good' is just the middle, in terms of quality. Great speakers are the ones that are hard to find and cost doesn't necessarily determine greatness, as you know well.
