TLS Guy -vs- Studio 100's

Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
Are we coming to the conclusion that the doc is right and that the Studio series don't deserve their great reputation? :eek: :confused: :eek:

Say it's not so!!
Considering that I haven't heard these speakers, I wouldn't jump to any conclusions yet.

So far this is thread is about what measurable features, such as frequency response curves, may tell us about how a speaker sounds. We're speculating, taking educated guesses. It would help if TLS Guy could add to this thread, because he is familiar with these speaker measurements and he has a clear understanding of what he likes and doesn't like.

Speaker design is part science and part personal preference, and the science part is a lot easier to predict. With personal preference, there is no right or wrong.
 
F

fredk

Audioholic General
Some observations:

1. Despite what many think, the only valid research to date done on listening preference tells us that, serious hearing issues aside, we do not all hear differently. It also tells us that, once all bias is removed via DBT, peoples preferences are remarkably similar.

Do not underestimate the impact of bias: Dr. Bose does not.

2. TLS guy has devoted a considerable portion of his adult free time to critical listening of very high quality music both live and on extremely good equipment. He has trained himself to notice [what we consider] very small differences in sound. In terms of listening ability and expectation, he is on the far right side of the bell curve.

Having spent a year inspecting automotive plastic parts, I can quickly pick out flaws that most would not see. That was only one year.

3. The differences between the Stereophile and NRC measurements can be explained by the measurement method. Stereophile does not have an anechoic chamber, so effects from the room cannot be entirely filtered out.

Personally I am very afraid to go out and listen to a speaker like the B&W 802D. My wallet is not fat enough to venture into that realm. Ignorance is bliss (or so I keep telling myself). ;)
 
KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
The Studio 10 v5 still looks pretty ragged from 700 Hz and higher. If that is similar to the Studio 100 v5, it still could have problems.
You'll get no argument from me. I was just trying to find a source of a FR curve which might better reflect the sound of the Studio100 v5. The Studio 10 is a poor substitute, but it may be decent for the upper frequencies. I have read that the v5 sounds better than earlier versions did.
 
Swerd

Swerd

Audioholic Warlord
Some observations:

1. Despite what many think, the only valid research to date done on listening preference tells us that, serious hearing issues aside, we do not all hear differently. It also tells us that, once all bias is removed via DBT, peoples preferences are remarkably similar.

Do not underestimate the impact of bias: Dr. Bose does not.

2. TLS guy has devoted a considerable portion of his adult free time to critical listening of very high quality music both live and on extremely good equipment. He has trained himself to notice [what we consider] very small differences in sound. In terms of listening ability and expectation, he is on the far right side of the bell curve.

Having spent a year inspecting automotive plastic parts, I can quickly pick out flaws that most would not see. That was only one year.

3. The differences between the Stereophile and NRC measurements can be explained by the measurement method. Stereophile does not have an anechoic chamber, so effects from the room cannot be entirely filtered out.

Personally I am very afraid to go out and listen to a speaker like the B&W 802D. My wallet is not fat enough to venture into that realm. Ignorance is bliss (or so I keep telling myself). ;)
Very well said!

I agree with you, but at the same time I have to say that I am never surprised (anymore) by the wide range of individual preferences I seen in other peoples' taste in speakers. Some people like bass that I think is bloated and boomy. Others like bass so tight that I think it sounds rather dry and restrained.

I now think these kinds of variation in preference are a product of what speakers (good or bad) people are used to hearing. I have a friend who has spent so much time listening to his bad car sound system, that he is used to it and is convinced it sounds "right". This has influenced what he bought for his home. So prior experience may qualify as another kind of bias that you mentioned in #1 above.
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
Very well said!

I agree with you, but at the same time I have to say that I am never surprised (anymore) by the wide range of individual preferences I seen in other peoples' taste in speakers. Some people like bass that I think is bloated and boomy. Others like bass so tight that I think it sounds rather dry and restrained.

I now think these kinds of variation in preference are a product of what speakers (good or bad) people are used to hearing. I have a friend who has spent so much time listening to his bad car sound system, that he is used to it and is convinced it sounds "right". This has influenced what he bought for his home. So prior experience may qualify as another kind of bias that you mentioned in #1 above.
Agreed. I love the bookshelves over towers normally. Probably because it's what I grew up with.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Some observations:

1. Despite what many think, the only valid research to date done on listening preference tells us that, serious hearing issues aside, we do not all hear differently. It also tells us that, once all bias is removed via DBT, peoples preferences are remarkably similar.
We DO hear differently on an individual basis and that has to be considered when reading or hearing someone's opinion on a particular piece of equipment. You'll find multiple people who agree that something sounds one way or another but not everyone will agree that everything sounds the same. The size of outer ear, any damage that has occurred over the years, ear infections and in fact, body size and mass affect how we perceive sound. As a group, human hearing acuity has been tested, the results & analysis have changed over the years and we have a better understanding of how we hear/perceive sound but we definitely hear differently and prefer different sounds. For that matter, hearing differences based on gender are pretty great, too and I don't just mean selective deafness between spouses. :D

Perception plays a huge part in what we think we like but there's a big difference in listening tests between people who have listened critically and those who haven't. If these differences don't exist, why do we have so many speaker companies telling us that their product sounds better than the others? Marketing is the usual answer to that question it only goes so far and when the sound is actually compared by people, they can and do prefer some over others.

If we hear the same, why wouldn't we all choose the same model at each price point? It couldn't be due to a cosmetic preference, would it? No, it's because speakers don't all sound alike but that still doesn't account for the wide variation in sound and the sales volume of speakers that some people just don't like.


Do you have links to "the only valid research to date"?
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Very well said!

I agree with you, but at the same time I have to say that I am never surprised (anymore) by the wide range of individual preferences I seen in other peoples' taste in speakers. Some people like bass that I think is bloated and boomy. Others like bass so tight that I think it sounds rather dry and restrained.

I now think these kinds of variation in preference are a product of what speakers (good or bad) people are used to hearing. I have a friend who has spent so much time listening to his bad car sound system, that he is used to it and is convinced it sounds "right". This has influenced what he bought for his home. So prior experience may qualify as another kind of bias that you mentioned in #1 above.
Familiarity plays a huge role in what people will prefer, especially if they rarely listen critically to any other equipment.
 
KEW

KEW

Audioholic Overlord
Can someone actually do this?

I don't know if anyone will want to try this or not, but just for funsies...

Anyone out there bold enough to go blind and tell us about these three!?

Maybe guess at the quality, nature of the design, etc.
I've only actually heard one of them.
One is significantly more expensive than the other two.
Two are spec'ed as bookshelf/stand mount.

Knowing what these speakers are I could make a couple of intelligent statements about the curves, but I'd be pretty clueless otherwise!

You're on your honor.

#1


#2


#3
 
F

fredk

Audioholic General
I now think these kinds of variation in preference are a product of what speakers (good or bad) people are used to hearing.
Agreed, but then, you probably already knew that if you read the quote in my sig. :D

Do you have links to "the only valid research to date"?
I have the ultimate link. Enter Floyde Toole and start reading. ;) A shortcut would be to do the same search here as the references have been posted a number of times.

Perception plays a huge part in what we think we like but there's a big difference in listening tests between people who have listened critically and those who haven't.
You say perception, I say bias. I agree with you that people can train themselves to hear things like different types of distortion and to more easily detect variations from a flat response, however, that will not change the basic preference of what type of speaker sounds best (all bias removed).

If any one of us were to spend a lot of critical listening time on a speaker that offered a response that was in the range of +_ 1db across its range set up properly and in a good acoustic environment, that would change our perception of good, or even acceptable forever.
 
F

fredk

Audioholic General
Can someone actually do this?
From what little I know, not really. You would need additional measurements to compare for each speaker. I remember one Toole paper talking about looking for blips in frequency response across multiple measuement types including looking for ripples in the impedence graph that corespond to frequency irregularities.

It would also help you to know what that tells you about the particular driver's behavior.

IM(not so well informed)O that is. :D
 
STRONGBADF1

STRONGBADF1

Audioholic Spartan
It looks like TLS Guy never showed up. I've come home from work, finished dinner, and the Burro Dance Team has run its course. Maybe we can try to work on Alex's original question without TLS Guy. What can we see in the various graphs and measurements of those Studio 100s that corresponds with TLS Guy's brief critique of them?

TLS Guy said

How do we go from those words to this:


or this


Nothing was well balanced. That is probably the easiest. Even though the Studio 100s got praise in the Stereophile review, they could have a flatter and smoother frequency response. They aren't real bad (like these Cerwin Vegas), but they aren't as flat and smooth as these Paradigm Reference Signature S1s. Remember that we can easily hear differences of 3 dB or larger, especially if it is in the midrange (very roughly from 500 to 3,000 Hz). The Studio 100s vary by at least 5dB, and in the upper treble by a lot more.

The treble was harsh. That's a little more difficult because frequency response curves only show relative changes in loudness. They don't tell you anything about good or poor sound quality. Just the same, the Studio 100 tweeter has a pretty rough looking FR curve, especially above 8 kHz. I can think of many moderately priced tweeters that are smoother.

The bass was very tubby and bloated. This is the toughest one for me, because the bass doesn't look that bad in the FR curve. True, it is a little exaggerated, but I've seen much worse, like those Cerwin Vegas.

The mid range shouty. This may not mean much to many of you, but the words "shouty midrange" sound like a classic description of a speaker that suffers from uncorrected baffle diffraction.

The most common version of that problem usually happens in small 2-way speakers where the mid range is louder than the bass. Like this example. Look in the midrange at the raised plateau between ~700 Hz and ~3000 Hz. It is a lot louder than the bass (100 to 500 Hz). This can be corrected by a circuit in the crossover that compensates for the so called "baffle step response".


I'm not sure that a 3-way design with three woofers like the Studio 100s would have that same problem, but the words "shouty midrange" set off alarms in me. Look in either of the Studio 100 FR curves, and see a strange jagged ridge that suddenly rises at about 700 Hz. It may not look like much, but in that range, our hearing is much better than at either extreme. I'm gonna take a guess, that this ridge may contribute to the shouty midrange that TLS Guy heard.

TLS Guy, paging Dr. Mark Carter. Please tune in.
Not saying you're wrong, just adding this to the conversation about baffle step compensation and the Sierra-1's...http://forum.ascendacoustics.com/showthread.php?t=3398&highlight=baffle+step+compensation

I'm not educated enough in speaker design to debate this but I remembered that thread and wanted to add it.:)
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
Personally I am very afraid to go out and listen to a speaker like the B&W 802D. My wallet is not fat enough to venture into that realm. Ignorance is bliss (or so I keep telling myself). ;)
You've got that right. I made exactly that mistake a couple of years ago. It took me a long time to convince myself the 803D should be good enough for my room and that I would have to become single in order to get a pair of the 802D. I can't hear much difference between nice amps but I am sure I can pick out any 800 series from the Paradigm S series speakers, DBT or not. All I need will be a few classical CDs for piano concerto, violin concerto and something with a lot of brass.
 
Warpdrv

Warpdrv

Audioholic Ninja
You've got that right. I made exactly that mistake a couple of years ago. It took me a long time to convince myself the 803D should be good enough for my room and that I would have to become single in order to get a pair of the 802D. I can't hear much difference between nice amps but I am sure I can pick out any 800 series from the Paradigm S series speakers, DBT or not. All I need will be a few classical CDs for piano concerto, violin concerto and something with a lot of brass.
Gotta agree with ya, as long as your talking about the Paradigm S being the Studio's... I could easily pick out the difference between the 803D's and the Paradigm Studio series, but there is a much smaller gap between something like the Sig S8 and the 802D IMO.

If its a choice between the 803D's and the S8's I'll take the Sigs all day long. At $9K a pair retail vs $7K for the S8's, Im was more then thrilled with the SQ in comparison between the 2, in fact I prefer the S8's.
 
JerryLove

JerryLove

Audioholic Ninja
Don't wanna hijack: but how do the 802 S3s compare to the current 802D? There's a close-enough-to-drive pair I could pick up.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
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.
 
anamorphic96

anamorphic96

Audioholic General
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.
Have you spent any time with PSB speakers ? Paul Barton is a classical violinist. I find his speaker lines to be more consistent. Especially compared to Paradigms newer lines of speakers which tend to be noticeably brighter. PSB's tend to be more neutral to my ears.
 
Alex2507

Alex2507

Audioholic Slumlord
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.
I'm starting to think that music and speakers are like bullets and guns. You never should have tried to play that piece on those speakers. As has been mentioned earlier I bought a copy of the Hilliard Ensemble's Lassus based on jostenmeat's recommendation. I finally got around to playing it on my main system as I was trying to figure out my next step with tuning my EQ. I quickly realized that while I was okay with exploring this music on other (lesser) systems, I could not tolerate another minute of it on my living room system. It was making me nuts. Maybe it's the state of my EQ but trying to define where those four singerfellas were was brutally grating. :p


I think a waterfall plot would show a boat load of trouble in the band pass crossover region, especially the upper one.
Here is easier access to the graphs over at Stereophile and at the graphs by the NRC.


classical music lovers choose from a very select group of speakers
While I have always claimed to dislike any kind of jazz save one LP, while at ParadigmDawg's house listening to his choice of demo music on his Studio 100's powered by whatever flavor of overkill that he has over there, I found that I liked it. That demo didn't fail to impress even though it was a type of music I had never enjoyed before. I'm starting to think that I had never heard it on the right speakers.

what we have over here, where I believe speakers are auditioned with a very different choice of music.
I take it you don't own the entire collection of John Cougar Melloncamp's works.

My friend and I ...
Your friend Phil Marin who owns the $20,000 B&W 800D speakers? Tell ya what, if you guys ever make it out New England way I would like for you two to audition my clock radio. I could probably take an honest critique of it's SQ but I'm going to have to leave my main system off. I'm just not ready for that kind of kick to the juevos. :p :D

Okay, back to the matter at hand.



I see where something is going on at ~3KHz. The speech discrimination band (?) keeps getting mentioned and I wonder exactly that is. I did a test with my RTA and I seem to have a range from 100Hz-1,000Hz. You mentioned not crossing in the speech discrimination band and not below 350Hz. You have some explaining to do unless I am to remain confused about this too. :)

I didn't realize Minnesota was that cold already ... and -20F in winter?
You must have been a bad man in a previous life. :p
 
GO-NAD!

GO-NAD!

Audioholic Spartan
I see I have missed a lot of fun today!


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.
Very eloquently put Doc, thanks very much. You've convinced me. However, it does beg the question - what are the 95% of the population who can't afford any model from the B&W 800 series to do? Listen to crap speakers for the rest of our lives, or win a lottery?

If the crossovers in the Studios are such a problem and it was quite apparent to you, why would a supposedly competent company like Paradigm make such errors/compromises?:confused: I wouldn't have thought that correctly implementing the crossovers would be any more costly. It also contradicts the almost universal praise the Studios receive in this forum. Does it mean that fans are talking out their butts? Or, for the price, are they great speakers? The B&Ws were almost twice the price of the Paradigms. Were they twice as good? That may not be a fair question, as it's all down to the laws of diminishing returns.

Regular folk are forced to make compromises when it comes to speaker selection. Price and availability in one's local market (ID, which has its own disadvantages, notwithstanding) are probably the first two factors in filtering out possible candidates. That's the easy part. Those decisions are pretty much made for you.

Then comes the hard part...

You have to decide whether the reviews, which are invariably gushing with praise (Audioholics excepted!), are to be trusted. However, we are forced to rely, at least somewhat, on "expert" reviews, because the reviewers are supposed to have vast experience and expertise in the field. "Customer" reviews are pretty much useless which, to Audioholics, should be obvious. I can post that the speakers I bought are wonderful. But, who am I and what makes me an expert? Then there are the possible candidates that never get professionally reviewed. How is one to regard those models?

Run the gauntlet of dealers pushing their products and lambasting their competitors.

Listen to different speakers, in different listening rooms, at different times. I'm pretty certain that no normal person can accurately compare speakers in such a manner. I know I can't.

In home trials? Who has time (or space!) to compare 3 or 4 different pairs of speakers in their living rooms (how many of us have dedicated listening rooms?) at the same time? (I've done it and still isn't very easy to decide). Then, return all the losers to the dealers and get their deposits back.

Decide if you can justify paying a bit more for something that's a bit better. It's agonizing, I tells ya!

Then, you make your decision, show off your new pride and joy, then somebody says: "Those are crap speakers!" It sometimes happens in this forum.

I think most people understand that they have to make compromises when it comes to purchasing speakers. They just want to know that, for the money, they are unlikely to find much better. In the end, it all boils down to money. Knowing what the best speaker is in absolute terms, is not of great value to the vast majority of us. We want to get the absolute best speaker we can afford.
 

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