Maybe I'm missing something. Has anyone heard these speakers? For all the hype about Paradigm I am very disappointed-not very musical to my ears with a very boomy bass sound to boot.
I don't think they are boomy at all, but these things are highly objective, if you don't like it, audition some more. I don't think you are missing anything at all, it is a matter of your preference. It's always fun to look for that right set of speakers.
I have always thought the 7 to be the best bargain in the whole Paradigm lineup. Much tighter bass than their big brother, the 9. What was driving these and what were the room acoustics?
I have owned Paradigm Monitor 7's for the past 1.5 years. I have been extremely happy with them. Last week however, I compared my Monitor 7's side by side with Monitor Audio Silver S6, Monitor Audio Gold 20, and Von Schweikert VR2. We played them all full range, without a sub to get an idea of the speaker's sound characteristics. I was very surprised at the results! The Monitor 7's WERE boomy and sounded boxy compared to the other speakers. There was also a lot of "sibilince" (sp?). All speakers were run with NAD T163 pre and NAD T973 amp. I had been thinking of trading up and this convinced me to do so. I would say listen to as many speakers as you can and do them side by side if possible....our (at least mine is) acoustic memory is very short! Good luck
Comparing speakers side by side is obviously best. I had the same sort of comparison experience with a pair of pretty nice psb floorstanders. I thought they were always kind of a nice even tonal balance, but up against others, they sounded the same as the Monitor 7's desrcibed above.
Well, this is another surprising thing...the VR2's go the lowest (on paper), but the best sounding bass/mid bass (taking price into consideration) were the MA Silver S6's! The bass was very solid and not boomy at all...it seemed to me the harder you drove them (higher listening levels) the better they were! The Gold Reference 20's were better in all areas over the Silvers, but not $2,000 better for sure! The VR2's had by far the best imaging, soundstage, and detail...you could hear things on recordings with them that I could not hear with the Silvers! One more thing that was very pronounced....the vocals (Dave Matthews Band Central Park Concert DVD) were MUCH more pronounced, clear and succinct with the Silvers compared to the Monitors. It was not even close and frankly, I was dissapointed in my speakers (the monitors!). I never noticed it before, but after doing side by side comparisons, I noticed the monitors had a lof of sibilence (sp?)...they really stressed the s's...the other speakers did not...Of course, we are also looking at different price points ($750, $999, $2,599 and $3,000) and I am sure the Studio Line from Paradigm is more comparable. I am deciding between the VR2's and the Silvers now as I can get the new VR2's for about $800 off retail...