Would it be fair to say other than the price, that the Paradigm Monitor series speakers are comparable to B&W 600 series speakers. I am speaking of the Paradigm Monitor 9s vs. B&W 603, Paradigm CC370 vs. LCR600, and Paradigm ADP370 vs. B&W DS6 for surrounds.
Would you say that maybe for the money that the Paradigm is a better built speaker? Would Rotel or Outlaw Audio seperates be a good match for the Paradigms?
The paradigm SOUND better than the b&W. B&W may be built better, but to my ear paradigm are richer fuller more musical speakers. B&W, while no schlubs, have good sound but to my ear in a sound proof room, a little hollow and more like a microphone than a speaker. B&W make vocals clearer but music sounds dramatically better on the paradigms. You can also spend 25% less for a comparable speaker. (Example: Titans at $225 are better sounding than 300's at $375 and almost as good as 600's at half the price). Monitors are easily better than 600's. B&W is a solid & handsome product though
Why do you say B&W are better built?? I have had B&W's for years and recently bought the Paradigm Studios v3's and I truly feel the Paradigm is as solidly built as the B&Ws or maybe more... and yes the sound from Paradigms is a much warmer sounding speaker, music just flows out of them where the B&W's less full bodied...
Why do you say B&W are better built?? I have had B&W's for years and recently bought the Paradigm Studios v3's and I truly feel the Paradigm is as solidly built as the B&Ws or maybe more... and yes the sound from Paradigms is a much warmer sounding speaker, music just flows out of them smooth as silk...
paradigms reputation is high quality sound at near budget prices-b&w is known for handsome craftmanship on cabintry, workhorse-like, etc with quality sound at a fair price. Dollar for dollar up and down the product line, imo, you get much more speaker from paradigm in terms of sound quality- i doubt many people in this forum would disagree.
I have not heard PSB's recently or frequently enough to make that judgement. Based upon reviews and writeups however, PSB has a fine reputation as being another quality canadian manufacturer who provides exceptional bang for your dollar.
Hammersmith
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Posted on
The B&W 700 series sounded lively and great. Very good HT speaker. But I tend towards the Studio line for its more full bodied character as well.
(and the price is less brutal. But let's face it this hobby can be hard on the wallet, in any case!...)
B&W are basically the purest and most accurate sounding speaker at these price points....plain and simple. This is their claim to fame.
Paradigms are for people that like "In-Your-Face" home-theater sound. Musically, not even close to the BMW's.
Don't buy the hype on these Paradigms if you're an audiophile. If your primary goal is HT, then I'd get DefTechs before Paradigms.
The PSB speakers are very average. Frankly, not comparable to the B&W.
See a later post by me rating all these speakers you're interested in....and the surprising Cabasse Caprerra as the runaway winner.
I listened to over 25 speakers in my evaluation and these were the best. For your reference I like my sound very pure and real, but with a bit of "Life" to it. I'm accustomed to hearing all music through my Sennheiser headphones and also many tracks through Mackie HR824 studio monitors....hence....I can pretty much tell you what tracks should sound like listening to them through uncoloured studio headphones and studio monitors.
B&W are about as close to "uncoloured" as you can get without becoming a studio monitor. I just happen to believe the Cabassse have a bit more "Life" in them. That's purely personal preference.
If you want a "Coloured" speaker, check out the DefTechs. Far superior to the Paradigms and designed specifically for home theater rather than audio.
Take a look at Stereophile speaker graphs (not necessarily the reviews), in general you will find at their price points the Paradigms are significantly flatter across their frequency ranges. This is what you should be looking for in a speaker. The graphs don't lie, unless certain bumps in frequencies are your cup of tea.
Sure there are excellent B&W speakers. But at most price points you will find better frequency responses and generally more speaker for the money.
Most PSB's are quite good, the outside finish usually doesn't compare to either the Paradigm's and B&W's, but that doesn't matter to a lotof people.
I have owned PSB's (Stratus Goldi's, B&W's 600 series, ProAc Response 2's, Monitor Audio Gold References, etc) Those PSB's are great full range speakers at their price, but they don't have the gorgeous finish of the Monitor Audio's--then again a comparable MA is considerable more expensive, just as a comparable B&W is). The ProAc's had the most beautiful rosewood fit and finish--and you paid for it :-) But a great speaker without the looks.
Paradigm's, particularly in their top two series of speakers, have very nice fit and finish besides very good to excellent performance at their price points. Just tough to get much discount on them, but 10-15% can be found or even gotten from a local dealer if you buy a system.
Usually the trick to getting a dealer to give you a discount is eventually to talk to the owner quietly aside after the dealer has made his/her offer. If they won't budge, my philosophy is to be willing to walk and go elsewhere, unless the dealer is performing some amazing service other than delivering speakers. Pretty much the same attitude I'd have with a car dealer.
The one with the wallet rules, unless you show the dealer you are so in love with the speakers you can't leave without ordering them. Then you relinquish whatever power you might have had.
Paradigm, PSB's, Energy's and a number of other Canadian speakers were born out of the National Research Council of Canada's facility. The Canadian government invested big money in making a great facility for testing speakers.
A good speaker for music is a good speaker for movies. And vice versa. Either a speaker performs well with a reasonably flat frequency response, low distortion, has good imaging and soundstage--or it doesn't.
A speaker that is great for music will be great for movies. Vice versa too. Why should bad sound be good for another?
Now if you are talking that some people like hot high ends, accentuated basses or midranges, that is another issue. That is personal preference, but not how I judge accurately playing the signal given it by the receiver or amp/preamp-DVD/CD player.
If you see big bumps at certain frequencies in speaker graphs, you will often hear them in your room---unless you are lucky enough to have a room that accoustically needs that frequency bump--a rare case indeed.
Just for a relatively inexpensive example, go to the Ascend speaker site, look at the specs on the CBM-170 and you will see an amazingly flat frequency response graph from around 60 hz to over 18K--it just doesn't go extremely deep. In many situations would require a good subwoofer. But obviously great engineering.
I've seen similar on the much more expensive Joseph Audio speakers. But you can find excellent and not so great speakers in many so-called excellent speaker lines.
Obviously measurements and graphs need to be confirmed by your hearing. These things don't exist in a vacuum and we all hear differently and our rooms interact with speakers very differently.
What can sound great in one room can sound not so wonderful elsewhere.
For anyone to say that Paradigm's are "in your face" is just plain wrong. They are some of the most laid back speakers you will ever hear. Their Studio series stacks up against anything from B&W. Both are very good and are good bargains. "In your face? No way!
Lucky
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Posted on
I would like to know the technical difference between monitors and speakers?
Lucky
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Posted on
Are subwoofers and monitors the same?
Hudson
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Posted on
I recently heard the paradigm ref 60's and 100's and thought they were pretty good value for the money. I have also listened to the b&w 700 series and for the money (especially once you put together a full surround sound) found that the 60's and the 100's offer more bang for the buck.
However... still toying with the monitor audio ref gold 20's....
anybody done any decent comparison listening??? Paradigm ref 60's and 100's vs Monitor audio s10's and or MA Gold reference 20's / 60's
When I was looking to buy my first pair of quality speakers, I brought home the Paridigm 9's, B&W 604's and finally the PSB 6T's. I didn't like the Paradigms at all. The B&W 604's were great. The PSB 6T's were nice as well. I ended up buying the PSB's. They sounded as good as the B&W's but were less than half the price. I'm now using the PSB's as my rear surrounds. I would suggest that anything that you are interested in buying, take it home and listen to it. I recently listened to a pair of KEF's at a store. They sounded awesome (in the store)I took them home. They didn't sound anywhere near to the sound in the store. (I have 18 ft. vaulted ceilings in my house, which causes porblems.)
Hudson, I have done a comparison between the Paradigm Studios and the Monitor Silver and Gold series but it was last May and Paradigm has a new Studio series out since then. Back then I liked both Monitor lines better than the Paradigm's but I would have been happy with either but I would probably had to change receivers as the Paradigm's and my Elite 45 is not as good a match as Elite and Monitor. I would say buy whichever is the best match with your receiver, unless you are going to change that also.
Since no one has answered your questions, I thought I might offer up an explanation given to me by a speaker manufacturer's rep a number of years back:
Monitors are just speakers, but in the late 60s to early 70s, a few companies started making speakers that were considerably cleaner and more accurate for use by studios. They tended to be smaller bookshelf types as most studios had very small, almost cramped control rooms. These were designated as "monitors" to denote their superior musical reproduction than the typical consumer speakers. However, today, like most things, its use has been somewhat corrupted and used more as a marketing tool than as a real point of difference. So, in short, monitors are just speakers.
Subwoofers are entirely different. They are supposed to be the speaker that fills in the bottom end of the audio spectrum below what a typical woofer would be capable of reproducing (except for some Bose sytems where the so-called subwoofer is actually a system woofer). Typically, a subwoofer will reproduce sound from about 30 Hz up to about 120 Hz (some better subs go both lower and higher, but not much higher, usually only to 150 hz at most).
I also need to agree with G-Man and Elitefan--you cannot claim that Paradigms are for the "in your face" HT crowd. That kind of statement evidences a real ignorance of Paradigm speakers. To the contrary, Paradigms are among the most laid back speakers out there IMO and very similar sounding to the B+Ws.
In fact, I very recently attended a comparison of the new B&W 700 series floorstander (don't remember the exact model #) and the Paradigm Studio 100s. I have to say the sound was very close, razor's edge close, in fact. Either speaker was very good at reproducing sound and extremely well built. So, to make a stink that one is better than the other is pointless. (BTW, I do not now nor ever have owned any Paradigm speakers, but I used to own some B+W 601s). From what I have observed, Paradigm and B+W are both moving in the same direction and share a pretty similar design philosophy. It is no suprise they sound close to one another. However, given the drop of the dollar against the euro at this time, it would appear that the Paradigm is a better value today if that B+W/Paradigm "laid back" sound quality is the sound you like. In six months, that could again change as it wasn't very long ago that the euro was cheap and European goods were relatively inexpensive. But today, the B+W are somewhat expensive when matched to the comparable Paradigms.
The differences between these two brands are simply microscopic these days, so lets not p*ss on each other over it.