Paradigm Cinema 100 Review (home theater speakers)

[krabapple]

This bloke went to all the trouble of reviewing the 5.1 system with Anthem ARC correction in play...even reported nice results from the ARC graphs...but didn't show any, nor even report what sub crossover was used. Blimey. Long Live ASR.

 

[sarumbear]

Unfortunately most of the old names that originally made their name by their technical knowledge, ingenuity and research, Paradigm was one them, left that legacy behind. Paradigm almost went bust until the new management decided that good marketing and sales network management brings market share. Since then their products have nothing to do with physics but all to do with marketing and pushy sales channel.

Original Paradigm speakers, in their own words "were based on audio researchers and the detailed scientific findings from audio studies conducted by the National Research Council of Canada."

How can you then interpret this speaker? If those speakers are designed for surround then how is it possible that the centre speaker is simply a rotated front speaker? How can you use a speaker optimised for wider horisontal dispersion (drivers on top of each other) on a centre channel. dispersion and still talk about your heritage in research?

 

[Robbo99999]

Well, Amir didn't measure or review a 5.1 sound system here. You have no idea how 'quality' or 'poor' one consisting of these is.



My experience is that they're better for music listening, too. It's why I upmix everything 2.0 to 5.1. (In that preference, I'm in decent company....Floyd Toole's, for example). I own tons of 5.1 music remixes as well.

You misunderstand me, I said my 2 channel JBL 308p system is miles better for music listening than my parents Onkyo 5.1 surround system. If you didn't misunderstand me, then yours is just a contradictory data point to mine, but I highly doubt that a mediocre/poor 5.1 system is better than a great 2 channel system for stereo music listening.....in fact I know that from my experience.

Re your first paragraph, that's an inference of mine based on the less than ideal spinorama of the speaker combined with what would be a high crossover point to the subwoofer....so I don't think that's unreasonable. .......I'm beginning to doubt the validity of your posts...that you shouldn't be taken too seriously......or do you just like internet jousting & cluttering up threads!

 

[sarumbear]

<detracted>

 

[Robbo99999]

I will stop here as I have been once again told that I am "internet jousting & cluttering up threads" which I am not. Bye.

(I was talking to Krabapple, not you, which is why I quoted his post, so surely you don't think my "internet jousting" & "cluttering threads" comment was at you, I quoted Krabapple)

 

[sarumbear]

(I was talking to Krabapple, not you, which is why I quoted his post, so surely you don't think my "internet jousting" & "cluttering threads" comment was at you, I quoted Krabapple)

I apologise profusely. I should have paid attention

I am sorry. Is there a way to retract a post on this forum?

 

[uwotm8]

This is Paradigm, for their offerings that's very cheap

Excuse me but since when this Canadian B-category brand became something? I remember their Monitor line and these were a cheap-n-crappy boxes with Titanium ear-piercing tweeters. Typical "JBL Northridge style" sound (I heard 1 or 2 models). Nothing interesting. They were on par with Cerwin-Vega due to reviews/recommendations.

$1k for 6 pcs ins't THAT much, just an usual price for such pack IMO as far as these are not Chinotiva etc.

 

[Ken1951]

I have two older Cinema series similar small speakers in the corners of our bedroom acting as rears in a 5.1 system. For that they're wonderful. They're not my Signature S8s - but they'd look pretty silly hanging from the ceiling!

 

[richard12511]

The fact that you can buy 5 Adam T5V’s for $1k, that go down to 80 Hz, that need no amplification

In this case, and for this market, "needs no amplification" is actually a bad thing. Amplification is free. RCA or XLR pre-outs on the other hand, usually double the cost of the AVR.

If you're trying to build a budget HT, passives(unfortunately) are usually more cost effective.

 

[richard12511]

That's an interesting comparison to make, I have a 2-channel setup for my TV/movies with my JBL 308's and the bonus is that they do music playing duty too......but would be interesting to draw a subjective enjoyment comparison for movies of a quality 2 channel system (mine for instance) vs a relatively poor 5.1 surround sound system (eg this one in the review). My parents have an old (from 2010) 5.1 Onkyo AVR system (bought as one package), and this year I had enough knowledge & equipment to time align and level adjust each of their speakers to the listening position (which is possible through the AVR menus & me using my UMIK with my laptop & REW).....I have to say movie watching was an amazing experience on that system after I'd calibrated it, I'd never experienced properly configured surround sound in a home environment before, it was very impressive for the sound localisations combined with the power from the subwoofer.......I wasn't able to frequency adjust the frequency response through the AVR but I did do a frequency sweep measured at listening position with REW and it was generally following a nice downward sloping trajectory with significant response down to just below 30Hz (psychoacoustic smoothing applied to following graph as no opportunity to apply EQ to this system):
View attachment 124802
I think I'd have to admit that my parents old 5.1 system is probably better for movies than my "very good" 2 channel system, but for listening to music my system is miles ahead of theirs (I played my benchmark tracks on their system). My intuition based on my experience outlined here is that most 5.1/7.1 (etc) systems are gonna be better than great 2 channel systems when it comes to movie watching.

I tend to agree. For movies, surround sound is more valuable than the fidelity gain of better mains. Hearing sounds in front of me that are clearly meant to be coming from behind is jarring.

 

[SimpleTheater]

In this case, and for this market, "needs no amplification" is actually a bad thing. Amplification is free. RCA or XLR pre-outs on the other hand, usually double the cost of the AVR.

If you're trying to build a budget HT, passives(unfortunately) are usually more cost effective.

You kind of missed my point, which is these are significantly overpriced. If ADAM can make better speakers that measure much better and include amplification for the same price, these are at gouging the consumer. Just buy a soundbar.

 

[Rottmannash]

No, but you can market a package deal to people that don’t want speakers bigger than a shoebox in their living room but want surround sound. The exaggerated highs will make it sound ‘detailed’ to some and for the price of a subwoofer many will have a setup they are plenty happy with. Besides audioholics says no matter how big your front speakers are you should always set them as small in your AVR

Would you set your Salon 2's to small??

 

[richard12511]

You kind of missed my point, which is these are significantly overpriced. If ADAM can make better speakers that measure much better and include amplification for the same price, these are at gouging the consumer. Just buy a soundbar.

I didn't miss your point. I agreed with your post overall. I was just responding to a specific sentence of your post(which I only quoted that part).

 

[richard12511]

Would you set your Salon 2's to small??

Floyd Toole does .

 

[Rottmannash]

Floyd Toole does .

Does Amir?

 

[amirm]

Does Amir?

My Salon 2s are only used for stereo listening without a sub.

 

[Sancus]

Would you set your Salon 2's to small??

Small/Large are just really bad names for a setting that has nothing to do with speaker size alone. It literally just means "Do you want to use bass management?" The correct answer is yes(Small) 99.99% of the time. Not using bass management introduces additional problems in most systems. The only use case I can think of for it is if you had huge speakers with 15"+ woofers or something, but only a single 12" sub. A normal HT with serious front speakers has multiple, larger subs, in which case there is no benefit to having some percentage of your low bass randomly played through your fronts instead of having everything below the crossover played through the subs.

 

[Rottmannash]

Small/Large are just really bad names for a setting that has nothing to do with speaker size alone. It literally just means "Do you want to use bass management?" The correct answer is yes(Small) 99.99% of the time. Not using bass management introduces additional problems in most systems. The only use case I can think of for it is if you had huge speakers with 15"+ woofers or something, but only a single 12" sub. A normal HT with serious front speakers has multiple, larger subs, in which case there is no benefit to having some percentage of your low bass randomly played through your fronts instead of having everything below the crossover played through the subs.

I thought it introduced a filter to shunt frequencies below a set cut off to a sub. What else does that setting actually do?

 

[beagleman]

Their dedicated sub does. The main disadvantage is, the sub has to work up to 150-200 Hz, which means you can hear its position. Since such setups tend to work in small rooms, probably an acceptable compromise.

I have a set up like this, but with very similar Polk sats. (not my main system)

The Polks go a good bit lower, closer to about 130 hz.
It works great for what it is, even with the crossover set to about 120hz, at 160hz you can tell where the sub is obviously a bit more, but it still sounds good enough for decent listening in a smallish room!

 

[Haint]

Unfortunately most of the old names that originally made their name by their technical knowledge, ingenuity and research, Paradigm was one them, left that legacy behind. Paradigm almost went bust until the new management decided that good marketing and sales network management brings market share. Since then their products have nothing to do with physics but all to do with marketing and pushy sales channel.

Original Paradigm speakers, in their own words "were based on audio researchers and the detailed scientific findings from audio studies conducted by the National Research Council of Canada."

How can you then interpret this speaker? If those speakers are designed for surround then how is it possible that the centre speaker is simply a rotated front speaker? How can you use a speaker optimised for wider horisontal dispersion (drivers on top of each other) on a centre channel. dispersion and still talk about your heritage in research?

You won't find me defending Paradigm, many of their modern Hifi speakers have trash response and they've clearly largely abandoned research for marketability. That said, these are HTiB speakers and actually perform very well within their extension limits. Given the market and use case for a speaker like this, there is a very strong argument to be made that a probable majority of buyers will not be mounting them at ear level. Ergo, the treble rise could well be intentional or preferred. If you nailed a smooth multi-sub roll off up to 200Hz or so, these speakers should EQ very well and would probably sounds as good or better than anything Amirm has measured. Many experts advocate for a relatively narrow controlled dispersion (like this speaker) for multichannel systems.