Paradigm Prestige 15B Review (bookshelf speaker)

[amirm]

Hmm, one would think their software could "see" that (or at least infer it from room dimensions) and calibrate it out.

They usually do that but it is very difficult to do right. The room modes will be dependent on radiating surfaces of the speaker and positions of the microphone. The rear ports on these speakers make that complicated as that creates its own modes different than the woofer in front. The smaller the anechoic chamber, the worse the problem and NRC's room they use is small.

 

[amirm]

Wonder how simple of a mod it is to access the crossover and drop the tweeter a few dBs....

 

[bigLP]

I hope the totality of all this speaker testing wakes up the industry to the stop doing things intentionally wrong.

Horses for courses. Total Neutrality not always the goal I guess. I think Amir even said it's not for objectivists. I demoed these, but did not buy them simply because my studio 20 v3 sounded better. Using ls50 now for something at least approaching neutral. But would never part with the paradigms. I also cant hear above 12000 cycles so I think maybe the hot high end suits me. The studio 20 are also near full range with a 7 inch woofer and large front port.

 

[restorer-john]

And if Klipsch did to them what they did to Jamo, know that all engineering is carried out by Klipsch in Indiana, the production is done in China, and although Klipsch has kept the brand name alive, that’s where the similarities between their older speakers and new ones end.

For those of us who have owned, or do own Danish manufactured Jamos, and the Canadian Energys and Mirages, it's very sad what has been done to those iconic speaker companies. Basically with Jamo, unless it says "Made in Denmark" on the rear binding post mouldings, just walk away.

Those pictures remind me of some speakers I'd see in one of those party taxis somewhere in Thailand

Those perforated grilles remind me of Philips shavers.

 

[restorer-john]

Wonder how simple of a mod it is to access the crossover and drop the tweeter a few dBs....

Bring back the L-Pad.

 

[Mnyb]

Yeah, I agree with what you said.
Most of the people who still buy speakers (and not soundbars), would go by recognized brand name, friend recommendation, WAF, pushy dealers, showroom effect, price, sales etc. Most would be happy with them too cause as you said you get used to the sound. At the end most speaker companies want to sell as much as possible, and most folks don't care too much about how well the speakers conform to certain accepted scientific findings. "Correct" speakers would likely sound boring to them.

The sad case is i would not know in real sitdown using home loaners I hope i would prefer "correct" speakers , but the market is designed to promote the circle of confusion , like most people I've probably never been exposed to the right stuff

 

[samwell7]

Wonder how simple of a mod it is to access the crossover and drop the tweeter a few dBs....

My brother bought a set of Paradigm home theatre speakers probably 10 years ago, at the time one of the boutique retailers was selling a 'special' cable/mod for that particular model to (in his words) 'reverse the polarity of the tweeters because they were out of phase', thinking about it I'm fairly sure this was just an extra RC network for the tweeter to tame the treble, it was a heatshrinked cable and the guy wouldn't tell me the values or the configuration.

Pretty sure it was external if you were bi-amping or it was an internal mod if using a single connection.

Edit: they were studio 100s

 

[Robbo99999]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Paradigm Prestige 15B bookshelf speaker. It was kindly purchased by a member and drop shipped to me. The retail cost is US $799 each. Before writing the review I thought that was for a pair. Note that this is sold through dealer channel so actual cost may be lower.

The 15B looks really sharp with fair amount of class:

View attachment 106759

Same is reflected even on the back with custom port flange and binding posts:

View attachment 106760

Speaker also feels fairly dense and heavy. I have zero complaints about the look and feel of the 15B.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of around 1%.

Temperature was 62 degrees F. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.

Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.

Reference axis was the tweeter center.

Paradigm Prestige 15B Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 106761

Right away we see that the tweeter level is not the same as the woofer and rises in energy. I am pretty confident this is the classic "showroom tweak" to make the speaker sound more detailed by Paradigm and not some mistake.

We see some peaking around 800 Hz and a number of notches between 2 and 3 kHz, all of which indicate resonances. We can see the evidence of the former in port resonance:

View attachment 106762

The woofer resonance at 6 kHz also shows up in frequency response measurement. And we have non-even tweeter response. Wonder if that pretty grill is causing this.

As noted though, directivity is very good seeing how the three curves in our spinorama keep their distances from each other. That results in early window reflections which are pretty similar to on-axis response:

View attachment 106763

So the speaker should be room friendly and lend itself to effective equalization.

Putting everything together, our simulated frequency response in room shows what we already know: this speaker will be bright sounding:
View attachment 106764

Distortion is kept under control more than budget speakers:
View attachment 106765

View attachment 106766

Our directivity is good as mentioned:

View attachment 106768
View attachment 106769

View attachment 106770

Paradigm Prestige 15B Listening Tests
I tested the 15B in my 2-channel listening room (very large open space). The showroom trick worked with first impression being, "man this sounds nice." But in a few seconds this became, "well, this is bright." Continuing on the message became, "this is very bright!" One thing about it though: it is clean bright. Often times I hear grungy brightness that is distortion induced which can be very annoying. Here is just a tonality issue. You may like it if you have lost a lot of high frequency hearing. I have lost a lot of mine but not enough to put up with this so out came the EQ tool:
View attachment 106771

I put the shelving filter on the right starting with -3 dB. But gradually knocked it down to -5 dB to get a balanced sound. I then went after the resonance and peaking around 800 to 1.2 kHz with that broad filter. And then my usual 105 Hz filter for room mode.

Once there, the sound was still a bit too bright for my taste. But there was this nice clarity and play super loud that kept me from disowning the 15B. No sub-bass is played but what it does play doesn't get distorted. You must have a subwoofer to have any physical sensation of bass.

Conclusions
Whenever people ask me about Paradigm as a speaker company, I say that they know the science but on purpose deviate from it to make sure they stay in mass market and sells speakers. That is abundantly clear in the elevated tweeter response for the speaker to stand out in a showroom (and even post purchase). The industrial touches are first class, making for an effective sales cycle.

As I noted in the introduction, I thought for $799 a pair (discounted to less than that), this wasn't a bad combination. But when I realized it sells for $1,500, then I don't think it is a good value at all. There are superb choices here that don't require any EQ and sound delightful out of the box. So I really can't recommend the Prestige 15B. Company is not aiming at us for customers.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Does anyone else find the high distortion peak at 2kHz worrying, that would be noticeable right, or two narrow to notice?

Of course my overall thoughts are that this speaker is too expensive for what it is! I like the EQ'ability of it though based on the directivity and the not crazy frequency response.

 

[Andreas007]

“our exclusive Perforated Phase-Aligning (PPA™) Tweeter Lens that protects the delicate tweeter dome and acts as the Phase Plug, blocking out-of-phase frequencies for smoother, extended high frequencies with incredible detail and higher output.”

Patent: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a7/ae/38/425018c1b30bc9/US10003869.pdf
They even have a graphic showing that it increases SPL in the upper treble. They claim that dome tweeters cause phase mismatch as the round shape causes slight timing differences from HF sound radiated from it, which in turn causes phase mismatch, and that their lens corrects this.


To dumb it down:
• Bunch of holes on the grille.
• Solid for part of the grille (center)
• Holes are smaller the closer they are to the center.

No, blocking the center will causes blockage of ultra high frequencies, and we can see it dropping right as it reaches 20kHz, but that’s not a big deal. I would expect this grille to effect the off-axis, and we can pretty much see that as true.


KEF’s tangerine waveguide thing also is stated to increase SPL by blocking part of the tweeter; still kinda confuses me.

Neumann tweeters are also blocking the center. Done with with a foil from the inside.

 

[beefkabob]

Paradigm has their sound. It's "detailed". Low distortion. Not flat. Pretty boxes. Well-built. You pay extra for the furniture. I did not buy.

I'm pleased that my impression matches the sound they appear to be shooting for.

Also why boost the highs if you're old? AFAIK, I cannot hear above 15khz. Louder? Still can't hear it. 5db isn't going to make a difference. Neither is 10db. My dog's head might explode, though.

 

[akarma]

Wonder how simple of a mod it is to access the crossover and drop the tweeter a few dBs....

I did it many times. Results depend on crossover topology

 

[Thomas_A]

This is indeed a bright speaker. Comparing it to my own DIY I see that I probably would throw these Paradigms out within a few minutes.

 

[YSC]

It’s one of the great looking speakers I am tempted to buy for its look only， with fixable tonality it seems quite some ppl will still go for look

 

[jcbenten]

My first good speakers were Energy C-6 and C-2 speakers. I would be curious how they measured, but I would guess pretty well.

I never understood the term "ears bleed" until I listened to a Classe Amp with Energy speakers....I went with Linn

 

[Robbo99999]

Hmzzz... Paradigm is using the perforated phase screen on the mid/woof and midranges of the high end series too.
View attachment 106780
View attachment 106781

Perforated tweeter covers are in style.

Bowers & Wilkins for BMW and Volvo:

Burmester for Mercedes-Benz and Porsche:

Lexicon for Genesis:

What's the dealio with these dense perforated metal screens, I can't really imagine a worse way to cover & obscure the sound coming from a speaker unless I'm missing somekind of secret sauce?! Sure they protect really well, but I can only imagine them being very detrimental to the sound.

 

[jcbenten]

I have a pair of 5se's from 1990 or so. I would never call them bright...unless compared to the Sansui speakers my dad brought back from Vietnam. I had them paired with Yamaha RX300, also from 1990. I thought it sounded pretty good. When the amp died I replaced with the Marantz 1604...a definitive step down in sound quality.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Perforated tweeter covers are in style.

Bowers & Wilkins for BMW and Volvo:

Burmester for Mercedes-Benz and Porsche:

Lexicon for Genesis:

Hideously gaudy.

 

[Robbo99999]

Hideously gaudy.

Particularly the Mercedes Benz / Porsche one! The top & bottom one aren't bad, with the bottom one being the best of the bunch.

 

[richard12511]

That is some serious EQ improvement. Award for Most Improved?

JBL 305p?

 

[beagleman]

I think that Energy (and their related brands Mirage and Athena) were purchased by Klipsch. And if Klipsch did to them what they did to Jamo, know that all engineering is carried out by Klipsch in Indiana, the production is done in China, and although Klipsch has kept the brand name alive, that’s where the similarities between their older speakers and new ones end.

I still have a pair of those old Athena AS-B1 speakers that were sold in best buy.

To this day, not many low priced speakers sound as good as those. They were not perfect, but OMG for the price, they killed many higher priced brands easily.