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Thinking of getting the Paradigm founders 40

Apparently you missed post #9 where they specifically asked for other recommendations.
He came here stating that he found speakers he thought “sounded amazing”. He was told they are “objectively” inferior and “preference studies” indicate he will certainly like other speakers with agreeable graphs and charts better.

Of course he asked about these “superior” speakers.
 
Anyways I appreciate all the feedback . It really has helped
 
We carry both Kef and Paradigm where I work and have heard the R3, R3 Meta and the Founder 40. We are not a retail store and don't stock a lot inventory, so I haven't compared the Kef with the Founder at the same time.

From memory the Founder has better bass, soundstage and dynamics. Some might prefer those features over the Kef. That's why it is important to demo speakers if possible.
 
He came here stating that he found speakers he thought “sounded amazing”. He was told they are “objectively” inferior and “preference studies” indicate he will certainly like other speakers with agreeable graphs and charts better.

Of course he asked about these “superior” speakers.
Yeah, ok, again... feedback was solicited and given. Dunno why your panties are in a bunch about it.
Anyways I appreciate all the feedback . It really has helped
Good luck with your decision. Be sure to let us know what you choose and your experience with it!
 
I ended finding a pair of R3 speakers for 900. Very good luck. Now looking for a better amp for around 1000-1500
 
Ended up returning the R3 speakers. I subjectivity didn’t like them. They weren’t as accurate as the studies show. I couldn’t hear certain things in some songs and the bass was way too loud for my liking. I tried playing around with the EQ and moving them around the room with no luck. They aren’t bad speakers just aren’t for me. The songs also didn’t sound accurate to me, hard to describe but I have open back sennheiser, 600 series, head phones so I have understanding of what I’m looking for on my favorite songs and for some reason these speakers sound off on lower volumes but did sound better at higher volumes. I listened to the BW 700 series speakers, bookshelve, I also had and they sounded extremely flat. I would never buy another B/W book shelve speaker again. To me if you have to buy a subwoofer for a speaker to sound decent that’s bullshit. I also have a sub and they still sounded off, but I’m really not a fan of subs with book shelve speakers. I have never gotten subs to sound great with my sound system l- probably a personal problem I can’t figure out
 
Bowers & Wilkins are not known for being neutral. They have tipped-up treble pretty much without exception. It's likely that you're just used to that and a more neutral treble might sound less "detailed" to you. The R3 also has a rather steep tilt in its PIR, which likely exacerbated that impression of being less detailed.

And if you're looking for good bass response, I'd go back to the original 3 speaker models I recommended (probably not the Q11 Meta, though, as KEFs may just be too dark for your tastes).
 
If you like the Founders, I would get them! They seem to match some of your comments. Like the R3's bass being too loud. The Founders start to roll off the bass a little higher in the frequency range so they do not have as much bass. I am guessing when you said the B&W's were flat you were referring to lifeless, lacking dynamics and not to their frequency response. As other have mentioned B&W's don't measure flat, they have their signature sound and some love it.

I have worked in this industry a long time and people really need to listen to speakers first. I know what the research says about people enjoying accurate sound. I have even attended some of Dr. Toole's lectures and totally respect his work!!! But, I often wonder what variables were not accounted for in their research. I know other companies do blind testing but don't make their results public to protect their secret sauce. Many times I have given recommendations to people for accurate speakers and when they went and listened to speakers they chose something else. Could be salemanship but in many cases I know they told me they level matched the speakers.

We know one factor that was not accounted for in the research is hearing deficits. I know my wife has low frquency loss in one ear and high frequency loss in the other. In theory we can compensate for hearing loss with EQ but few that are demoing speakers will do that. I am not saying you have hearing loss I just wonder what some of the differenes are betwteen research results and real life people's choices and we know this is one of them. Marketing shows us the typical buyer is a middle aged male and not the younger generation or women looking for nicer speakers. Some exception of course. But, research also shows us that hearing loss is starting to happen at younger ages than in the past. It is speulated because of more headphone/ earbud use in today's society but no sure?

Other factors we know change pereption is aesthetics, that has been shown in the research. Audiophiles like to think we are immune to aesthetics when listening but I think it is impossible. Another factor is various rooms, some of that has been accounted for in research and speaker dispersion characterisitcs. Another factor could be listening time and one reason to demo at home when possible. I would guess the average time listeing to a pair of speakers in a showroom is probably less than 15 minutes. Someone might spend an hour or more in a showroom but how long listening to a given model? I don't know. Something , marketing people probably research.

Level matching is another factor and how is it done? Use pink noise? Band limited pink noise? etc? If you know you plan on using a sub you could use a high pass filter and not play the lower frequencies to make the playing field more level between speakers. If not using a sub and bass being about 30% of sound quality then one should listen full range.

Subwoofer integration is not easy but physics shows us that the best location for bass frequencies are different than mids and highs. I am a big fan of using subs to get the best sound and not just to fill in the lowest octaves. I admit though many will not be able to integrate them well for either a lack of knowledge or due to contraints in their listening environment. So, I understand some not preferring a sub.

Sorry, for getting side tracked. Get the speakers you like and don't worry about them not measuring flat or what the research shows. You are the one that will be enjoying them!
 
I would actually get accurate speakers whether I initially liked the sound or not. I think it would be important to train your ears to like the correct sound (= flat on-axis frequency response, but some degree of room gain and reverberation field effects are expected and allowed) and gradually adjust your own preference towards that.

If you just go with sound you already like or are used to, it's just accident of your personal history. It isn't, necessarily, the correct sound. One can learn to like a broad spectrum of different reproductions, so one might as well make music listening as easy to the brain as possible, and look for ways to make realistic sound reproduction the easiest. Outside of artificial sound sources like recordings and similar, there's natural sounds of room, people speaking, perhaps instruments playing; if these were reproduced by a speaker, one with anechoically flat on-axis response and smooth dispersion field would be the most likely one to reproduce these similarly. So an accurate speaker is really the most reasonable choice, and is always the first recommendation that should be made, and even if listener doesn't immediately like it, chances are this is just because they're used to the wrong reproduction and could become used to the proper frequency response.

However, there is another fly in this ointment, with the bass. Room is what makes the bass sound, and not really the speaker; the speaker obviously does create that initial pressure variation that feeds the resonant field of the room, but the resonance is much stronger and rapidly overwhelms the direct radiation of the speaker. Equalization can compensate for a lot, but doing it without any measurements is quite difficult, and for this I do recommend a measurement microphone and some time taken with tools like REW, to understand what the natural reverberation field looks like, given the particular speaker positioning and the listening seat position.

There are some recipes where e.g. listening seat is placed in specific coordinates such as exact center of the room, where all odd room modes will resonate the least, and the speakers are then placed in locations where they can energize second order modes as little as possible, and this sort of tricks allow minimizing the perception of the room's resonant field. There are other ways to do it, like multiple subwoofers that are strategically placed which can even out the bass. I personally have subwoofer and the main speakers all playing the bass together so that there are altogether 5 woofers in the room doing the bass rather than just one in subwoofer. Typically, the more sources there are, the more even the response becomes and the more it is possible to move around in the room with the bass still sounding similar.
 
The OP must be the first person ever to find the R3 bass heavy. Their bass is shelved down and it is tunable using port bungs. Most users complain about brightness. Something is amiss...
 

The OP must be the first person ever to find the R3 bass heavy. Their bass is shelved down and it is tunable using port bungs. Most users complain about brightness. Something is amiss...
I guess that’s why it was a good thing I listened to a few speakers and returned them . So the quest is still on .

I listened to a few of my favorite records just to make sure I could hear everything I know.I feel like I’m being crucified right now for not liking the R3 lol . I don’t know audio terms but I do know what I like and the speakers weren’t bad just felt like there was no space between the instruments, as I like, and a few other things I can’t explain . I did like the sound when the music was turned up
 
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If you like the Founders, I would get them! They seem to match some of your comments. Like the R3's bass being too loud. The Founders start to roll off the bass a little higher in the frequency range so they do not have as much bass. I am guessing when you said the B&W's were flat you were referring to lifeless, lacking dynamics and not to their frequency response. As other have mentioned B&W's don't measure flat, they have their signature sound and some love it.

I have worked in this industry a long time and people really need to listen to speakers first. I know what the research says about people enjoying accurate sound. I have even attended some of Dr. Toole's lectures and totally respect his work!!! But, I often wonder what variables were not accounted for in their research. I know other companies do blind testing but don't make their results public to protect their secret sauce. Many times I have given recommendations to people for accurate speakers and when they went and listened to speakers they chose something else. Could be salemanship but in many cases I know they told me they level matched the speakers.

We know one factor that was not accounted for in the research is hearing deficits. I know my wife has low frquency loss in one ear and high frequency loss in the other. In theory we can compensate for hearing loss with EQ but few that are demoing speakers will do that. I am not saying you have hearing loss I just wonder what some of the differenes are betwteen research results and real life people's choices and we know this is one of them. Marketing shows us the typical buyer is a middle aged male and not the younger generation or women looking for nicer speakers. Some exception of course. But, research also shows us that hearing loss is starting to happen at younger ages than in the past. It is speulated because of more headphone/ earbud use in today's society but no sure?

Other factors we know change pereption is aesthetics, that has been shown in the research. Audiophiles like to think we are immune to aesthetics when listening but I think it is impossible. Another factor is various rooms, some of that has been accounted for in research and speaker dispersion characterisitcs. Another factor could be listening time and one reason to demo at home when possible. I would guess the average time listeing to a pair of speakers in a showroom is probably less than 15 minutes. Someone might spend an hour or more in a showroom but how long listening to a given model? I don't know. Something , marketing people probably research.

Level matching is another factor and how is it done? Use pink noise? Band limited pink noise? etc? If you know you plan on using a sub you could use a high pass filter and not play the lower frequencies to make the playing field more level between speakers. If not using a sub and bass being about 30% of sound quality then one should listen full range.

Subwoofer integration is not easy but physics shows us that the best location for bass frequencies are different than mids and highs. I am a big fan of using subs to get the best sound and not just to fill in the lowest octaves. I admit though many will not be able to integrate them well for either a lack of knowledge or due to contraints in their listening environment. So, I understand some not preferring a sub.

Sorry, for getting side tracked. Get the speakers you like and don't worry about them not measuring flat or what the research shows. You are the one that will be enjoying them!
Thank you for this response
 
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