What is going on with Paradigm?

[andreasmaaan]

Let me guess: pure aluminum speakers and perforated grid in front of the tweeter are not providing a good sound.
It seems that the marketing people have taken the lead over the R&D engineers.
Sad story.

Aluminium is a perfectly good diaphragm material. Definitely not the source of the measured issues we see here.

 

[valerianf]

The fact is that this aluminum drivers are measuring badly in this speaker.
Do you think that the old Paradigm speakers that were measuring well were using all aluminum drivers?
I do not think so.

Aluminium for a tweeter is already a difficult issue, then aluminum for all drivers seems to me a craziness.
It is just my point and this speaker range from Paradigm confirm it.

 

[watchnerd]

From my measurements report in the Stereophile review: "When I visited Paradigm's facility in Toronto in summer 2014, I was very impressed by the depth of the company's engineering and manufacturing expertise. They have a large anechoic chamber for acoustical analysis and state-of-the-art measuring equipment, including the Klippel system for analyzing the behavior of drive-units. I'm puzzled, therefore, by the departure of both samples from what I regard as an optimal target response . . ."

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

I have to assume it's an intentional deviation for the purpose of creating product differentiation, and thus hopefully, more sales.

Perhaps speaker makers are facing analogous dilemma to DAC makers; if good DACs measure transparent to one another, how do we create unique selling points?

Similarly, if all speakers are shooting for an optimal Klippel target response, how do you differentiate your product?

If you can't win on price, styling, or branding, I guess one option is to make it intentionally sound different.

It seems to work for Klipsch's Heritage line....

 

[Bear123]

I have to assume it's an intentional deviation for the purpose of creating product differentiation, and thus hopefully, more sales.

Perhaps speaker makers are facing analogous dilemma to DAC makers; if good DACs measure transparent to one another, how do we create unique selling points?

Similarly, if all speakers are shooting for an optimal Klippel target response, how do you differentiate your product?

If you can't win on price, styling, or branding, I guess one option is to make it intentionally sound different.

It seems to work for Klipsch's Heritage line....

I think its certainly fine if a manufacturer chooses to do this......B&W does it and has a supremely loyal following and a stellar audiophile reputation. And lots of folks truly love and adore their speakers. I have no issue with this. I do think it is disingenuous for paradigm to heavily advertise their belief in the science of neutral, accurate speaker design, and then sell speakers with a response like that posted. The average consumer will not be getting the product they think they are getting, and we know the ears are easily fooled.

 

[watchnerd]

I think its certainly fine if a manufacturer chooses to do this......B&W does it and has a supremely loyal following and a stellar audiophile reputation. And lots of folks truly love and adore their speakers. I have no issue with this. I do think it is disingenuous for paradigm to heavily advertise their belief in the science of neutral, accurate speaker design, and then sell speakers with a response like that posted. The average consumer will not be getting the product they think they are getting, and we know the ears are easily fooled.

Well, as someone who does marketing for a living, I certainly wouldn't have had my copywriters use those terms, in this situation.

They need to update their messaging pillars to reflect terms that resonate more with their target audience and sound.

I would have gravitated more towards a messaging framework with words like "impactful", "dynamic", etc.

If you're making an "exciting sounding" speaker, sell exciting.

 

[watchnerd]

If I look on the Persona page, I see snippets like:

"unexpected level of high-resolution detail, depth and dynamics thanks in part to rare, extraordinary Beryllium."

"Paradigm engineering, untamed"

So at least for the Persona line, they seem to have shifted messaging to be less about neutrality and more about excitement.

 

[Sal1950]

I can't speak to any measurements made or Paradigms voicing decisions. I can say I listened to the 9F's a couple years back at the Audio Show in Tampa. At that time they sounded excellent, in fact I gave them my "best of show" nod for the weekend. BUT, it was also true they were running their Anthem preamp and using their propriatary DRC system, I questioned one of the presenters who admitted to using the correction and giving them both their best presentation possible.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Sorry John for any mistakes or exclusions in that post.
Thanks for stopping by, feel free to do so at any time, your input is always most welcome.
Sal1950

 

[Ken1951]

My Signature S8 (V.1) sound pretty decent to me (horridly subjective, I know) and while not cheap, were certainly not terribly expensive. Definitely not like the offerings from Paradigm today. The graphs from back then don't look like the ones from today either, which really shouldn't be the case. One would expect real improvement.

 

[typericey]

The two Paradigm speakers measured by Soundstage (relatively) recently also had a similar response curve (the "Batman", as it's been called).

Persona B listening window:

View attachment 101870

Atom SE listening window:

View attachment 101871

Although in both these cases the bat head is a little lower in frequency than per the 95F.

The curves above, including the 95F's are very similar to the Bowers & Wilkins 705S2's that I used to own. Measurement of that speaker from SoundStageNetwork below.

Perhaps Paradigm is trying to mimic the B&W house sound? Maybe in their market research they find this to be the preferred sound of consumers in general? I do admit my 705S2's sounded "pleasant" though undoubtedly colored. The raised treble artificially enhanced detail and resolution (i.e. damn Diana Krall's saliva is ASMR! ) and perhaps favorable to ageing audiophiles and the rolled of response of their hearing.

 

[617]

The fact is that this aluminum drivers are measuring badly in this speaker.
Do you think that the old Paradigm speakers that were measuring well were using all aluminum drivers?
I do not think so.

Aluminium for a tweeter is already a difficult issue, then aluminum for all drivers seems to me a craziness.
It is just my point and this speaker range from Paradigm confirm it.

Aluminum is pracally the only single material that can be used for bass, midrange and treble transducers of the highest quality.

Troels Gravesen's measurements of the sb26ADC:

 

[tvrgeek]

You believe ANYTHING published by Sterophile? Maybe Paradigm did not buy the full page back cover ad that month.
Do you expect any company to advertise " We make crappy speakers with terrible frequency response" ? First rule of advertising is take your worst quality and advertise it.

Personally the first generation Studio 20's tweeters had way too high tweeter distortion so I dumped them in favor of my own, though for the price (they were $850 a pair then) they were market leaders. In room, their response was very good. No idea on newer ones.

 

[tvrgeek]

"Aluminum is pracally the only single material that can be used for bass, midrange and treble transducers of the highest quality. "

About every transducer manufacture will disagree. All materials have their attributes. All can be used well, all can be not used well. Many company's flagship products are still various paper composite, soft composite something-or-other, and other metal alloys. CF composite seems to be making inroads, but maybe still a bit high mass. There are some newer glasses, and some work on met-glass that may move into the market. Of course, every ceramic is different.

FWIW, the early Studio 20's had aluminum tweeters, and that was their problem. They had some sort of synthetic composite woofer which was fine. It was not the material, it was the execution.

Moral of the story is you have to judge the final product, not any single material used in it.

 

[Bear123]

My subwoofer cones are made of aluminum. I only know that because its not the most common. Not sure what my speakers woofs and tweets are made of. Doesn't matter much to me. I mean, I'm not totally disinterested, but its not overly important as long as like you said, the finished product performs as well as I'd like it to. Pretty sure its nothing exotic or overly exciting though.

 

[617]

My subwoofer cones are made of aluminum. I only know that because its not the most common. Not sure what my speakers woofs and tweets are made of. Doesn't matter much to me. I mean, I'm not totally disinterested, but its not overly important as long as like you said, the finished product performs as well as I'd like it to. Pretty sure its nothing exotic or overly exciting though.

My point is not that Aluminum is the best, but that it is an unusually versatile material which is suitable for everything from subwoofers to compression drivers.

 

[watchnerd]

Regardless of the materials, Paradigm have been in the game long enough, and used enough different materials, that if the Persona is measuring so extremely off-flat, it's because Paradigm want it to.

Blaming Be or Alu is a red herring -- it's an intentional design decision.

 

[SIY]

You believe ANYTHING published by Sterophile?

The measurements are usually pretty reliable.

 

[Vintage57]

I believe it’s intentional, a voicing of a sort.
I recall that once upon a time we had 2 different schools of though. One was a flat dry East Coast sound, and the other a flat bright West Coast sound. Personal preferences have always been with us.
Paradigm and B&W are obviously catering to their customer.

 

[watchnerd]

I believe it’s intentional, a voicing of a sort.
I recall that once upon a time we had 2 different schools of though. One was a flat dry East Coast sound, and the other a flat bright West Coast sound. Personal preferences have always been with us.
Paradigm and B&W are obviously catering to their customer.

I has to be.

Paradigm isn't saying to themselves, "OMG is *that* how it measures?? We had no idea!"

 

[raif71]

My first pair of speakers were Paradigm. Bought the pair early 90s when I was studying at Univ of Wisconsin Madison. At that time, I was just so happy to get my first stereo setup and speakers. When I came back to Malaysia, I brought back the whole system including the speakers. I still have them until April this year when I decided to do some cleaning of the house storeroom where the old stuff was kept, during covid-19 lock-down. One of the speakers was broken anyways when I tried them 6 years back. Couldn't remember the model of the speakers but a quick google gave this model which I believe to be the Paradigm Titan (not 100% certain but looks like it) https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/649222848-paradigm-titans-with-stands/images/1050928/

 

[MattHooper]

You believe ANYTHING published by Sterophile?

Yup. That is: not "everything" but also not "nothing." Some of us are cautious, but not utterly cynical ;-)

I have found some of the subjective reviews in Stereophile to be very "accurate" to what I've heard from the product (speaker usually) in question.
And there are always the measurements for anyone who wants to skip the subjective stuff. It's a nice balance IMO.