Best speakers for ~ $1000 for a fairly small room? - Page 3

Wow really? Where is this? 20% off of a Studio 20 could be just over $1100, which is comfortably in my budget. I don't suppose it's in CA is it?

I'm looking into bestofaudio but so far it's not looking good. They don't exactly seem particularly... legitimate.

It's not the lack of warranty I'm worried about, but whether they'll actually ship what I buy. If it's a scam, they could be here one day and gone the next. I suppose paypal protection could help, but I'm not exactly looking forward to a lengthy dispute process if something goes wrong.

Their price isn't half of MSRP though? Their Studio 20s are selling for $500/each which is $1000/pair, roughly the price of a good used pair. Retail is about $1300/pair I think, but I'm not really sure - some reviews say they got them for $1400, others for $1300/pair. Does anyone actually know the official MSRP of Paradigm Studio 20s? I've been trying to find this.

> So basically you can use paypal to pay with (which has buyer protection) but you can't use your credit card through paypal. You can only use your bank account through paypal (which will still give you buyer protection).

That makes no sense. Paypal is paypal, from their perspective. It shouldn't matter which internal method you use in your paypal, because the whole point of paypal is it handles the transaction for you/them.
Edited by ac500 - 10/14/12 at 12:09pm

Yeah, paypal acts as a "buffer" for payments. Each side should not care, or even know, what means of payment or withdrawal the other side is using.

For example, right now I could use paypal to buy them because I have a positive paypal credit balance from selling other things. Where does this money come from? Not from my credit card, or my bank account, or any of my accounts. In my case, it's from things I sold. From their end, what do they see if I were to buy something from them? Just a paypal payment to them. They have no way of knowing what method of payment you use in your paypal account. All they know is whether or not they got the money.

Anyway I doubt I'd buy from them unless I have more reason to believe they're legitimate. Where are they even located?

Also, apparently Paradigm Studio 20s MSRP is now $1500, and the price has gone up over the last few months for the SAME model. Strange. Well... this is what the dealers here told me.

Thanks for all the help to everyone! After a ton of research, a lot of auditioning, and a lot of consideration, I've finally pieced together what I think will be the best performance/value for my price range (and easily well beyond). It's all ordered and now all I have to do is wait for it to come in!

Here is what I ended up going with. I have no previous speaker equipment and am starting from scratch so this includes everything:

Speakers: Paradigm Reference Studio 10 v5 - New / open-box. $740 shipped
Subwoofer: HSU STF-2 - New. $387 shipped
Receiver: Harmon Kardon HK 3490 - New. $330 shipped
Speaker wires, banana plugs, and various connectors: $25 shipped from Monoprice.

So the total amount spent (including shipping, tax etc.) for the entire system comes to $1483, which is just perfectly under my max stretch limit. I'm getting this system essentially as a net $0 swap/trade, due to my sold equipment from my previous headphone rigs paying for everything.

What I like about this setup is that the Studio 10 plus a solid subwoofer totals to considerably less than a Studio 20, and should sound much better overall. My reasoning for the Studio 10s versus the 20s is due to reading multiple reviews where each reviewer mentioned that the Studio 10 sounds just as good as the 20s in everything except less bass extension. Also, the Studio 10 has the exact same tweeter, and the same woofer coils etc. The only difference is the smaller box (which actually is better for my small room) and smaller overall woofer size. Since the reduced cost allows me to add a good sub, I get an overall higher quality, more full sound for less price overall.

Edit: Also I should clarify on my speaker choice. Ultimately I chose the Paradigm Studio due to sonic preference, since it's most likely around the same general sound quality level as the Ascend Sierra-1s. I've come to realize that I tend to prefer the more forward and crisp treble of a metal tweeter, versus the soft domes as found in the Ascend Sierra.
Edited by ac500 - 10/15/12 at 11:58pm

wichitadisciple no offense -- and this isn't a problem to me -- but I noticed you've been posting pretty much the same copy-paste text across many different threads. This is illustrated by the fact that you've asked this exact same off-topic question verbatim on this very thread (which we tried to answer) two separate times. The only reason I mention this is because some forums I use are very strict against spamming/hijacking -- I don't know if this is the case here, but you might want to be more careful, and just in general post questions with less duplication/spamming and to places more context-appropriate.

Anyway I'll definitely post an update with my impressions when they come!

I don't mind anything being posted here really, as long as it's posted by a human with care to the actual thread context. When he posted the same off-topic question the second time on this same thread (see the previous page to compare), I figure he's just spamming without keeping track of which threads he's spammed.

Last week when someone else argued with him on this thread regarding whether it's off topic, wichitadisciple responded with flames, discriminatory insults, etc. (stupidly calling people names that I shouldn't repeat even on the internet). I reported his post and so a mod removed all of that discussion. Anyway I figure my original suspicion that he's a spammer/troll type is confirmed, but it's best not to feed the troll so I'm glad its over.

nlpearman: They should be here tuesday or at least wednesday. I'll definitely post impressions!

Well they've arrived today, and so far I'm quite happy with them even placed on my desk, in combination with my subwoofer. I'm going to do experiments regarding positioning, but right now, they sound pretty stunning for some songs. Not as good as my HD800 obviously in terms of raw detail, but close enough to make me happy. I'm really happy with the overall sound signature too - it has enough treble presence to make classical sound good, but not so much as to make anything unpleasant, and at least with my subwoofer, it beautifully renders warm soft music too without any signs of being too revealing of bad recordings. That's pretty astounding in of itself IMO, but maybe this is a speaker thing - the ability to be both detailed with crisp present treble AND not ruin bad recordings.

My only concern is that placing then on my desk probably does lead to a sub-optimal soundstage, as the specially treated room at the audio store with the speakers on stands was better obviously, and I think being on a desk detracts from the midbass too (but the subwoofer fills in the rest nicely).

Overall I'm very happy right now. I can only imagine that taking them off my hyper-reflective desk onto proper stands at a proper distance would only make them sound much much better, too, although I really like what I'm hearing already.

After more testing, I'm definitely really happy with these. They handle classical music (violin, piano, harpsichord, choir, etc.) brilliantly well to my ears (I'm definitely a fan of metal tweeters). And what's really impressive of how they sound amazing such a wide range of music that didn't necessarily sound so good on my HD800s. However keep in mind that this impression is in combination with my subwoofer. My impression of its versatility may be different if I turn it off and lose the <60hz spectrum.

They fill the room quite nicely now and the FR sweep sounds very flat with only minor equalization tweaks. Later I'll experiment with stands probably, but soon I'm going to try foam isolation because I feel some resonation in the desk.
Edited by ac500 - 10/24/12 at 12:48pm

I should now add that I'm even more happy with these after fixing what I had originally interpreted as bad acoustics. My room still has bad acoustics I'm sure, but the midbass issue I noted was actually due to a stupid error on my part. In my excitement after receiving them, I had rigged them up with the right speaker's polarity reversed. This means that each speaker is 180 degrees out of phase with the other, and therefore the frequency respond would be all messed up especially for lower frequencies due to how harmonic canceling works. After fixing this, they sound WAY better now, and are really even more impressive than before. In particular the hole in the midbass I mentioned earlier is gone now that they're not sound-canceling each other