Paradigm Owners Thread - Page 735

Cheers M8 unfortunately it doesn't seem to be a topic of interest. Either that or not many people have ADP's in a 7.1 setup.

Koko for coco puffs

Yeah, at least that long. I figure to be able to reach that in 30 days time possibly.

I agree with the need to spend time with them. It is a marked change from what you are used to and you need time to adapt. The break in is in your brain more than the speakers. It is a remarkable piece of equipment that adapts to changing environment. But thirty days may not be enough.

What other equipement do you have? Source and amplification? As you increase the quality down the line (speakers), you will need to match the quality all the way up the line to the source. General wisdom in upgrading is to start with the source and work your way down to the speakers.

Finally, if you search posts in this thread under my handle, you will find my posts about modifying my Studio 40's. I replaced the alloy voice coils with silk ones. They are cheap - about $15 each - and available from Madison Sound. They are an exact replacement and will take the edge off the highs giving you more of that forgiving quality. I did it due to my need for digital hearing aids which tend to make the highs in music more harsh in general. But I think you might like them. If you don't, you can put back the alloy voice coils and you are only out about $35.

It looks like you already made the change...did you hear any difference?

I find it hard to believe that Paradigm would overlook something like this in engineering their product. I do know that their "ADP" speakers aren't 100% dipoles. They operate as dipoles above a certain frequency and below that frequency they are bipoles.

I wounder if Anubis ever took room acoustics into account. I have not seen this mentioned yet so I thought I would bring it up.

I have Studio 100,690 and adp590 (side surround). If my budget allows, how worth it is to add back surround as adp590 to complete 7.1?

Hmm, interesting concept. You may be on to something there especially considering there is such a thing as selective listening, audio illusion, tone deafness, etc. It all ties in to the way our brain processes information it receives from various sources, one being our ears. It also makes sense in light of that when our receptors such as our ears or eyes and what not aren't functioning right for any reason, it effects the information our brain receives. Exactly like a computer, garbage in garbage out.

The other equipment I have are as follows:
Onkyo TX-SR705 receiver
Onkyo C-390 CD player
Yamaha DVD player (I forget the model right now)
Speakers = Polk CS1 CC, KLH cheapo 2-ways for surround and HSY VTF-1 sub.

The receiver is 100wpc which does power the speakers and it really is a good receiver, but a supplimental amp would show an improvement in SQ, to what extent I don't know. I do know the Studios like power and really want a minimum of 200 watts.
The CD player I found out to my surprise is pretty good itself. I has a decent DAC (Burr-Brown I believe, can't recall). I've had it for 3 years and have no trouble with it.
Yeah, still using DVD players because I have no use or reason to buy blue ray discs as there are hardly any titles that I like available on BR. That said though when the DVD players give up the ghost I will get a decent BR player and play DVDs through it.
I'm not too fond of the CC I have, but now it seems to be working better than ever (An illusion no doubt). Sure, it's not the best sounding thing, not even close, but it works and seems to be holding it's own for now. (The perceived improvement may have something to do with set up changes that were made when I hooked up the Studios).
The surrounds seem a little stronger as well, again not the greatest, but doing ok for the moment. I'm not concerned with them, all they do is process the delay signals.
The sub, well it doesn't get much better then what I have in my opinion.
That said, the rest of the speakers (CC, etc) I'm not worried about changing since I don't do much HT. I'm mostly music.

Yes, I figured the parts are affordable for upgrade. Obviously, I need to do much more research on that.
My idea about upgrading is not to take care of a particular problem such as the highs (I actually found that they are not as harsh in my environment as I thought they might be), but more to improve the build quality over the cheap materials they used in the Studios as opposed to the Sigs & Milliniums (since I could never afford those in my lifetime) and I figure it would make for life beyond 5 years after the warranty runs out.

ROFL! I agree. Let's go back to discussing Paradigm equipment, not trying to convince a person who has buyer's remorse to love his speakers.

I think it depends on the size of your room. Large room, yes, small room, nah.

Thanks for reply. My room is 21 feet x 15 feet. Not sure if it helps for this room. I may have 1.5 to 2 feet distance in the back. I can extend little more if 7.1 is worth it.

That's about the size of my room and I recently went 5.1 to 7.1, and I didn't see a huge difference.

Yes, I did long before I bought them. The room is not treated and could sure use it as it is awful and I was going to make some treatments. I got into studying that and asking a bunch of questions and talking to folks. I do not have a dedicated room nor am likely to anytime in the future so I needed to be very tactful about treatments.
However, it turns out I may be moving in a few months so there is no point in trying to do the room and then have to do it all over again for the new room if it even needs it. Just a carpeted room would be a vast improvement.
Right now this is the nightmare room I have:
Hardwood floors (yeech!)
Stucco walls
Two skylights (worthless)
Brick fireplace which I learned is not a real issue
Two tall CD cabinets with glass doors along the wall on the right
A large Mirror on same wall
Room opens to a dining alcove with a garden window and a huge curio cabinet with glass doors on the wall to the left.
Sliding glass door to indoor patio on the left wall where the fireplace is.
I have a sofa, huge throw rug and coffee table in the room.
I also have the speakers sitting on a piece of carpet.
Finally, the sub can only go in one location which is next to the left front speaker between it and the brick planter which is part of the fireplace. (Anywhere else in the room would mean people tripping over the cable).

What is odd is that I thought the speakers would sound funny or similar to my old kenwoods with that room of acoustic disaster, but they actually sound way better than my old kenwoods and seem to have adapted to the room, although I know they have not, no speaker does that.

I corrected my post. It was Madison Sound, not Parts Express.

I have an Onkyo 5008. Does your Onkyo have vTuner? And does it allow bridging the front channels with any of the surround channels? My Onkyo is their flagship AVR at 145 wpc, bigger capacitors and better transformer. When I bridged, which ran my fronts at over 200wpc, there was a noticible improvement. I went further and bought a pair of Emotiva UPA-1 amps for the fronts - 200 true wpc. More improvement. I may be worth it, even as an experiment, to order a UPA-2 (or 2x UPA-1 or an XPA-2 if you want even better). They ship free in the lower 48 and have a return period. This would give you a close to best case scenario to see how your speakers can truly perform. My studio 40's love the power. I imagine your 100's need the power to reach their potential.

I asked about vTuner since you can use some high quality internet stations for the source (up to about 320kbps), eliminating the variable of your disc players. Alternatively, if you have a USB port, find some high quality lossless files to play.


It is likely to be the case that great speakers won't be enough and you will need to bring your entire system up to that level to appreciate them.

Welcome to the world of (entry level) hi-end audio! It is a bit different as you are learning.

I do not own the Paradigm 390 or 590 but I do own a pair of Mirage OMD-5 rears which require placement like the Paradigm ones. Unfortunately, I have mine on stands as I can't mount them on a long wall yet. The thing about dipoles is they need the wall to run for the sound. The placement that is recommended by Paradigm in their manual is correct for the 390/590 which appears from your photo looks correct.

When I ran Audyssey, I did not get an out of phase issue, nor have I read anyone in this thread have that issue. The only debates I have read have been about which is a better sound, direct verses dipole. A good search is to do Studio 20 verses Adp-590. Generally it comes down to preference, room placement, and material you listen to. Generally, 5.1 music sounds better with direct radiating speakers. Movies, if you can place them properly sound better with dipole. If you have to place them on stands, direct radiating sounds better, if you like to be able to localize the sound. I have seen where people use direct radiating for the 5.1 rear placement and then use the adp-390/590 for the 7.1 part.

There are two Paradigm stores in your area, I have been to the Ann Arbor one, though I wasn't impressed with the sales staff (disinterested in selling), but they do have two demo rooms. There is also one in Keego Harbor too, though I have never been there.

Question, this out of phase issue, was it when you first hooked them up or had you hooked them up before without any issues? One thing to consider, but sometimes the simplest solution is the most overlooked. Are you sure the speaker wires themselves were put in the correct banana plugs? Meaning could of someone accidentally put the positive wire into the black banana plug and the negative wire into the red banana plugs during setup?

Thanks for sharing. I will hold off my purchase for rear back speakers.

No, my receiver doesn't have vtuner or usb port or any of that stuff. It's a good surround sound receiver all THX and a few other bells and whistles and such, but nothing like the Integra line or the flagship unit you have.
I got my receiver because of the phono jack. I wanted to play vinyl on my modern system as well. Of course, then I found out long before I got these Studios that my TT is crap, so I have to replace that unit someday.

I do plan on getting an amp to suppliment my receiver after a time of saving money. However, I have no space for two UPA-1s. What I need is one amp (that's all I barely have space for) that can hook into my Onkyo as a suppliment so I can still use the Onkyo for control and such. I assume the UPA-2 fills that bill, but it's over my budget by $300. I need time to save up and I'm looking at a budget of $500 for an amp. However, we are talking about 6 months away, maybe a bit less.
As to changing out the receiver or CD player, no thank you. I don't have the need to replace anything that is not broken. The electronics I have are fine for "high-end", it's just the receiver is under-powered for the speakers no doubt as the Studios do require more power than what I have to reach their full potential.

I don't like MP3s, I prefer lossless, yes. I'm not much of a radio person outside of one show I listen to on Sundays on a local station. However, I am considering getting one of those internet radios and hooking it up to the reciever for fun because there are some real good internet radio stations out there.
Thanks for those links too. I'll make use of those as I go along. I'm thinking there might be a way to convert USB to RCA or something. I'll look around Monoprice, I go there for all that sort of thing.

I forgot to mention I upgraded my speaker cables. Made my own. I knew my little 18 gauge stuff was not going to cut it. So I got some 14 gauge with GLS banana plugs, techflex, heatshrink and all the bits and peices and made my own cables for a fraction of the cost of buying them.

Definitely I can hear marked difference with the ADP-390's wired like I show in the picture.
More diffuse sound, but it also appear simply more sound, even more discrete sound than before.
I've always ran my Denon 4038CI in PLIIx cinema mode, to extract the back surround 2 speaker tracks.

Is it the placebo effect or do I really hear "more sound"?

I like the change and won't go back.
As stated, I'd really like to borrow (2) more stock ADP-390's to do a/b comparison.





Good sanity check Q on the wiring being correct, being OCD on certain things I checked 3 times, plus have my wires labeled also.
Based on reading quite a few threads I now ignore the "out of phase" for the dipole check.

"one in Keego Harbor " - hmmm, I'll have to check this one out, prior I got mine from AVIO in Brighton, before they closed that shop.

Regarding di-pole vs bi-pole vs direct......I'm of the camp side wall surrounds definitely di-pole...and with the changes I made I'm "ok" with modified phase diploe in the back.
Caveat: This is 90% HT, 5% gaming, 5% HDTV sports/music, etc,

Ok..... best of luck in the adaptation! Even if the speakers don't quite meet your expectations at this point, you know you can grow into them with other improvements in the future.

Please stop replying to Anubisrocks; he's hijacked this entire thread for like a month.

Anyone have any info on the rumored Monitor series v7?

someone earlier in the thread said he is trying to see if he can Paradigm to send him an email with info to share with us. I am also interesed as I am stuck between upgrading to Monitors or stepping up to Studios.

+1. Anubisrocks please start your own thread if you really feel the need to pour out everything that comes into your head, stop polluting this thread with your drivel. If you have something meaningful to contribute go ahead.

+2

+3

Go ahead and go for the studios. I have not seen many people that have been disappointed by them. I thought about upgrading to the sig s1 but every time I listen to my studio 20s I change my mind. I used some mini monitor v6 before the studio 20s and I liked them but the clarity and detail was so much better on the 20s. They do a great job a disappearing into the room for music and movies. I am still considering ADPs but right now the mini monitors are doing a good job for surrounds. I didn't want to spend enough to get new ones so I got v3 studios and I have no regrets.

+4

I am not going to be buying until around Christmas so I should have enough time to decide. I see some really good listings on Audiogon, but I am still leery buying used with no warranty.

All of these me too posts are more of a waste of space. AnubisR may have gone on a bit much, but I think I replied in constructive ways. It seemed like things came to a natural conclusion and now everyone whines. Most, especially the last day, was very much on topic.

Do not reply to this message. I will not reply to any that do.

LMAO! That cracked me up.

Thanks a bunch for your input and Semper Fi to you as well my friend

The 60's get here on Monday. I can't wait.