I've got to come up with some not-too-expensive 5.1 speakers, so I did a bit of hunting around and reading on this forum. The Paradigm Cinema series of speakers gets mentioned a lot. Inevitably, I ended up with more questions.
1) It's been pointed out (and I agree) that the best solution for surround sound is to not only use the same manufacturer but even the same speakers for L/C/R and the surrounds, especially when it comes to music that is meant for surround environments. Yet according to Paradigm's specifications for all of their speakers in their Cinema series, the only speaker they seem to feel qualifies as a surround speaker is their ADP. So, are there reasons why it would be a bad idea to use, say, five of their 220 speakers (since they are designated for L/C/R use)?
2) The non-sub speakers in the Cinema series only go down to around 115 Hz, presumably leaving everything below that to the subwoofer. This strikes me as potentially a bad thing since human speech frequently rides frequencies well below that. Particularly in consideration of the primary purpose of the center channel in isolating dialogue, the idea of letting the subwoofer handle a good chunk of said audio seems unappealing. Is this a valid concern? I mean, if the non-sub speakers are going to more or less fail to even produce certain frequencies at acceptable/discernable amplitudes...
3) Competition? Are there other speaker sets - especially ones which enable the option of using identical speakers for L/C/R/surrounds - that I might want to look into? The Paradigm Cinema speakers are unquestionably cheap. I wouldn't necessarily be limited to that kind of budget (but these are not going to be speakers for the primary viewing room). If there are suggestions, please mention more than simply the manufacturer. Things like recommended models, experiences, comparisons, specific reasons why they might be better than the Paradigms, etc. would be great info.
Thanks!
1) It's been pointed out (and I agree) that the best solution for surround sound is to not only use the same manufacturer but even the same speakers for L/C/R and the surrounds, especially when it comes to music that is meant for surround environments. Yet according to Paradigm's specifications for all of their speakers in their Cinema series, the only speaker they seem to feel qualifies as a surround speaker is their ADP. So, are there reasons why it would be a bad idea to use, say, five of their 220 speakers (since they are designated for L/C/R use)?
2) The non-sub speakers in the Cinema series only go down to around 115 Hz, presumably leaving everything below that to the subwoofer. This strikes me as potentially a bad thing since human speech frequently rides frequencies well below that. Particularly in consideration of the primary purpose of the center channel in isolating dialogue, the idea of letting the subwoofer handle a good chunk of said audio seems unappealing. Is this a valid concern? I mean, if the non-sub speakers are going to more or less fail to even produce certain frequencies at acceptable/discernable amplitudes...
3) Competition? Are there other speaker sets - especially ones which enable the option of using identical speakers for L/C/R/surrounds - that I might want to look into? The Paradigm Cinema speakers are unquestionably cheap. I wouldn't necessarily be limited to that kind of budget (but these are not going to be speakers for the primary viewing room). If there are suggestions, please mention more than simply the manufacturer. Things like recommended models, experiences, comparisons, specific reasons why they might be better than the Paradigms, etc. would be great info.
Thanks!
