richardweaver8

thanks for the suggestions JDH. Given the lack of interest, I'll definitely have to investigate some other options..... Cheers pxpx

Hi there, Item: Paradigm Signature S4 V1 (Piano Black) Location: Eltham, Melbourne Item Condition:Excellent 9/10 Reason for selling:EOI only at this stage Price: Exchange form similar value Floorstanding Speakers Payment Method: N/a Extra Info: Bit of a long shot but I am looking for expressions of interest for someone who might be interested in swapping a pair of Floorstanding L/R main speakers in exchange for a set of Paradigm Signature S4's V1 (Gloss Black) including stands. These Speakers are in excellent condition and I can forward pictures to any interested parties.... I really don't want to get rid of these, and the only reason I am considering such a swap is the fact that I have a baby daughter who any week now will become a mobile baby daughter! The thought of her pulling over one of the S4's on top of herself scares the daylights out of me (and yes I am principally concerned for my daughter and not my speakers! Obviously I am looking for something of similar value but am prepared to throw in a little cash for something a little better or alternatively accept a little cash for something a little less.... I am fairly hesitant to go backwards however after being spoilt for quality witht he S4's. I'm a little fussy when it comes to speakers but I do like the look of brands such as Focal, B&W and of course Paradigm..... I'm definitely keen to deal with someone in or near to Melbourne which makes a nice clean, safe exchange... As I mentioned, I realise this is a bit of a longshot, but worth a try. Please PM me if you think you may have something of interest. Cheers Pxpx

Interesting topic and is one that I have been giving a lot of thought to lately as well. I have Paradigm Signature S4's - But I find them way too bright and revealing for rock/metal..... They are very good for most other genres and I really enjoy female vocals and "softer tunes" like Cat Stevens, Dire straights and general Pop.... Part of the problem I think with rock/metal is that a lot of it is recorded quite "bright" and this can be shown up when you apply it to higher end speakers/systems. I am sure that some of my other components are contributing, but I am of the belief that the Speakers are the biggest contributor.... Good luck with your search and be sure to let us know how it turns out.

+1 interested

Hi Skin, I run a similar set-up to what you are proposing; PC (.flac) -> PS3 -> (via optical) to DACMagic -> Musical Fidelity A5 Pre-amp with HT Direct........ I love the convenience of the PS3 as a server, and you can also get some very nice screensavers for the PS3 whilst listening to Music. One thing to check is that I didn't think you can actually run both HDMI and Optical outs from the PS3?? Unlesss they have changed this with a recent firmware upgrade...? This doesn't bother me as I don't use the PS3 for Blu-ray duties, so optical out is fine when using just for a music server. cheers pxpx

Yes - congrats guys. I actually spent an hour or so last night with a tape measure in my living room trying to find a way to make this thing fit in! Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way...... Looks like I would have been too slow regardless.... I'll have to live with my slow old SVS PC 20-39 for a little bit longer....

Hi Chris, Can I also add 1 extra to the list; pxpx + 1 Thanks Richard

Hmm - sounds good. Count me in please. Richard

Hi Johnny boy, I have the LX71 model and I think the setting you are after is in 4 System Setup -> 4d Other Set-up ->3 SR+ setup. I can't recall the exact details, but I do recall having all sorts of issues with the OSD with the Pio to the point where I decided I could live without it... Good luck

Hi Bushido, does this set include the ERD - (surround speakers), or is it 2 sets of bookshelfs and a centre? Thanks Richard

Hi b.d., can i enquire as to which external DAC you are using.... I'm thinking of adding one of these to my CA DacMagic to try and tame some of the brightness in my system.... (MF A5 Pre, Elektra T7 power, and Paradigm signature S4 speakers) Cheers Richard

Yeah - not too many carry any signatures in Melb. However, "Templestowe TV" do currnetly have V4 60's and 100's in the store at the moment. If you want to listen to them though, my suggestion is that you give them a call beforehand so they can set them up before you get there. I listened to them briefly and they sounded pretty poor - however I am fairly confident that this is due to the fact they are running everything through a splitter box......

oh boy - what an awesome looking amp!! If it sounds half as good as it looks, it would sound amazing. I'd kill to have this sitting in my rack, but unfortunately she is out of my league.... (i'm still on the lookout for a MFA5 power amp...) Good luck with the sale!

LOL! Fair enough probably considering the "demo" music that I am likely to amke BladeRNR endure! A little bit of "Tool" anyone?

Blade/Getreal.... If you do arrange something, then could I potentially join in? If it was feasible, I would like to bring my S4 V1's around to compare to your S6's. This would give Getreal a chance to hear both the S4's and the S6's (different V's of course) and it would help me with the itch that I have to upgrade to a set of floorstanders.... Not sure what is in it for you Blade!, but I would bring a nice bottle of red for your inconvenience! Anyway - just keep it in mind and let me know if it is possible. Cheers Richard

Hi GETREAL95, I'll be interested in how you go finding some Studio/Sigs in Melb. I went through this process 18 months ago, but only had very limited success. I found a set of Studio 60's at Templestowe TV and I also found a set of 100's that were (beleive it or or not) at Harvey Norman in Ringwood. However, neither place had decent amps/sources etc to get the best out of the speakers, and hence I was left a bit underwhelmed. The other dealer of Paradigm in Melb is the Big Picture People, but they only tend to keep the Monitor range in store. I believe some other forum members have had BPP bring in sets of Signatures, but only the promise that they will be purchased.... Let us know if you do find any as I will also be keen to go and have a listen. Cheers Richard

Thanks guys, I'll have more of a play with differnet set-ups tonight and report back. I definitely have a few more ideas to try after throwing the problem around with you guys today, so thanks! Cheers Richard

Hey guys, Yes - should have noted that the speaker cables/interconnects and connections were the first things I checked by swapping out cables etc... Although - I will check polarity again now that you mention it, as I know in the past I have had to reverse the polarity on my centre based on results from my AVIA test tones disc.... K1 - Yes I tried the centre using different channels on the power amp, and also connected directly to the receiver - with the same results...... I think that is the most frustrating aspect - that I can't isolate the problem...... But thanks for your ideas, one thing I need to do is run the centre on my Left or right channed and send some dialogue to the L/R speakers and look at the problem. I also have a Onkyo 875 receiver lent out to a mate - so I will get that back and At the end of the day I can get a replacement midrange driver for $300, but I would much prefer to be sure it is speaker first! Another thought that i had this morning is that my cable management is a bit of a mess behind the cabinet and I have lots of analogue cables and speaker cables scrunched in with lots of power cables........? Cheers Richard

Hi guys, Looking for some advice as I have a very frustrating problem which I can't seem to pinpoint..... Here is my main gear; Pioneer LX71 Receiver Elektra T7 Power amp Pardigm Signature v1 S4 Mains Paradigm Signature v2 C3 Centre The problem manifests itself with a strange "static" that can be heard fairly clearly through the dialogue in my centre speaker. It is especially prevalent with male vocals and gets very prominent with a pink noise test tone. The other "symptom" which may or may not be related is that I have been really struggling to get clear dialogue through my system - to the point where I have had to turn my centre channel up to +7-+10 db....... The dialogue just sounds flat and compressed... This static noise is also very evident when I am using foxtel IQ with pausing, rewinding etc. Whenever I pause - I can hear a brief pulse of static, and similarly when I start to rewind etc... I was absolutely convinced that it was a faulty centre speaker (midrange driver) and until last night I was all set to order in a new midrange driver at my own cost since the speaker is out of warranty. The "static" that I refer to is pretty similar to FM radio staitc but just very intermittent, and sounds like a buzzing fly turning on and off in amongst the dialogue.... The reasons I was convinced it was a speaker issue are due to the following actions; When playing a test tone pink noise - i can put my hand gently against the midrange driver and the static stops. I disconnected my Tweeter in the C3 and the problem remained I tried one of my S4 mains as a centre channel - I couldn't hear the same issue (although I suspected I could hear something at a much lower level but thought I must be imagining it!) I tried powering my centre from a different channel on the power amp - Same problem. So I was pretty convinced that it was the centre channel, BUT last night the issue became so annoying that I decided to turn the centre channel off in the reciever settings and run a phantom centre. The problem is that I started to detect the same issue in my main speakers!! It is definitely nowhere as bad as with my centre channel, but it is defineitely there - especially with dialogue and pausing the foxtel IQ etc. I am now wondering if there is a distorted signal coming from my receiver? I ntoe that my S4 mains have a much larger diametre midrange driver compared to the C3, so maybe the C3 is more susceptible to the distortion.... Another couple of points - I dropped the centre channel into Trevor Lees audio last week, and although he hated the design of the speaker, he couldn't hear any fault with it...... (although, I don't think he ran a test tone through it)..... Anyway - sorry for the longwinded post - but I would really appreciate anyones thoughts on how I can get to the bottom of this.... Cheers Richard

Thanks Flumpf, I am calling in to Trevor lees tomorrow morning to pick one up for myself!

First Impressions I only had an hour or so last night to try my new toy out. As per previous comments, the packaging and build quality are excellent. Blurray PQ - Right out of the box, I am VERY impressed with the Bluray PQ. A significant step up from my PS3, which I wasn't really expecting. I used my Dark Knight disc to test it out, and whilst I didn't really notice a big improvement in detail, I was very impressed with the improvement in colour reproduction. Some of the colours such as the Jokers Purple jacket and the yellow of the schoolbus was just exploding off the screen of my Pio Plasma. And I wouldn't say that the colour was unnatural at all, but just very vivid. This is all with the default settings, so I'll be interested to see what can be achieved when I start adjusting the various picture options. This improvement in PQ was not expected since most people have only noticed a very slight or no improvement in PQ compared to the previous blu-ray players. Perhaps most of them have been coming from a better player than the PS3, but I had always read that the PS3 was a pretty good player..... Anyway, stoked with the improvement DVD Upscaling - On this one, I had much higher expectations. I have been using a rotel 1060 DVD player up to now. Unfortunately, I did not notice a huge improvement..... This was strange, as this seems to the one of the more celebrated abilities of this player. However, I only had 10 mins playing T3 and maybe I need to dig into the settings a bit more.... I'll have another play tonight and report back. HD Audio - Up until now I have been using the PS3 to decode the HD audio and sending it as LPCM to my onkyo 875. According to everything I had read, this was meant to be effectively the same as bitstreaming and letting the receiver decode. As such, I have always imagined that I was hearing the benefits of HD audio and to be frank - I was underwhelmed to say the least. For whatever reason, I could never get the benefits that HD audio were meant to deliver. In fact, a lot of the time, I was pretty confident that I liked standard DTS and DD better than the HD versions! Anyway, one of my goals with the Oppo was to let the receiver do some decoding. So last night, I quickly went into the set-up menu and set the Oppo to Bitstream the audio out. To all other people who are about to receive their Oppos - please watch out as their is a real trick to this.... When I tried it, my Receiver started to recognise the signal as "DTS". This was despite the fact that the oppo was telling me I was sending Dolby TrueHD...? Turns out that there is a setting (I can't remeber which setting it is right now, but it was the setting that sits above the Audio output setting in the Oppo menu "".... mixing" or something) which stopped the oppo outputting bitstream! I turned this off, and to my delight I watched the magical "Dolby TrueHD" letters appear on my receiver! Pretty happy at this point as this was the first time I had actually seen the receiver actually validate that I was outputting HD audio - I am sure a lot of other people know what I am talking about as I hated seeing "Multi PCM" or similar on the receiver.... It always felt like a cheap knock-off of HD Audio. The even better news was that the improvements in SQ were immediate and drastic. Now, I don't know if the PS3 doesn't do a great job of decoding the HD formats, or maybe I had a setting wrong somewhere, but there is no way the LPCM I was hearing before matched what I was hearing now. This was a substantial improvement and significantly better than the compressed DD and DTS. I finally could experience the advantages of the new HD formats. Vocals were much improved and more natural. Imaging seemed a lot more discreet aswell and overall, a much more believable soundscape. I was absolutley stoked with the improvements. My one caveat on this is that it is my belief that you need to have some good equipment (speakers, amps etc) in your system to really get the most benefit and to maximise the difference between the compressed formats and the HD formats. If you have a entry level amp and speakers, then I suspec the differneces would be much more subtle. I also found this replicates my experience with my 2-channel system. It was only when I moved up the food chain of electronics and purchased equipment with enough "resolution" was I able to really notice the differences between high bit-rate MP3's and lossless formats. Other comments The GUI and set-up menu seem very well laid out and intuitive. I need to spend some more time trying out the various options to tweak the performance. Looks wise, I would just give it a 7/10. In terms of aesthetics, I would definitely prefer one of the Pioneer models which are very very nice. (on a side note, I am pretty close to purchasing a Pioneer receiver to replace my Onkyo, principally for the good looks! However, I won't be replacing the oppo!) The Oppo display is very easy to read from a seating position of 3.3 metres. The remote looks a bit tacky, but seems well laid out. My only gripe is that it doesn't seem very responsive..... have to push buttons a few times to get things moving.... Overall - VERY, VERY pleased with this purchase and look forward to hearing other GB member comments when they receive theirs. Cheers Richard

Oops - sorry guys - wrong thread....

Oops - sorry guys - wrong thread.....