Paradigm Studio

[jimmmy]

Hey fellas

As some of you may know I am looking for a pair of speakers at the moment in the 6k range and have allowed a little fat either side. If the difference is worth it I could stretch the budget to 10k or so. But it would obviously have to be worth it.

Anyway I am demoing a pair at home this weekend and am trying to organise a pair of Elac 209As aswell for a comparison as they are one of my favs so far and are 7.5k rrp.

I am also trying to get a listen to the Paradigm Studio 100 series of speakers. They seem to be well reviewed and are regarded as fairly neutral speakers judging by most reviews.

I was wondering if anyone here has heard them and their matching centre and what their impressions were?

I am also trying to track down a place in Sydney (north shore) where I can listen to them. At the moment it looks like Eastwood hifi is the closest (not exactly close though). Anyone know of other places?

One option is to listen to them in Canberra when I pop home again to visit the family as Duratone is the importer and has been selling them for longer than I have been alive I think. smile.gif

I am also considering visiting Len Wallis and trying their Focal range. I think someone here was recently talking about some they were listening to which sounded nice and were under 10k.

Anyway if anyone has any opinions that would be great.

At present I will be using them with an Elektra theatron and NAD receiver as the pre which will be updated soonish for something better suited to 2 channel work. Ditto for cd player but want to sort speakers first.

the speakers will be used for HT aswell as Hifi and split about 50/50.

Room is about 6 x 5 x 3m, wood floors, masonry walls and pretty closed in. Glass doors/windows on rear wall behind listener.

Musical tastes are very varied and range from classical to pop to 70s rock to everything in between. Don't really listen to jaz or hip hop kinda stuff.

thanx heaps guys for any views.

cheers

James

[gavincato]

hi james,

I have the Studio 100's and like them very much - I also have studio 20's as rears, the matching centre (cc-470 from memory) and the ultracube 12 sub.

To me, and all my mates at least - it's an awesome setup. I bought it from eastwood hi fi.

Hey fellas

As some of you may know I am looking for a pair of speakers at the moment in the 6k range and have allowed a little fat either side. If the difference is worth it I could stretch the budget to 10k or so. But it would obviously have to be worth it.

Anyway I am demoing a pair at home this weekend and am trying to organise a pair of Elac 209As aswell for a comparison as they are one of my favs so far and are 7.5k rrp.

I am also trying to get a listen to the Paradigm Studio 100 series of speakers. They seem to be well reviewed and are regarded as fairly neutral speakers judging by most reviews.

I was wondering if anyone here has heard them and their matching centre and what their impressions were?

I am also trying to track down a place in Sydney (north shore) where I can listen to them. At the moment it looks like Eastwood hifi is the closest (not exactly close though). Anyone know of other places?

One option is to listen to them in Canberra when I pop home again to visit the family as Duratone is the importer and has been selling them for longer than I have been alive I think. smile.gif

I am also considering visiting Len Wallis and trying their Focal range. I think someone here was recently talking about some they were listening to which sounded nice and were under 10k.

Anyway if anyone has any opinions that would be great.

At present I will be using them with an Elektra theatron and NAD receiver as the pre which will be updated soonish for something better suited to 2 channel work. Ditto for cd player but want to sort speakers first.

the speakers will be used for HT aswell as Hifi and split about 50/50.

Room is about 6 x 5 x 3m, wood floors, masonry walls and pretty closed in. Glass doors/windows on rear wall behind listener.

Musical tastes are very varied and range from classical to pop to 70s rock to everything in between. Don't really listen to jaz or hip hop kinda stuff.

thanx heaps guys for any views.

cheers

James

[50mxe20]

Don't know if these paradigm links are of help?

and Focal 1027be Hmmm

[ChrisR1]

James,

I have Studio 40's which I bought from Steve at Eastwood Hi Fi and find them to be fabulous speakers for the money. As the 40's share the same tweeter/mid driver as the 100's I can say that they have fantastic mid range and top end performance, with good bass give the single driver and size of the cabinet.

To me its mids are punchy and defined, the highs clear and balanced (Dido and the like sounds amazing on them compared to the old boxes I had) - not hard to listen to at volume at all. Mine are driven from a Yamaha RXV-4600 amp and for me the Yamaha YST-1500 sub fills out the bottom end nicely.

I heard the Studio 100's while at Eastwood and the extra bass drivers and cabinet size lets them get much lower than the 40's - they are a great speaker that gets praised for delivering performance well above their price. I don't think you would be disappointed with them and the guys at Eastwood I found great to deal with.

The matching centre is either the CC-470 or CC-570 - both sounded great when I listed (though I couldn't pick much difference between them myself), though I went with a CC-370 as the Studio CC's were too tall for the space I had. Can't say I'm disappointed with it as in our smallish room it sounds great. All up, I've become quite a fan of the PAradigm stuff!

Chris

[PositivelyMusicallyGeared]

ChrisR1

As an initial suggestion, make sure you have done your home work about every product you are going to audition. Keep in mind that the shops are first and foremost businesses that want your money. And businesses use tricks.

Please share your experience of auditioning and I think everybody

will appreciate it.

J.

[ChrisR1]

J.

I'm not new at this mate. I can assure you I did plenty of research before buying any of the gear I have now. And as someone who is in sales (as an Account Manager for quite a few years) I think I know most sales techniques now (anyone who knows what SPIN selling is will understand..)

The wife and I had worked out a budget (she's become quite the AV fan and lets me indulge) and tripped around to stores for a month or two before any purchases were made. For the speakers the audition included as many speakers in my price range I could find in Brisbane - Paradigm, B&W 600 series, Aarons, JBL and a few others above and below my price range to provide reference. Likewise the sub where I looked at Richter, Yamaha, Mirage, B&W, Velodyne (both too expensive) and others.

As I'm in Sydney often I went to Eastwood while there to have a better listen to the Paradigms as there aren't so many models stocked in Brisbane. In the end I bought from them as I really loved the sound of the 40's, the price offerred was well better than anyone in Brisbane would do (it was very good) and their service was great.

Moving gear around was never too much trouble, they let me stay and change CD's/DVD's and listen as often as I wanted for as long as I wanted and put no pressure on me to commit. Also, I had previous experience with them when I bought the receiver on runout (at $2K nothing else I listened to came close). They shipped the gear to Brisbane for me.

The service I got there was chalk and cheese to the treatment I got at some of the specialist audio stores in Brisbane, so my auditioning experience where I bought the Paradigms was great!

Not sure what else you want to know, but without trying to be rude I think your suggestion was based on an assumption of my buying acumen that is a bit wide of the mark.

Chris

[PositivelyMusicallyGeared]

Chris,

Sorry, I was addressing incorrectly; I meant to address Jimmy instead, for he was the one asking for help. Very sorry for the confusion.

I am glad you had good service at Eastwood. I almost bought some speakers there as well, but the outcome was that I feel I may never go back there again.

J

[betty boop]

love my studio ref cc570

[jimmmy]

ChrisR1

As an initial suggestion, make sure you have done your home work about every product you are going to audition. Keep in mind that the shops are first and foremost businesses that want your money. And businesses use tricks.

Please share your experience of auditioning and I think everybody

will appreciate it.

J.

I wont bother replying to the first paragraph except to say it all goes without saying.

I will of course share my experiences on the audition process. I just had the opportunity to listen to Aslan Minstrals in my homes over the weekend and have spent many hours listening to Osborn loudspeakers aswell as Elac 208s and 209s. I want to cover all bases as the money I am looking at spending on speakers alone is not really small. Steve at Eastwood would not allow me a home demo of the speakers so I will head out there early this week and listen to them in the shop. Hopefully the minstrals will still be fresh in my mind.

cheers

James

hi james,

I have the Studio 100's and like them very much - I also have studio 20's as rears, the matching centre (cc-470 from memory) and the ultracube 12 sub.

To me, and all my mates at least - it's an awesome setup. I bought it from eastwood hi fi.

Hey mate

thankyou for the reply.

what else did you listen to before decided on these?

Can you tell me more about your system? tastes in music?

where abouts in Sydney are you?

cheers

James

James,

I have Studio 40's which I bought from Steve at Eastwood Hi Fi and find them to be fabulous speakers for the money. As the 40's share the same tweeter/mid driver as the 100's I can say that they have fantastic mid range and top end performance, with good bass give the single driver and size of the cabinet.

To me its mids are punchy and defined, the highs clear and balanced (Dido and the like sounds amazing on them compared to the old boxes I had) - not hard to listen to at volume at all. Mine are driven from a Yamaha RXV-4600 amp and for me the Yamaha YST-1500 sub fills out the bottom end nicely.

I heard the Studio 100's while at Eastwood and the extra bass drivers and cabinet size lets them get much lower than the 40's - they are a great speaker that gets praised for delivering performance well above their price. I don't think you would be disappointed with them and the guys at Eastwood I found great to deal with.

The matching centre is either the CC-470 or CC-570 - both sounded great when I listed (though I couldn't pick much difference between them myself), though I went with a CC-370 as the Studio CC's were too tall for the space I had. Can't say I'm disappointed with it as in our smallish room it sounds great. All up, I've become quite a fan of the PAradigm stuff!

Chris

Chris

thank you very much for a detailed reply.

I take it you grabbed the amp from Eastwood as well as the speakers?

I aim to get out there this week for a listen

What else did you compare before settling on the paradigms?

sounds like you are very happy which is the best result you can ask for.

cheers

James

[ChrisR1]

Chris

thank you very much for a detailed reply.

I take it you grabbed the amp from Eastwood as well as the speakers?

I aim to get out there this week for a listen

What else did you compare before settling on the paradigms?

sounds like you are very happy which is the best result you can ask for.

cheers

James

Hi James,

I had actually bought the amp from Eastwood quite some time before the speakers. I had been wanting to update the older Sony receiver I had for a while and had listened locally to the Yamaha RVX-1500 and 2500's as well as a couple of Denon's and HK's. When I saw the 4600 at half its usual price (it was on clearance) I jumped at it as the about to be released 2600's video scaling didn't interest me.

As I mentioned we also listened to B&W's 600 series, Aaron ATS's, Krix, Mirage, JBL and a couple of others - the choice in Brisvegas isn't as good as Sydney though. Also took a listen to some Paradigm Monitors (7, 9 and 11), and some of the top end Yamaha HX range (too bright). Though they were WAY out of our price range Eastwood also let us listen to the Signature S8's to compare a high end speaker - stunning but at 10 grand way more than I could spend!

We settled on the 40's as they were in the budget and the quality of the mid and upper frequency performance blew me away for the money - they were noticeably better than the Monitors (which were pretty good for the money), way ahead of the Aarons and to my ear at least well better than B&W's 600 series. The reviews I checked out seemed to support the fact that the Paradigms really do perform above their price range.

As I said, the 40's don't go as low and loud as the 100's, but we didn't really need the bass of the 100's as the Yammie Sub fills it out nicely and our room isn't really big enough to need high volume - the 40's punch out plenty of sound.

Yes, it's true to say I'm very happy with them!

Cheers,

Chris

Chris,

Sorry, I was addressing incorrectly; I meant to address Jimmy instead, for he was the one asking for help. Very sorry for the confusion.

I am glad you had good service at Eastwood. I almost bought some speakers there as well, but the outcome was that I feel I may never go back there again.

J

No problem J - no offence taken.

Sorry that you seemed to have had a bad experience at Eastwood. I have to say all my dealings with them have been excellent - much better than the dismissive service I got at a couple of places in Brisbane.

Chris

[gavincato]

hey,

I listened to b&w, equinox, vaf, monitor audio, and a couple of others I can't remember.

I more bought the system for movies. I'm in sutherland shire.

Hey mate

thankyou for the reply.

what else did you listen to before decided on these?

Can you tell me more about your system? tastes in music?

where abouts in Sydney are you?

cheers