Paradigm

Founder 40B Standmount Loudspeakers

USD $1,199.99 /each

Seasoned audiophiles may have heard of Canadian hi-fi manufacturer Paradigm, but perhaps not its loudspeakers. It's a long-established brand with a fine reputation, but in a crowded global speaker market has struggled to gain traction of late. This may well be about to change given that its original co-founder Scott Bagby is now back in the hot seat, rerunning the company after selling it a while back. He's obviously energetic because he also acquired the highly respected Martin Logan and Anthem brands, too!

Hence the moniker given to the new Founder range. Forty years after Paradigm launched, it has a new line-up of mid-priced speakers aimed squarely at the 'affordable audiophile' demographic. As its suffix suggests, the 40B you see here is a mid-price bookshelf design that costs $1,199.99 (each) in North America. It's a handsome, if slightly unconventional thing, complete with an unusually profiled angled cabinet that tapers in slightly at the rear; the idea is, as ever, that this reduces the amount of standing waves that you get from conventional box designs. 

Just as important as this, in my view, is that there's little in the way of empty space on the front baffle. Paradigm has squeezed the largest possible mid/bass driver onto it – it's only 152mm in diameter, but then the speaker itself measures just 197mm wide, 368mm high, and 320mm deep. Despite the small size, it weighs a hefty 11.3kg and feels very solid when you knock it with your knuckle. A 25mm magnesium/aluminium dome tweeter sits above it, with a large 135mm 'oblate spherical' waveguide.

That big tweeter waveguide, allied to the wide-diameter mid/bass, could be read as a declaration of intent – this may be a small speaker, but it wants to shift as much air as possible. This is furthered aided by a largish (for the size of the rear baffle) bass reflex port. So Paradigm knows that a speaker's job is ultimately to move air and has done its utmost to make that happen on the 40B.

The aforementioned mid/bass driver is patented by Paradigm and shares the same so-called AL-MAG material as the tweeter, albeit in cone guise, with a new type of 'Active Ridge Technology' roll surround. This is claimed to be light and stiff – just what you need for any such speaker diaphragm. This driver is mechanically decoupled from the cabinet, the idea being to take any resonance that the latter adds out of the proceedings as much as possible.

Like all the Founder series, the 40B is designed and manufactured in Canada – and overall quality is excellent, with great attention to detail in every aspect of the build. A choice of satin-finished Walnut, Black Walnut, gloss lacquered Midnight Cherry and Piano Black finish is offered. 

I found that the Founder 40B sounded best on 24” stands, about 20cm from my rear boundary wall and toed in slightly. Claimed frequency response is 69Hz to 23kHz (-2dB), which was in line with my subjective listening; this doesn't go down super low, nor would you expect it to. However, careful placement gives it a smidge of subtle bass reinforcement, resulting in a speaker that sounds bigger than it is. 

Quoted sensitivity is good for something so small at 89dB/1W/1m, but I still found that it benefited from a gutsy, solid-state amplifier; I used my classic 90W RMS Sony TA-N86B and the new Exposure 3510 power with 110W on tap – and it sang with both. Claimed power handling is 150W RMS, which is impressive for a speaker of this size. The source was a Chord Hugo TT2 DAC, fed by a Cyrus CD Xt Signature CD player and Sony Blu-ray player.

THE LISTENING

Paradigm's Founder 40B has a distinctive sound that's quite different to many British loudspeakers. To my ears, it comes over as just that bit more peppy and punchy, with a sonic character that's considerably closer to a classic JBL or Klipsch, than a Rogers or Spendor. Yet this isn't to say it's a carbon copy of USA-made designs, as it's more subtle than many Stateside speakers I've heard. It combines the aforementioned rhythmic vim and dynamic zest with a crisp and revealing midband. The result is a compact standmounter that's highly musically articulate and plenty of fun to listen to but doesn't stray too far from neutral in its presentation.

The Paradigm has many talents, but for me, the standout feature is its excellent soundstaging – it's certainly no shrinking violet that keeps the sound inside the box. Whereas the similarly priced and excellent sounding Falcon Audio M10 is a little more genteel and discreet in the way it serves up music, the Founder 40B projects whatever you're listening to out into your room with real zeal. It's as if you're up close and personal with the recording that's being played, rather than sitting back hearing it from afar.

For such a modestly sized speaker, it creates a wide and deep soundfield – one that you feel you can almost walk around. With simple female vocal music, like Kate Bush's Snowflake, for example,the close-mic'd piano backing seemed to engulf the room at anything past low listening levels. Inside the recorded acoustic, the voices of her son and then her, appeared and hung in the air in an almost ghostly way. Imaging was pin-sharp, and there was a surprising amount of depth, too – often, speakers offer wide lateral imaging or good front-to-back, but the Founder 40B does both well.

The second most striking facet is the super-crisp midband. It's not quite reference monitor level, but for its price, it does a very good job of telling you what's happening in the recording. There's little sense of the cabinet joining in the party, and the drivers themselves appear tonally well-matched and nicely integrated with one another. Dego's Nothing More Powerful is a crisp, punchy slice of new jazz, and I could easily hear the glistening harmonics issuing forth from keyboards and the super-clean female vocal sound, which was clean and etched. All the different strands of the mix were very well differentiated, as the Founder 40B pulled me into the music. 

Part of this edge-of-the-seat sensation was the Paradigm's sizzling speed; it's very fast and makes percussion sound super agile. The hardcore techno strains of Nookie's Give A Little Love proved a joy, with this speaker picking out all the filigree detail on the bass and snare drum, rim shot and hi-hat cymbal work – so vivid was it that I almost thought the song had been speeded up. At the same, it proved easy to follow each different strand of the mix, making for a surprisingly information-rich listening experience. 

This fits hand in glove with the speaker's dynamic articulation; not only does it go loud, but does so fast. This makes expressive music sound all the more exciting; for example, the experimental modern jazz strains of Lonnie Smith's Spirit's Free were quite an ear-opener. This is one of his stranger and more subtle compositions, and some hi-fi systems just don't seem able to make it work. Not so here, though, as the Founder 40B really caught the recording's atmospheric feel and emphasised Smith's soulful Hammond organ playing, plus the deft bass guitar work and sassy saxophone noodling. Never was there a sense of the music being sat upon – quite the reverse as it flowed freely with emotions riding high.

Of course, this little loudspeaker isn't perfect in every way. For example, the tweeter lacks the hear-through clarity of NEAT's similarly priced Ministra, and there's a subtle 'cuppiness' to the midband on some recordings that sometimes gives the impression of the music being beamed at the listener. Bass is enjoyably tuneful yet can seem just a little too 'well upholstered' with some music; certainly, in my room, it had a certain warmth to it that wasn't strictly accurate. This wasn't an unpleasant sensation, by the way – far from it – but again, via the aforementioned Falcon Acoustics M10, for example, the recording came over as smoother and more seamless.

THE VERDICT

There's a lot to like about this capable but quirky little loudspeaker. We all know that no speaker is perfect, so what really matters when choosing one is if the design in question tugs on the emotional heartstrings and makes music magic. That can definitely be said of Paradigm's new Founder 40B; its various strengths gel together to make for a highly enjoyable listening experience from a surprisingly compact box. So if you're looking for a charismatic standmounter at this popular price point, then do give it a listen.

For more information visit Paradigm