Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60

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JLM

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Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #20 on: 14 Oct 2015, 03:53 pm »
I bought the Emotiva DC-1 and it works well as a small DAC/pre-amp with remote (really don't have a use for the 1/8 inch headphone jacks).  It has analog and a variety of digital inputs plus XLR/RCA outputs. 

I'd double down on macrojack's idea of active speakers.  Regarding the quality of built-in amplification you get what you pay for, but the amps are picked/designed for the particular speakers (a big advantage).  And active designs offer great dynamics, flat frequency response, and surprisingly deep bass.  Small well respected (in their price range) active speakers include JBL LSR305 ($300/pair), Focal CMS 40 ($900/pair), and Neuman KH120 ($1500/pair).  Studio monitors are designed for near-field use against walls and on shelves, but do audition as they can be ruthlessly revealing and dry sounding while audiophile speakers are designed for enjoyment more than accuracy.

Any of these would make a good, compact system.  Add a sub as your taste determines.

chip

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Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #21 on: 14 Oct 2015, 04:19 pm »
Gents, thank you for all the help.

I hope to return at some point with photos of the results.

If you are looking for subs - http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=118319.msg1444995#msg1444995.

I can just sell you the amp/subs/prs?

Danny Richie

Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #22 on: 14 Oct 2015, 05:26 pm »
I'd double down on macrojack's idea of active speakers.  Regarding the quality of built-in amplification you get what you pay for, but the amps are picked/designed for the particular speakers (a big advantage).  And active designs offer great dynamics, flat frequency response, and surprisingly deep bass.  Small well respected (in their price range) active speakers include JBL LSR305 ($300/pair), Focal CMS 40 ($900/pair), and Neuman KH120 ($1500/pair).  Studio monitors are designed for near-field use against walls and on shelves, but do audition as they can be ruthlessly revealing and dry sounding while audiophile speakers are designed for enjoyment more than accuracy.

I'm not such a big fan of any of the powered monitors. I have measured and tested a lot of them and they are not nearly as accurate as you think. All of our kits are more accurate than most of them by a good margin. And the amps are little more than a small sub-woofer plate amp. Most passive versions with even budget level gear easily surpass them in sound quality. Especially now that the little chip amps have gotten so good for no money.

I got reasonable accuracy in frequency response from the Genelec 1030A and the Mackie HR824 but neather of them sounded real good.

And you're stuck with that built in amp. There is no upgrading.

Even some of the passive studio monitors are really held back by the crossover design and budget parts quality. I have upgraded a lot of them. My most popular has been an upgrade to the very popular Yamaha NS-10. I have four of five studios using our upgrades to those speakers.

bdp24

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Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #23 on: 14 Oct 2015, 07:54 pm »
Every single recording studio I've been to in the past twenty years has had NS-10's. Some still had their old Auratones as well!

Danny Richie

Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #24 on: 14 Oct 2015, 08:21 pm »
Every single recording studio I've been to in the past twenty years has had NS-10's. Some still had their old Auratones as well!

One of these days I'll post the before and after measurements on them with pictures of the upgrade. That one was really significant.

drewm

Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #25 on: 16 Oct 2015, 05:33 pm »
Keep in mind though that a stand mounted mini monitor takes up just as much floor space as a floor standing speaker. So you could go with the A/V-3 and flip flop the design to allow the transmission line to exit out the front.  That would be a big performance jump for you.

Danny had a really good point here that I want to re-emphasize, I'm not sure you'd be able to find any speakers from gr-research that are smaller than what you currently have, except for something based on the LGK driver. Most would end up with around the same footprint and size as your current floorstanders.

Folsom

Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #26 on: 16 Oct 2015, 08:16 pm »
Danny had a really good point here that I want to re-emphasize, I'm not sure you'd be able to find any speakers from gr-research that are smaller than what you currently have, except for something based on the LGK driver. Most would end up with around the same footprint and size as your current floorstanders.

Shhh don't tell the womens! Perception goes a long way. I think bookshelves on stands look nice, personally. To me most floorstanders look cheesy when they're the typical box; price and quality hardly matter. I'm not saying I wouldn't own any, but they just aren't that appealing to view.

JLM

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Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #27 on: 16 Oct 2015, 09:54 pm »
Stand-mounts:  Easier to ship, can image better, but are easier to tip over (has happened to me twice with small cats) and good stands can be expensive

Floor-standers:  no stands needed, provide deeper bass for given drivers but many locate the port at the opposite end from the drivers and don't account for the fact that they've just built a pipe, not a simple ported speaker


Danny, I'm sure you know the difference between powered and active speakers but allow me to elaborate.  Powered speakers simply allow the speaker manufacturer to choose the amp and normally mount it inside the cabinet.  Electrically they are no different than using a separate power amp.  Most use a stereo amp located in one of the speakers.  Active speakers use a low voltage crossover (that can be much more precise, even offering DSP) to feed one channel of amplification directly to each driver (the advantages of which are not insignificant).  Allowing the amp to directly "see" the simpler driver load allows for greater dynamics, flatter frequency response, and deeper/fuller bass.

Years ago I auditioned Paradigm Studio 20 v.2 ($800/pair 2-way stand-mounts) vs. Paradigm Active 20 ($1600/pair same drivers/cabinet) and it was absolutely no contest, an audio epiphany for me.  Bystanders were gobsmacked when they found out that all those dynamics/bass was coming from the Active 20 and not the Studio 100 ($2000/pair multiple driver floor-standers).  And flat frequency response can really help "make sense" of the music.

It's true that the amps in powered or active speakers aren't impressive and if installed inside the cabinet are exposed to excessive vibrations.  Blame "speaker guys" for downplaying amps and making them secondary (which IME they are).  But with active designs the simpler/direct loads from a known driver/cabinet makes the amp's job much lighter/easier, so a less impressive amp is needed.  And who should know their speaker better, the designer or the consumer?

mlundy57

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Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #28 on: 16 Oct 2015, 09:57 pm »
Shhh don't tell the womens! Perception goes a long way. I think bookshelves on stands look nice, personally. To me most floorstanders look cheesy when they're the typical box; price and quality hardly matter. I'm not saying I wouldn't own any, but they just aren't that appealing to view.

Not always, my wife likes the looks of her N3's and is game for a pair of Skinny 6's in another system as long as I finish them like I'm doing with her daughter's X-CS Encores (Ambrosia Maple with the worm holes inlaid with crushed turquoise).

Mike

Mr. Oczka

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Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #29 on: 16 Oct 2015, 10:46 pm »
Mike, I really look forward to seeing the x-cs encores with the inlaid crushed turquoise!  I would really like to try that sometime.  My kids would absolutely love something like that in their rooms!

tom

Danny Richie

Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #30 on: 16 Oct 2015, 11:39 pm »
Danny, I'm sure you know the difference between powered and active speakers but allow me to elaborate.  Powered speakers simply allow the speaker manufacturer to choose the amp and normally mount it inside the cabinet.  Electrically they are no different than using a separate power amp.  Most use a stereo amp located in one of the speakers.  Active speakers use a low voltage crossover (that can be much more precise, even offering DSP) to feed one channel of amplification directly to each driver (the advantages of which are not insignificant).  Allowing the amp to directly "see" the simpler driver load allows for greater dynamics, flatter frequency response, and deeper/fuller bass.

Actually I just participated in using "thee" best and top level digital crossover available in a comparison that allowed us to A/B the amp driving a high quality passive crossover verses a replication of the passive crossover in digital form with the same amp (plus another) driving the same drivers in the same speaker back to back.

The drivers were all planar magnetic and presented an easy drive load to the amps.

With high quality crossover parts there was no noticed difference in dynamics or bass response in any way. In fact they sounded almost identical. There was more differences in the two versions of the same DAC being used than anything.

The advantages of the digital crossover is that a multitude of slope variations can be used and there is a more precise phase correction that can be implemented.

But the passive parts in the signal path made almost zero difference compared to the same amp being connected directly to the drivers with no passive parts.

And in this case the passive parts produced a near perfectly flat frequency response that was also replicated with the digital filters. The response was the same in both cases.

Quote
Years ago I auditioned Paradigm Studio 20 v.2 ($800/pair 2-way stand-mounts) vs. Paradigm Active 20 ($1600/pair same drivers/cabinet) and it was absolutely no contest, an audio epiphany for me.  Bystanders were gobsmacked when they found out that all those dynamics/bass was coming from the Active 20 and not the Studio 100 ($2000/pair multiple driver floor-standers).  And flat frequency response can really help "make sense" of the music.

You are hearing the differences in amplification and the fact that the Studio 20 used very bargain basement priced passive components that can significantly vail everything. With higher quality crossover parts and amplification I can make the standard studio version model eat up the all active version in every way. EVERY way!

Quote
It's true that the amps in powered or active speakers aren't impressive and if installed inside the cabinet are exposed to excessive vibrations.  Blame "speaker guys" for downplaying amps and making them secondary (which IME they are).  But with active designs the simpler/direct loads from a known driver/cabinet makes the amp's job much lighter/easier, so a less impressive amp is needed.  And who should know their speaker better, the designer or the consumer?

The passive parts do not present any load problems. They can create a higher impedance rise than just the inductive rise of the drivers but that is an easier load to drive from a current demand stand point. A lower impedance load is more demanding on the amps and the crossovers do not typically cause a lower load.

drewm

Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #31 on: 16 Oct 2015, 11:46 pm »
Danny, I'm sure you know the difference between powered and active speakers but allow me to elaborate.  Powered speakers simply allow the speaker manufacturer to choose the amp and normally mount it inside the cabinet.  Electrically they are no different than using a separate power amp.  Most use a stereo amp located in one of the speakers.  Active speakers use a low voltage crossover (that can be much more precise, even offering DSP) to feed one channel of amplification directly to each driver (the advantages of which are not insignificant).  Allowing the amp to directly "see" the simpler driver load allows for greater dynamics, flatter frequency response, and deeper/fuller bass.

Years ago I auditioned Paradigm Studio 20 v.2 ($800/pair 2-way stand-mounts) vs. Paradigm Active 20 ($1600/pair same drivers/cabinet) and it was absolutely no contest, an audio epiphany for me.  Bystanders were gobsmacked when they found out that all those dynamics/bass was coming from the Active 20 and not the Studio 100 ($2000/pair multiple driver floor-standers).  And flat frequency response can really help "make sense" of the music.

It's true that the amps in powered or active speakers aren't impressive and if installed inside the cabinet are exposed to excessive vibrations.  Blame "speaker guys" for downplaying amps and making them secondary (which IME they are).  But with active designs the simpler/direct loads from a known driver/cabinet makes the amp's job much lighter/easier, so a less impressive amp is needed.  And who should know their speaker better, the designer or the consumer?

It's obvious that we're all on audiocircle because we've found through experience that all amps/crossovers/wire do not sound alike.

Everything is built to a price point and profit margin. Manufacturers substitute cheap components to save pennies a unit all the time. You can see this in the crossover network of the Paradigm 60 using crappy electrolytic capacitors on the previous page. Could they have used more expensive capacitors and inductors in their crossover creating a much better sounding speaker? Yes, but it would cost them another $5 a unit, which obviously to them was completely unacceptable on a $2500 pair of speakers. If you don't think Paradigm would do the exact same thing to a plate amp in an attempt to push the profit margin up, you'd be in for quite a shock.

Sadly after seeing things like that over and over in nearly every commercial speaker I've seen torn apart, I don't believe most commercial speaker designers being forced by management to hit 80%+ profit margins have our best interests in mind.

Folsom

Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #32 on: 17 Oct 2015, 12:39 am »
How much of a difference does phase correction make?

Danny Richie

Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #33 on: 17 Oct 2015, 01:02 am »
How much of a difference does phase correction make?

It integrated the bass response better (servo sub towers to panels) and some things in the sound stage were placed further left or right. So a little bigger sound stage.

londonbarn

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Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #34 on: 17 Oct 2015, 08:42 am »
Perfectly said Drew....

mlundy57

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Re: Smaller replacement for Paradigm Studio 60
« Reply #35 on: 17 Oct 2015, 03:19 pm »
Mike, I really look forward to seeing the x-cs encores with the inlaid crushed turquoise!  I would really like to try that sometime.  My kids would absolutely love something like that in their rooms!

tom

You can see a couple pics of them here, keep in mind you are only seeing one angle and the finish is only half done in these pictures

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=134381.msg1427258#msg1427258

Mike