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I spent about four hours at my local hifi shop yesterday listening to various combinations of gear from Paradigm (Signature Line), Thiel, Rotel, and Krell.
After listening to my Signature S4's at home for many hours I have picked up on a couple things I would like to improve upon with my next speakers. The first is not a fault of the S4's, but of my room (being an apartment dweller, I work with what I have). With a pair of 7" drivers, they have great low-frequency extension, but unfortunately with room gain at certain frequencies I notice a bit of bloom with tracks that have material at those problem freq's. This was a major issue I took under consideration when deciding upon my mains. I came almost to the point of a coin-flip between the S2's and S4's. My plan (as with my old home theater) was (and still is) to use equalized subs throughout those problem ranges.
The other nitpick I have is with the high-frequency response with some female vocals (especially in chorus). The first time I heard the Signatures I loved how open and airy the highs were. They also make string and brass instruments sound realistic to the point of reality rather than recording. But I just can't help the bit of edginess I notice with female vocals. Another speaker I strongly considered was the Thiel CS1.6. Technically it's a tower, but it's really a "giant" 36" tall 2-way bookshelf. This speaker to me sounded sonically perfect throughout the entire frequency range, but is very limited in it's low-frequency response having a single 6.5" mid-bass driver. However, what it can produce is as close to perfect as I have ever heard. I still prefer the S4's for their uncanny reproduction of strings & brass, but I have a pile of CD's that contain a lot of female vocals that I've noticed myself avoiding. While missing maybe 5% of that realism with strings/brass, the Thiel CS1.6's are perfect for everything else I have thrown at them. On top of that, I would also be shifting some of the low-freq responsibility to my soon-to-be subs avoiding the need to equalize my mains. They are similar in price to the Paradign S4's, and I may eventually move to 'em later this year.
Secondly, I discovered (for myself anyways) an absolutely amazing piece of gear. Being a fan of the Krell FPB Class-A amps, I've been considering a long-term plan to save up for one and pay cash. Since I was at the hifi shop, I figured that I would torture myself by listening with it for awhile. Unfortunately they sold their FPB models, so I was out of luck. But the salesman set-up some gear from the Krell KAV line. He pulled out this thin (but deep!) box from another rack and brought it over to hook with the Thiel CS1.6's. At first I thought it was just a pre-amp, but it was an integrated amp. It was a Krell KAV-400xi. My previous experience with integrated amps have been less than spectacular. They never pushed or had enough control of the bass/mid-bass, and they sounded thin... almost metallic. I kinda rolled my eyes thinking this was going to be a waste of time... until I heard it! This thing was stunning! The highs were clean just like what I get from my Rotel separates, but the midrange & mid-bass was so much more liquid, fluid, natural if you will. It wasn't "warm", it just seemed to flow effortlessly - transparent. I thought he had it hooked up to something else, so I immediately paused the material and inspected the cables. No... it was coming from that thin little box that looked like a deep digital cable box. I switched between the CS1.6's/S4's, and also played with a few different sources - the Rotel RCD-1072, Cambridge Audio 640C, and Krell SACD Standard. After fiddling and listening, I found the CS1.6's fed by the Krell SACD Standard and 400xi integrated amp to be an incredible combination.
Just for giggles, I decided to try out the KAV separates - the 280p preamp and 2250 amp fed by the SACD Standard player. Strike me down, I actually preferred the 400xi integrated amp! When I told this to the store manager, he said that (and later I further read in the stereophile review) the audio circuits are symmetrical and differentially balanced. The circuit is class-A up to the output stage, and the output is DC-coupled to the speakers. The signal path is short, from the preamp input to the speaker output. I guess the case is so deep to keep the transformer away from everything else (there is a lot of empty space inside the unit between the boards/heatsinks, and transformer). The case is made of aluminum and quite solid. Just amazing how it makes the Thiels sound. It's rated at 200W/ch, but Stereophile found that it was quite underrated, as they got 290W/ch into 8ohms. It doesn't look like it can do what it does, but to me thats an added part of the magic similar to what comes out of a good sub or the soundfield created by speakers with narrow cabinets. I will definetly be moving over to the SACD Standard player and 400xi from Krell!
I think I'm going to continue with the plan to pick up a pair of Velodyne Digital Drives soon, and then swap out my S4's for the CS1.6's and my Rotel stack for the pair of Krells.
Anyhoo, just my experience yesterday. This damn hifi hobby is addictive... always searching for that extra 1% of realism... :lol:
EDIT: A nifty gif of the KAV setups...
After listening to my Signature S4's at home for many hours I have picked up on a couple things I would like to improve upon with my next speakers. The first is not a fault of the S4's, but of my room (being an apartment dweller, I work with what I have). With a pair of 7" drivers, they have great low-frequency extension, but unfortunately with room gain at certain frequencies I notice a bit of bloom with tracks that have material at those problem freq's. This was a major issue I took under consideration when deciding upon my mains. I came almost to the point of a coin-flip between the S2's and S4's. My plan (as with my old home theater) was (and still is) to use equalized subs throughout those problem ranges.
The other nitpick I have is with the high-frequency response with some female vocals (especially in chorus). The first time I heard the Signatures I loved how open and airy the highs were. They also make string and brass instruments sound realistic to the point of reality rather than recording. But I just can't help the bit of edginess I notice with female vocals. Another speaker I strongly considered was the Thiel CS1.6. Technically it's a tower, but it's really a "giant" 36" tall 2-way bookshelf. This speaker to me sounded sonically perfect throughout the entire frequency range, but is very limited in it's low-frequency response having a single 6.5" mid-bass driver. However, what it can produce is as close to perfect as I have ever heard. I still prefer the S4's for their uncanny reproduction of strings & brass, but I have a pile of CD's that contain a lot of female vocals that I've noticed myself avoiding. While missing maybe 5% of that realism with strings/brass, the Thiel CS1.6's are perfect for everything else I have thrown at them. On top of that, I would also be shifting some of the low-freq responsibility to my soon-to-be subs avoiding the need to equalize my mains. They are similar in price to the Paradign S4's, and I may eventually move to 'em later this year.
Secondly, I discovered (for myself anyways) an absolutely amazing piece of gear. Being a fan of the Krell FPB Class-A amps, I've been considering a long-term plan to save up for one and pay cash. Since I was at the hifi shop, I figured that I would torture myself by listening with it for awhile. Unfortunately they sold their FPB models, so I was out of luck. But the salesman set-up some gear from the Krell KAV line. He pulled out this thin (but deep!) box from another rack and brought it over to hook with the Thiel CS1.6's. At first I thought it was just a pre-amp, but it was an integrated amp. It was a Krell KAV-400xi. My previous experience with integrated amps have been less than spectacular. They never pushed or had enough control of the bass/mid-bass, and they sounded thin... almost metallic. I kinda rolled my eyes thinking this was going to be a waste of time... until I heard it! This thing was stunning! The highs were clean just like what I get from my Rotel separates, but the midrange & mid-bass was so much more liquid, fluid, natural if you will. It wasn't "warm", it just seemed to flow effortlessly - transparent. I thought he had it hooked up to something else, so I immediately paused the material and inspected the cables. No... it was coming from that thin little box that looked like a deep digital cable box. I switched between the CS1.6's/S4's, and also played with a few different sources - the Rotel RCD-1072, Cambridge Audio 640C, and Krell SACD Standard. After fiddling and listening, I found the CS1.6's fed by the Krell SACD Standard and 400xi integrated amp to be an incredible combination.
Just for giggles, I decided to try out the KAV separates - the 280p preamp and 2250 amp fed by the SACD Standard player. Strike me down, I actually preferred the 400xi integrated amp! When I told this to the store manager, he said that (and later I further read in the stereophile review) the audio circuits are symmetrical and differentially balanced. The circuit is class-A up to the output stage, and the output is DC-coupled to the speakers. The signal path is short, from the preamp input to the speaker output. I guess the case is so deep to keep the transformer away from everything else (there is a lot of empty space inside the unit between the boards/heatsinks, and transformer). The case is made of aluminum and quite solid. Just amazing how it makes the Thiels sound. It's rated at 200W/ch, but Stereophile found that it was quite underrated, as they got 290W/ch into 8ohms. It doesn't look like it can do what it does, but to me thats an added part of the magic similar to what comes out of a good sub or the soundfield created by speakers with narrow cabinets. I will definetly be moving over to the SACD Standard player and 400xi from Krell!
I think I'm going to continue with the plan to pick up a pair of Velodyne Digital Drives soon, and then swap out my S4's for the CS1.6's and my Rotel stack for the pair of Krells.
Anyhoo, just my experience yesterday. This damn hifi hobby is addictive... always searching for that extra 1% of realism... :lol:
EDIT: A nifty gif of the KAV setups...
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