Ackk!! My Paradigm Studio 60s poduces lackluster sound! (1 Viewer)

[Dave Schofield]

With all due respect, why pick up a pair of Studio 60's when you don't have the equipment to drive them (by a long shot)? It's like buying a Porsche without the ability (or ability to learn) to drive a stick-shift car... or buying a Big Bertha Driver but using old cut up range balls...

 

[Martin Rendall]

Just to add my 2 cents to possibly refute one of Cary's claims. I have Paradigm 100's being driven by a 100 WPC yammie, and it sounds fine. Plenty of bass, at reasonable listening levels. Great soundstage, dynamics, etc, etc, etc. So I'd think that 75 WPC could drive the 60's OK.

Now having said that, I still use a subwoofer, since keeping the 100's on "small" theoretically descreases the load on the yammie, allowing for a cleaner sound in the midrange. My ears confirm this. Also, any half decent sub will outperform the 100's (or 60's) WRT bass extension.

Of course, your idea of great bass may not be the same as mine.

Good luck,

Martin.

 

[Antonio]

With all due respect, why pick up a pair of Studio 60's when you don't have the equipment to drive them

Yep, learned my lesson and am currently trying to rectify the situation.

 

[Richard Burzynski]

If budget is a concern (as it is for all of us), you can buy a used CD player from the 'Hardware For Sale' section for

 

[Greg_R]

Antonio,

There is absolutely no reason to spend $3/ft on speaker cable given your current (or future) system. Go down to Home Depot and purchase some 12 gauge lamp cord... this is more than adequate given your setup.

I have Studio 40s and can easily feel air flow in the ports. Something is either not setup correctly or broken. The Yamaha should have enough power to drive the Paradigms (at least to feel air move in the ports). I'd suggest playing some test tones on your stereo and take measurements with a Radio Shack SPL meter (what SPL do the 60s reach when playing 50Hz tones?). This will help to quantify any improvements or problems. Did you check the phase settings? Was everything correct?

 

[Mike Veroukis]

I think I'm starting to get the idea now .

I have about $700-$800 dollars to play with in terms of the receiver. I will have probably have to return/exchange the Yammie though.

Well, I'd first spend money on getting a good CD/DVD Player and THEN think about upgrading the amp. There's no doubt a better amp will driver those speakers better, but the amp that you got should still sound fairly good.

- Mike

 

[Antonio]

Yep, I am definitely going to get a cd/dvd player, about $300 to $400 for that, but I thought that I might as well get a better amp while I'm at the store.

 

[Tom_Mack]

I went through all the same worries when I first bought my system a year and a half ago. My main speakers are monitor 7s. I started out by using a Yamaha 596 receiver (probably around the same quality as your Yamaha). Upgrading the receiver to a Denon 3802 was the best upgrade I made. The Yamaha wasn't bad for movies, but it could be very nasty match with paradigm speakers for music. The music with the Yamaha was very bright and harsh. Music with the Denon is a much warmer sound. If you are not planning to upgrade the receiver in the next couple years, I would either spend the money now and get a better receiver or downgrade the speakers to the monitor line and get a better receiver. From what I have heard at the stores, a $1000 receiver with $1000 speakers sound much better than $1500 speakers with a $500 receiver.

I have to admit, when I first upgraded to the Denon, I still wasn't happy with music AT FIRST. Speaker positioning made a huge difference. I didn't believe it would at first and from your comments above I don't think that you do now, but try different positions. Just an inch or two can make BIG differences in bass responce. If you can get yourself (or borrow) a DVD player, a copy of AVIA DVD, and a radio shack SPL meter. Use the warble tones as a test and hold the meter at your listening position (ear level). I had big gaps in the bass range on both my mains and moving my speakers a few inches in each direction added the 10+ dbs that I needed in that range. It took me weeks before I had the perfect position.

Speaker wire - Go to Home Depot and get their 12 gauge wire. Its cheap and makes a huge difference over cheap, thin wire!

Is your receiver plugged into the outlet directly or through a surge protector. If you use a surge protector make sure it is of good quality. I was using a cheap surge protector for the longest time and upgrading to a $100 surge/line conditioner made the bass slightly (but noticably) cleaner and the treble less harsh. Some people may argue that the surge protector should not make a big difference, but in my case it made a very noticable difference.

Lastly, it took my ear awhile to get used to "clean" bass. Portable CD players, many car systems, and cheap boom box type systems all tend to exagerate the bass and distort it. Many people expect the exaggerated bass (I did) and when its not there, something seems wrong.

Also, Could you name a few CD titles you are listening to? Many CDs are recorded horribly and a good system really brings out the bad qualities where a cheaper system may cover up these characteristics. On the other hand a well recorded CD will sound that much better! Try a bassy CD, such as Santana's Supernatural or Harry Connick Jr's SHE. If these CDs don't have enough bass, there is something wrong with the system or you just are expecting more bass than is really there.

And do yourself a favor, don't try to compensate for the bass with the tone controls-bass boost. It will jsut ruin the sound.

Hope I was any help!

Tom

 

[Michael R Price]

The biggest thing is your room. Your speaker can be perfect but if your seating position cancels out all the bass you're in big trouble.

I have Kit281s and no one denies that they can produce HUGE bass output. But when I first set them up, there was NO bass. I confirmed this with an SPL meter - the output was ragged and dropped significantly under 100 Hz.

So I changed my room arrangement. My speakers (and me) are now a bit closer to the wall and I'm listening across the 'short way' of my room. Now the bass is much better. Except for a huge dip at 60 Hz, I have solid response down to 40Hz. In fact, the room effects I have now are mainly only caused by long, repeated cycles of sound (the standing waves take time to build up). Music doesn't have long repeated cycles of sound so the actual effect is a bit less than SPL graphs might indicate. It really sounds great now. (Playing a sine sweep, which changes in frequency so standing waves don't build up, reveals that my 'instantaneous' room bass response starts dropping off around 18-20 Hz with a little hump from 30-50Hz. Not bad.)

So, in short: I bought speakers expecting great bass and didn't get what I expected. Changing my room arrangement changed that. So before you buy new cables, or a new receiver, try changing your room placement.

 

[Antonio]

Alright here I go...
As some of you guys mentioned, I tried adjusting the placement of the speakers; a few inches closer to the wall and a bit further apart while I still had the Yamaha 630. There was a bit better bass response but I was not satisfied with the sound. Before anyone starts yelling at me for not using a proper source before doing the comparison, the sound from both (FM/Discman) was definitly lacking "something". The speakers seemed to be underpowered as well. Yes, I know garbage in = garbage out but this thin "cold" sound was definitly not what I wanted. I stopped by Best Buy to see if anything I liked was there and picked up a Monster Surge Protector/filter (I doubt it does a good job of it) for about $80. I didn't perceive much of a difference. It was hard for me to go to sleep that night.
Then came today (Saturday). I went and bought a cheap ($200) Sony 500V DVD/SACD player and gave back my Yammie for a Denon 3802. I had high hopes leaving the store because the Denon actually gave me some trouble carrying it while carrying it to the car. I hooked up the DVD player and the Denon, turned both units on, and picked up Enya (first cd on the top of the pile, not my music). Wow, just amazing. I actually spent time listening to it and I dislike her music. All the sounds were there, nice vocal, just enough "oomph" and very clear. There was finally some air movement from the ports . I quickly switched cd after cd in and all of them were a new experience. I love violin pieces on this setup, very nice. All this improvement just from the change of equipment is simply amazing. I have to agree, the Denon sounds warmer and the midrange is "full". Well built unit and is a very nice match for my speakers imo.
Oh and thats just from the Paradigm 60s, I have not setup the rest of the speakers nor the receiver itself. The remote looks a bit unfriendly but one can't ask for it all. I will have my cables done by the dealer and will bi-wire the 60s and CC. Hopefully the wire upgrade will help somewhat and I can't wait till the speakers fully break in. My el cheapo wires are about 2 millimeters in diameter (many strands though), what gauge are these? Oh and I thought about Home Depot wires but then I came across this link that had a comparison between wires and there was a picture of green home depot stuff. Anyone else have that happening to their home depot wires? I guess I'll have to play around with the positioning of the speakers again, perhaps they can sound even better.
Again I thank all who have replied and hopefully if anyone else has this problem, this thread will help them out!

 

[ChrisAG]

Glad your problems are solved... too bad you had to spend more cash for a better amp. The same thing happened to me when I upgraded my speakers.

Your experience is not a very good endorsement of the new Yamaha RX-V630 (and other brands at that level, I would guess). Even though it is rated at 75W, in that price range the internals just aren't robust enough to drive many of the better speakers out there.

The Yam would probably sound fine with Paradigm Titans, or something similar.

 

[Mike Veroukis]

Your experience is not a very good endorsement of the new Yamaha RX-V630

To be fair, it would have been nice to see what the 630 would have sounded like with a REAL CD player instead of that disc-man. I guess we'll never know now.

- Mike

 

[Rick Radford]

Check out this link for more info about improving the quality of your sound. It's a lengthy article, but good reading.
If you don't care to read the whole thing, scroll down to where Brian Florian jumps in part way down the first page. His reply references someone with the S/60 speakers and what he did to help his sound. (in short, bump up the sub from the PW2200 to the Servo-15).
HTH.
Edit: corrrected link (Matt.. you beat me to it as I was in the process of correcting... one of the limitations of using the quick reply vs the std reply.. you can't preview!)

 

[Matt Meyer]

Um...broken link I think.

Matt

 

[Antonio]

Your experience is not a very good endorsement of the new Yamaha RX-V630

I'm not putting down the Yamaha (sorry if it did appear like if I was) but I did feel as if the it needed a bit more to push at higher volumes. Build quality wasn't bad, actually quite nice, knobs/buttons felt sturdy, weighed about 25 lbs I think, and it was very easy to setup. Nice manual but the remote leaves something to be desired but for ~$400 who can complain.