Best Price/Perfomance Paradigms?
 

I am looking to upgrade my main fronts (left and right speakers, not the center.. yet..) and I have been looking online and in stores. What do you guys think the best bang for the buck paradigms? I would like to upgrade my sub in the future, and i saw the Legend's have a built in sub. If it is worth the extra money (and a couple of more months to save up), then I will just get those. I am just looking at the regular paradigms and not the reference series (im on a somewhat type budget. I am not sure if i would like bookshelf speakers, because i would have to spend extra money on the stands, and that money could probably go towards better floorstanding speakers. So I would rather have floor standing speakers.


So i guess I am really comparing the three floorstanding speakers.. the espiret, phantom, and the legend... but im not throwing out the bookshelf speakers just yet.

Stick with the ones without the sub built in. The Legend's are nice, but with the PDR-12 sub priced pretty nicely and being one damn fine sub for that amount, it's kinda defeating the Legends.

Now, I started out looking at Phantom's and a CC 270 center for my front soundstage, and ended up with Monitor 5's and a CC 370. I couldn't be happier. The Phantom's do sound damn good too. As far as floorstanding...it's not that big of a deal. A set of halfway decent stands can be had for like $40 from partsexpress.com or ebay or even circuit city or radioshack. plus, the bookshelf size speakers give you more flexibility later.

Also, I would recommend that you get the center channel with them too, and expense that now or save up a bit more to get to it, because getting them and breaking them in and having everything be matched is one of the most important things...

I understand your budget constraints. but have you listened the reference side -by-side with paradigms other offerings? And with other more expensive brands. IMHO Reference series are great speakers and a very good value. Think of it this way: When will you next buy speakers?

I will look into the monitor 5's and see how they sound. I found by looking online the monitor 5's retail is 519/pair, how much is the pdr-12? In any case, I will probably have to save up a bit more for the speakers, getting the fronts and the center at the same time. out of curiosity, what do you have for your rears?

THe PDR-12 is like $399MSRP I think...my surrounds are the dipole adp170's which are SWEET!

Here's my speaker setup in a "package deal" I got at a local dealer

CC370 Center
Monitor 5's
ADP 170's
PDR-12 Sub
Total - Right around $1500, and I got a bomb setup. All timbre matched, all wonderful.

This isn't to say that the Phantoms or the Titan's wouldn't do a great job either. I liked everything that I listened to from Paradigm, and from B&W and PSB for that matter as well. I thought I liked the tone of the sound out of the Paradigm's better, and it turned out that I was able to get the best deal on those too.

Also...these dealers have a little room to work with on these speakers with regards to price. Never pay MSRP for them. ANd often you can get a better deal with the more you buy, so if you have to deal with your current setup for another month or two to get a bit more banked for the purchase, it will end up better. My system MSRP's out to about $2k just on the speakers, and I got significantly below that even after tax.

Also, don't over extend your room. You don't want to pour a crapload into speakers more powerful than the room needs, unless you plan on moving soon. And don't forget to take the cabling cost into account too, but that's an entirely different debate...(multiple threads on this...for the record, I use sound king 12ga wire with my setup and love it- it's well priced from partsexpress.com)

Feel free to drop me a line or look me up on IM if you want to chat about it...

edited to add...

I keep hearing more and more good things about these guys. A friend from the AVS forum got a setup and is raving constantly about the sound vs. the price, but I have yet to hear them myself. Check it out - http://www.htdaudio.com/levthrespeak.html - I've gotta find a place that has these to listen to, as I'd love to set my father's house up for less than $700...and never never never count out Energy speakers...

Well I bought a whole systems second hand off of a friend from best buy. I got a yamaha 5490 receivier, 2 ns-200 xt floor speakers, center, rears, set of speaker stands for the rear speakers, a lot of monster cable (speaker cable, component cable, sub cable, etc), sw-305 sub, lcd remote, and a 5 disc cd changer for right about $1000.

I went from a kenwood htib to that, and it is a huge improvement... i was wanting some new front speakers, even though the ones i have sound good, they have almost no bass at all...

it would be fine except the sub turns itself off, even if the auto off switch is not on. so half the time im not getting almost any bass even though the sub is on, and it is really irritating. the sub is great when it works, but just sucks when it doesnt...

after upgrading the front speakers, ill probably get a new sub. I have never heard of the level 3 speakers, but it looks like a good price, which version of the 5.1 setup does your friend have?

oh, and about my room, it is a pretty small room, probably about 14x14 ft., give or take, im just taking a guess about it, cause i dont really know.

I've heard "combo y", and that's it. The level 2 speakers they sell are supposed to be damn fine as well.

Find a friend in, or take a trip to, Canada. You will save hundreds of dollars on Paradigms.