Woochifer
12-03-2003, 06:18 PM
Two of Soundstage's columnists posted info/reviews on the Paradigm Studio 100 v.3. Neither of them are full blown reviews, but they have some decent insights into the speakers.
Jeff Fritz's monthly column deals with 5.1 surround music, and he used a set of five Studio 100 v.3s in the ITU multichannel speaker alignment to do this month's disc evaluations. I pretty much agree with his assertions about how much of a difference the ITU alignment makes with surround music sources (although if he's reviewing surround music discs, I wonder why it took him this long to get his speakers set up in the ITU alignment, since that's the monitoring standard that recording studios use). I've tweaked with several speaker arrangements, and the ITU arrangement (see below) has given me the best overall results out of all the ones I tried.
http://www.soundstage.com/surrounded/pics/200307_itu.gif
And I agree with his general comments about horizontal center speakers and dipolar surrounds as well. But, I will add that horizontal center speakers are a necessary compromise because a TV typically sits where the center speaker would ideally go and few people out there have dedicated 5.1 systems setup exclusively for music without the TV in the middle.
Also, I think he should have at least mentioned that for systems used with both multichannel music and movies, the best alignment for the surrounds is 2'-3' above ear level. This is what Dolby recommends because it gives a good amount of diffusion of ambient effects while preserving the directional cues with movie sound effects and the imaging that you get with surround music mixes.
On the Paradigms, he basically says that the v.3 Studio 100s are ideal speakers for a surround music setup because they are full range speakers with excellent tonal characteristics.
http://www.soundstage.com/surrounded/surrounded.htm
The second column looks at the Studio 100 v.3 in the context of sound dispersion. The column has interviews with Paradigm and PSB designers and espouses the need for good off-axis response. A lot of valid information, and the column has the frequency response measurements for the Studio 100s. Very interesting because the 100s have very good off-axis response, and the overall response looks more balanced than before. With the v.2 version, I remember more of a bump in the midbass and slightly more elevated highs than what the chart shows with the v.3 version. All in all, an interesting read.
http://www.soundstage.com/gettingtechnical/pics/200312_graph1.gif
The Studio 100 v.3 on-axis frequency response and the 15, 30 degree off-axis plots.
http://www.soundstage.com/gettingtechnical/pics/200312_graph2.gif
The off-axis response at 45,60, and 75 degrees.
link to the article:
http://www.soundstage.com/gettingtechnical/gettingtechnical.htm
Jeff Fritz's monthly column deals with 5.1 surround music, and he used a set of five Studio 100 v.3s in the ITU multichannel speaker alignment to do this month's disc evaluations. I pretty much agree with his assertions about how much of a difference the ITU alignment makes with surround music sources (although if he's reviewing surround music discs, I wonder why it took him this long to get his speakers set up in the ITU alignment, since that's the monitoring standard that recording studios use). I've tweaked with several speaker arrangements, and the ITU arrangement (see below) has given me the best overall results out of all the ones I tried.
http://www.soundstage.com/surrounded/pics/200307_itu.gif
And I agree with his general comments about horizontal center speakers and dipolar surrounds as well. But, I will add that horizontal center speakers are a necessary compromise because a TV typically sits where the center speaker would ideally go and few people out there have dedicated 5.1 systems setup exclusively for music without the TV in the middle.
Also, I think he should have at least mentioned that for systems used with both multichannel music and movies, the best alignment for the surrounds is 2'-3' above ear level. This is what Dolby recommends because it gives a good amount of diffusion of ambient effects while preserving the directional cues with movie sound effects and the imaging that you get with surround music mixes.
On the Paradigms, he basically says that the v.3 Studio 100s are ideal speakers for a surround music setup because they are full range speakers with excellent tonal characteristics.
http://www.soundstage.com/surrounded/surrounded.htm
The second column looks at the Studio 100 v.3 in the context of sound dispersion. The column has interviews with Paradigm and PSB designers and espouses the need for good off-axis response. A lot of valid information, and the column has the frequency response measurements for the Studio 100s. Very interesting because the 100s have very good off-axis response, and the overall response looks more balanced than before. With the v.2 version, I remember more of a bump in the midbass and slightly more elevated highs than what the chart shows with the v.3 version. All in all, an interesting read.
http://www.soundstage.com/gettingtechnical/pics/200312_graph1.gif
The Studio 100 v.3 on-axis frequency response and the 15, 30 degree off-axis plots.
http://www.soundstage.com/gettingtechnical/pics/200312_graph2.gif
The off-axis response at 45,60, and 75 degrees.
link to the article:
http://www.soundstage.com/gettingtechnical/gettingtechnical.htm