Exactly what did I buy? (Paradigm question)

[slmcdonald7]

Hi all,
Recently I purchased a pair of the Paradigm Monitor 11's. When I listened to them in the store, they sounded great, and IMO, they still do. However, their 3 bass drivers make them look like they would put out absolutely thunderous sound, which is not exactly the case. I have them bi-amped with the Denon 3805, so they should be getting plenty of power, but those bass drivers don't give me the response I would expect by looking.

I know this is a rather ignorant question, but if not for bass, what are these bass drivers supposed to produce? They're functioning properly, so that's not the problem, they just put out a very tepid low end response. The Monitor 9's have a lower frequency extension (8" woofers as opposed to 6-1/2" on the 11's), so what exactly did I pay for by getting the 11's? I like the "punchier" sound I get from the smaller diameter drivers (which is why I didn't go with the 9's), but could someone please explain what these bass drivers are supposed to add to the sound I get from these speakers? With a sub, my system sounds great, but, did I waste my money by not just going with the 7's? I am afraid of the answer to this question, but I will pose it none-the-less.

Any and all input is apprecieated.

-Stephen

[N. Abstentia]

Sounds like you have them wired out of phase, check your wiring.

[slmcdonald7]

I am a novice at all things technical. Could you explain to me what it means that I have them wired out of phase and how I could correct this?

Thanks,
Stephen

[N. Abstentia]

Make 100% sure you have all the + speaker wires going to the + speaker terminals, and all the - speaker wires going to the - terminals. Swapping one of them will cause what you're describing.

[slmcdonald7]

N.Abstentia (great name by the way),

I am 100% sure that my wiring is correct (I just double checked it). Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Stephen

[N. Abstentia]

Well the low freqency extention of the Monitor 7, 9, and 11 are all within 2 db of each other so you probably won't hear a difference in that aspect. The Monitor 11's handle quite a bit more power and sound much more dynamic than the 9's or 7's because the mid driver is not having to do all the bass duties.

Now when you say they don't produce thuderous bass, what exactly do you mean? Keep in mind that they will never come close to doing what a dedicated powered subwoofer can do, you won't get that from any floorstander powered by a receiver. You should be getting some nice tight bass, especially in drum heavy music. What exactly are you playing that does not sound right?

[topspeed]

Hi all,
Recently I purchased a pair of the Paradigm Monitor 11's. When I listened to them in the store, they sounded great, and IMO, they still do. However, their 3 bass drivers make them look like they would put out absolutely thunderous sound, which is not exactly the case. I have them bi-amped with the Denon 3805, so they should be getting plenty of power, but those bass drivers don't give me the response I would expect by looking.
Welcome to the wonderful world of room acoustics. Your room (as opposed to the dealer's) could very well have some weird nodes that are simply working against you right now. Check your placement and tweak that a bit. You can get some bass reinforcement by simply moving your speakers closer to the corners. The downside is you may also get some boominess. Look around and see how your furnishings are set up. If you'd like some ideas about room acoustics and treatments, just do a search on this site and you'll get all you need.

Hope this helps.

[slmcdonald7]

My listening habits:
Exclusively two channel stereo. I watch some movies, but haven't bothered to hook up surround speakers.
I listen to a little of everything (sans country). That being said...

I don't expect subwoofer level bass, but when I run these without a sub, I listen to them and think "wow, these sound WAY smaller than they look". The highs and mids are great, but those bass drivers don't put out any really noticeable sound. I have taken off the grills and put my ear up to the bass drivers and felt them to make sure they were actually working more times than I would like to admit. This dissapointing sound is consistent, regardless of what type of music I am playing. I ran a pair of Paradigm Phantoms (v.3)before these, and the bass put out by those is comperable to what I am getting from my 11's. At your suggestion, I just listened to a very drum heavy track (one of Jimmy Chamberlin's finest) without the sub on, and had to turn it off because it sounded so bad. The bass is not tight and dynamic, it's not even there.
I have adjusted and readjusted every conceiveable setting on my 3805 to try and rectify the problem. Using the main fronts and surround A outputs to bi-amp, I have set both speaker settings to small or large, manually tinkered with the eq, and changed the db output countless times, and nothing helps.
I feel like a f***ing idiot for not just buying the Studio 40's, but since I am stuck with these I just wish I could listen to them and not feel dissapointed.
If I were to switch the + and - wires for the bass drivers on the back of the speakers (just to try something new), would I run the risk of hurting them?
Any other ideas?

Topspeed:
Good idea, and I would move my speakers and furniture around in a heartbeat if I hadn't had my Phantoms set up in the exact same position without running into this probelm. Thanks all the same though...

So, do my speakers just suck?

Thanks for your help,
Stephen

[BillB]

Be patient and take the time to experiment with placement as suggested, it can yield huge dividends.

You can also try taking a frequency response sweep with a Radio Shack sound level meter and a good test CD like Rives Audio's Test CD 2. Set your fronts to LARGE, SUB to NO and see just how low they're playing.

It could very well be that your sub is juiced a bit high and you're used to it's bass. While they're not going to go down as low as a good sub they shouldn't sound like a pair of tandmount speakers either.

If you're accustomed to boomy bass like that found in the car stereo world it will take some time to adjust to flatter more accurate bass.

Bill

[N. Abstentia]

It really sounds like they are out of phase.

Also, you say you are using the A outputs and a surround output to bi-amp? Not sure if that's the best thing to do, as it's all the same amp anyway. Keep in mind that whatever is hooked to your surround output will probably have all bass frequencies cut, I'm assuming that goes to the mid/tweet section.

I would wire them just straight to the A channel and see how that works. You can't truly bi-amp with a receiver anyway.

[topspeed]

You can't truly bi-amp with a receiver anyway.
You can, it's just an amazing waste of time. There was a huge debate over on avsforum regarding this exact topic: biamping using the 3805. Some website was extolling the virtues of this technique and obviously confusing it with bridging. Kal Rubinson and others (including yours truly) argued the difference would likely be inaudible if not detrimental. Besides the fact that you are using the same power supply (Congratulations! You just reduced the effective power of each channel being driven :rolleyes: ), the only time bi-amping makes any sense is if you are using different amps for each section, usually ss for the bass and tubes for the mids/highs. Using the same amp for both? Uhh, OK. Whatever makes you happy I 'spose.

[N. Abstentia]

Yeah that's what I meant by not 'truly' biamping. If you're not using two seperate amps (or a dual mono in one chassis) then you're not bi-amping. Besides, one big reason to bi-amp is to bypass the crippled amp in a receiver..so like you said it's a colossal waste of time. Plus without using an electronic crossover and bypassing the passive crossovers, I don't feel it worth it.

[slmcdonald7]

I really, really don't want to get into a debate about whether one can effectively bi-amp the 3805 (Denon tech support said "yes" when I called them, other very knowledgable people say no... the fact is that people who know way more than I do about this are undecided, so I won't assert my opinion one way or the other :) ).

Even if bi-amping isn't helping me any, it can't be hurting my system to the point where it is would cause my bass drivers to sound like crap right?

How should my bass drivers sound? They should provide some type of noticeable bottom end right? It's not that I'm used to some ghetto-fied super sub-ed out car system (it's stock, I promise), I just think that these should be providing me with some sort of balanced sound, but they aren't. So, what exactly are these bass drivers supposed to do? Did I just waste my money on a pair of speakers that look like they should sound provide punchy bass, but are too busy sounding like crap to do so?

[N. Abstentia]

Well you said it yourself, they sounded phenomenal in the store. So what's different about the store and your house? Room acoustics, equipment, wiring. It's got to be one of those.

Do the 11's actually produce LESS bass than the Phantoms? I wouldn't expect them to do more, but they should not do less.

Did you undo the 'bi-amp' stuff and just hook them straight to your A channel?

[topspeed]

Even if bi-amping isn't helping me any, it can't be hurting my system to the point where it is would cause my bass drivers to sound like crap right? Technically, you're right. Have you tried N's suggestion of running the speakers with only the "A" channels? Don't forget to replace your jumpers. See what happens then.


How should my bass drivers sound? They should provide some type of noticeable bottom end right? It's not that I'm used to some ghetto-fied super sub-ed out car system (it's stock, I promise), I just think that these should be providing me with some sort of balanced sound, but they aren't. So, what exactly are these bass drivers supposed to do? Did I just waste my money on a pair of speakers that look like they should sound provide punchy bass, but are too busy sounding like crap to do so? Look, my Missions have dual 8" woofers and still won't blow you out the door with bass. I have no idea how your speakers are suppossed to sound in your room. If you're sure you have a problem, have you considered having your dealer lend you another pair just to make sure it's not your speakers? If it's not the speakers and it's not the amp, have you checked your settings on you source player? If all else fails, return 'em. If you can't, chalk it up as a life lesson and next time, try to do a home demo.

[This Guy]

umm, maybe the speakers are still set a small when you turn the sub off. Make sure they're set as "large" when you're not using the sub.

[ToddB]

Two questions:

Does your dealer have a return period, and have you exceeded it, even if it's only for a trade to another model?

Can you guesstimate how many hours of playing time you have on the Monitor 11?

[cam]

To your original question, To me you wasted your money on the 11's. I auditioned all the monitors and I ended up buying the 7's. It would have been $200 more for the 9's and another $200 more for the 11's. All three of these speakers are within a couple of db's so you can see the waste of money you are wasting on the 9's or 11's over the 7's. If you were not going to stop at the 7's your money would have been better spent on the studio 20's or 40's. Now all five of these speakers I have mentioned are going to have to be complimented with a sub anyways so you can see that the 9's and 11's are not worth the extra $. This does not mean the 9's and 11's are no good, it just means that they are not worth the extra $. When I broke my speakers in, about the 5-10 hour mark the woofers really started thumping lower and lower. I even tricked my wife into thinking the sub was on when it wasn't. My 7's hit low but for my tastes, not low enough. I need my sub on aswell. In the past I have taken paradigm speakers back and I had no problem getting my money back. I went 6.1 once so I got a center rear, I did not like it so I returned them and got two center rear speakers, I did not like that either so they gave me my money back. But also I have bought alot of paradigms in the past so I do get treated good. I know of the bi-amping feature on your 3805 but just so you know that something isn't wired backwards, just hook them up directly the normal way and also do not bi-wire either. Make sure you put your jumpers back on. If they don't start to pound and you have fiddled with the placement, I would take them back and tell them you are very dissapointed with the bass performence and you would like to get the 7's, 20's or 40's. With the 20's and 40's you will have the added cost of stands. When you do listen to the 11's again make sure you listen to them in pure direct.

[Jimmy C]

Hi all,
Recently I purchased a pair of the Paradigm Monitor 11's. When I listened to them in the store, they sounded great, and IMO, they still do. However, their 3 bass drivers make them look like they would put out absolutely thunderous sound, which is not exactly the case. I have them bi-amped with the Denon 3805, so they should be getting plenty of power, but those bass drivers don't give me the response I would expect by looking.

I know this is a rather ignorant question, but if not for bass, what are these bass drivers supposed to produce? They're functioning properly, so that's not the problem, they just put out a very tepid low end response. The Monitor 9's have a lower frequency extension (8" woofers as opposed to 6-1/2" on the 11's), so what exactly did I pay for by getting the 11's? I like the "punchier" sound I get from the smaller diameter drivers (which is why I didn't go with the 9's), but could someone please explain what these bass drivers are supposed to add to the sound I get from these speakers? With a sub, my system sounds great, but, did I waste my money by not just going with the 7's? I am afraid of the answer to this question, but I will pose it none-the-less.

Any and all input is apprecieated.

-Stephen

...went with a pair of Monitor 11s. We listened to a few other stand-mounts and floor-standers in the sub-$1K range, but he's a bit of a "horsepower" or "numbers" kinda guy... if you get the idea. What are you getting over the 7s or 9s? A Hell of a lot tighter bass. Side-by-side in the store, there is no comparison. DEEPER? Probably not too much.

You are also getting a dedicated midrange (instead of a 2 or 2.5-way... forgot which). This isn't always beneficial, but his set-up sounds decent with a V.P.I. Scout/Grado Platinum or cheap Sony CDP >> Rotel's new pre >> pr. of Dynaco tubed monoblocks or monster Rotel amp. You might also consider the amount of room between your listening position and the speakers... that's a lotta drivers to gel. Tell ya what... the Dyns don't have the Rotel's 380 WPC, but they sound pretty damn good! Amazing - I told him... the Paradigms are efficient! Ah, well... whatever...

I have a pair of Studio 60s, and I don't think his bass is any deeper... it MIGHT be, but I can "feel" mine as much as his. To be fair, my room is smaller (bedroom vs. his livingroom).

Well, hopefully you can work it out... as others have said, play with positioning. The 11s definitely don't dig TOO deep, but you should feel at least "satisfied" in the bass department.

Good luck, and let the forum know what transpires!

[Geoffcin]

I am a novice at all things technical. Could you explain to me what it means that I have them wired out of phase and how I could correct this?

Thanks,
Stephen

And start from scratch. You want to make absolutely sure that the problem isn't something simple. Check you speaker cables for polarity, and that they haven't been pinched in any way. Set the speakers up with one wire, save biwiring for later. Make sure the jumper is correctly placed, and everything has good contact.

A question;

Are these the EXACT speakers you heard? If so, are you sure that there wasn't any bass boost used when they were demoed? If not, then they could be defective, although that possibility is very slim.

Another possibility is that your used to a speaker with a "mid-bass hump" These speakers (and there are a lot of them) have a boost in the 80-120hz range. This gives a false feeling of "good bass" even though the speakers response in the 25-60hz range may be nonexistent. Accurate speakers do not sound bass heavy, even though they may be capable of huge quantities of it.

That being said, it sounds like these speakers might not be your cup-o-tea. If so, see if your dealer will give you credit toward another pair of different ones.

Good luck!

[slmcdonald7]

Thank you all for the fantastic input. :D

With all of the questions posed, forgive me if I don't answer them all...

Later this week, when I have more time, I will disconnect everything and start from scratch. Knowing me, it's very likely something got screwed up in my excited haste to hook up my new system :rolleyes: . Good advice.

As far as break-in time is concerned, I can say with absolute certainty that these have gotten well over 60 to 100 hours of use since I bought them a few weeks ago, so I don't think that this is an issue in my case.

I will check on dealer return policies, but I will give these one more go before giving up. The nearest (decent) audio store is about an hour and a half away, so it's a bit of a time committment to get down there, thus (unfortunately) demo-ing speakers is impossible.

In my frustration, I may have exaggerated the comparison on bass output with my Phantoms just a little. I doubt that the 11's put out less bass, but by looking one might think that they should put out more. I suppose that you can't judge a speaker by how it looks though :) . However, it could be that they created false impression of bass with the 'mid bass hump' (what an interesting idea). All the same, my initial representation was a little inaccurate.

Oh... and "ThisGuy", if you had posted just 11 minutes later, it would have been much fitting ;)

[N. Abstentia]

Yeah the multiple drivers are there to provide accuracy and loudness, not depth. You've now got 6 woofers each working at a fraction of their capability instead of 2 woofers working near their physical limit. You also have dedicated mids instead of trying to make the woofers produce bass and midrange all at the same time. If you'll notice, the entire range of floorstanders have about the same low frequency limit. But the 11's will do it cleaner and allow you to play them louder because of mulitple drivers.

[slmcdonald7]

Very well put. That answers my original question of what exactly my bass drivers should be doing. Thanks.

[cam]

Yeah the multiple drivers are there to provide accuracy and loudness, not depth. You've now got 6 woofers each working at a fraction of their capability instead of 2 woofers working near their physical limit. You also have dedicated mids instead of trying to make the woofers produce bass and midrange all at the same time. If you'll notice, the entire range of floorstanders have about the same low frequency limit. But the 11's will do it cleaner and allow you to play them louder because of mulitple drivers.
I agree if you are listening to 2-channel music full range. But there is absolutely no advantage having the 11's, crossd over at 80hz, over the 7's or 9's in a home theater system. And I think you are wrong about the dedicated midrange woofer with the 11's. I believe it to is a 2.5 way set up. You maybe mistaking it for the 100's.

[Motoracer5]

the 11's are far more transparent(at least to my ears) than the rest of the monitor series. Maybe try a dedicated power apm (Adcom, Rotel, ATI) or something similar. The recievers dont seems to have the balls to contol the 11's. a good CDP can help too

[RGA]

More drivers and bigger drivers don't necessarily add up to more bass. It is not unheard of - in fact it is usually the case for me - that the flagship "so-called" speaker in a given companies line-up is usually not the best speaker in that line-up sound wise. The AN E - the bigger brother to my speaker puts out more bass depth than ANY Paradigm speaker currently sold and has just one 8 inch driver - and what is more fascinating is that even with Bass heavy music at high volume level you won't see the woofer move much if at all. Read this for a discussion about some bass issues http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=speakers&n=170755&review=1

By the way I liked the Monitor 9 from the little i heard of it much more than the 5 or the 7. They are a weird company who seems to be very hit an miss - kind of reminds me a bit of Rotel.

Nothing is perfect - but if you absolutely end up having to buy a sub - then I would go with the Monitor 3 and add on the sub - that is if you must stay with paradigm. Also why not look at some used speakers - perhaps your dealer might have somthing you might find impressive - the Dynaudio Audience 82 if i was to look at a sanely priced Floorstander that sounds quite good would be my pick and should not really need a sub either.

[Woochifer]

More drivers and bigger drivers don't necessarily add up to more bass. It is not unheard of - in fact it is usually the case for me - that the flagship "so-called" speaker in a given companies line-up is usually not the best speaker in that line-up sound wise. The AN E - the bigger brother to my speaker puts out more bass depth than ANY Paradigm speaker currently sold and has just one 8 inch driver - and what is more fascinating is that even with Bass heavy music at high volume level you won't see the woofer move much if at all. Read this for a discussion about some bass issues http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.pl?forum=speakers&n=170755&review=1

Was this comparison done in the same room with both speakers in the same position? You've always said that the ANs are designed for corner placement, which of course will give a substantially different in-room response in the low frequencies than a speaker placed midway along the front wall. Corner placement maximizes bass reinforcement, but it's also the least consistent in terms of how even and balanced the bass sounds. Unless all of your comparisons were done with all the speakers in the corner, or all midway along the front wall, then you cannot say that the AN puts out more "bass depth" than ANY Paradigm speaker.

Also, the lack of woofer movement has absolutely NOTHING to do with the performance or bass extension, if you know how ported speakers actually work. As you get closer to the tuned port frequency, the drivers actually move LESS because back pressure from the enclosure gets completely released through the port at the tuned frequency. If the sound is below the tuned frequency, then the cone movement is extreme (this is typically referrred to as "unloading") and totally uncontrolled because the back pressure that dampens the cone movement above the tuned frequency is no longer there. If you don't ever see the cone move on a ported speaker then either your source material does not have bass notes that go below the tuned frequency, or the speaker has a subsonic filter built into the crossover. A woofer that does not move is not some sign of superior design or even anything unusual, it's just something that occurs with ALL ported speakers as the sound gets close to the tuned frequency.

[Woochifer]

Thank you all for the fantastic input. :D

With all of the questions posed, forgive me if I don't answer them all...

Later this week, when I have more time, I will disconnect everything and start from scratch. Knowing me, it's very likely something got screwed up in my excited haste to hook up my new system :rolleyes: . Good advice.

As far as break-in time is concerned, I can say with absolute certainty that these have gotten well over 60 to 100 hours of use since I bought them a few weeks ago, so I don't think that this is an issue in my case.

I will check on dealer return policies, but I will give these one more go before giving up. The nearest (decent) audio store is about an hour and a half away, so it's a bit of a time committment to get down there, thus (unfortunately) demo-ing speakers is impossible.

In my frustration, I may have exaggerated the comparison on bass output with my Phantoms just a little. I doubt that the 11's put out less bass, but by looking one might think that they should put out more. I suppose that you can't judge a speaker by how it looks though :) . However, it could be that they created false impression of bass with the 'mid bass hump' (what an interesting idea). All the same, my initial representation was a little inaccurate.

Oh... and "ThisGuy", if you had posted just 11 minutes later, it would have been much fitting ;)


As ts, Jimmy, N and the others have pointed out, the reason to go with muliple drivers like with the Monitor 11 is to help the MIDRANGE and the bass QUALITY. I've always made a point of telling people that the reason to get a subwoofer does not necessarily have to do with the bass extension but with improving the midrange. Low frequencies are the most physically taxing sounds to reproduce, and with drivers that have to do double duty with the midrange, removing some of the extreme lows from their chores really helps with the midrange.

Both the Monitor 11 and Phantom are ported speakers, and their low end extension is dictated by the tuned port frequency. In ported speakers, once you go below that frequency then the drop occurs very quickly. Very often, speaker designers will make up for a speaker that does not go quite as low by voicing their speakers with a rise in the midbass. As N pointed out, you might not be used to hearing a speaker that does not have this.

Also, the room acoustics matter a LOT. In addition to TS and BillB's suggestions, I would suggest that you simply walk around the room as the music plays. If you notice that the bass is more pronounced and fuller sounding in other parts of the room, then you clearly have a null occurring at your listening position where low frequency sound waves cancel each other out. If this is the case, then you need to move your chair to a different location and/or change the speaker positioning.

[N. Abstentia]

[QUOTE=RGA]The AN E - the bigger brother to my speaker puts out more bass depth than ANY Paradigm speaker currently sold and has just one 8 inch driver - and what is more fascinating is that even with Bass heavy music at high volume level you won't see the woofer move much if at all.

[QUOTE]

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, there is no mention of Paradigm at all in that 'review' you linked to.

Besides, even if that were true, you could buy a top notch set of Paradigms and a dedicated subwoofer for less than the AN E's and you'd have some serious LFE going on. No matter what AN says on their website, you can't order an off the shelf driver, slap it in a square box, and defy every law of physics ever written.

One 8 inch passive driver can never outperform a dedicated subwoofer.

Last time I checked, the more air you move, the more low frequency you have. An 8 inch speaker that does not move is not going to give you much low freqency.

You don't seem to be helping Audio Note sell speakers with your bantering, in fact quite the opposite. I'd never heard of Audio Note until all this came about, and they seem like a jackass company to me. They buy their drivers off the shelf, and their enclosures look like they are straight out of the 70's. I'm glad you like them, but you're not converting anyone over.

There I said it. Got it off my chest. Feel better now.

[RGA]

Yes the issue of bass has been discussed on Audio Note enough on other forums. The AN E and J offer full range performance -they look like something out of the 70s because --- well --- they are in a way. They're actually out of the 1940s.

Audio Note designs their speakers for corner use for reasons other than just bass depth - though it helps. The speakers are rear ported and typically not suited for corner placement - there are a lot of things that supposedly should not happen which does happen with their speakers. The speaker measure 16hz-18hz -6db(depending which ones) (22hz -3db) with usable response to 12hz ~(-10db).

The issue of corner placement is spurious because the speaker was designed to sound best in a corner so that is where they are meant to be put. You can easily get bass depth from OTHER speakers by putting them in a corner but the sound wwould be horrible which is why you don't do that.

You compare speakers by placing them in their "designed" position. The AN's typically do better in measurements than their own site suggests. Supposedly to get that bass they would have to seriously lose sensitivity - but yet they gain sensitivity over the others as well. Superior design by superior designers with 60 years of improving it.

My issue is why can't the rest give you more than acceptable bass when their woofer systems equate to TWO plus 6.5 woofers after all that is up to 13 inches and SHOULD give way more bass than a single 8. Or the B&W N801 with an 8 and a 15 should too but doesn't.

And it's not just about bass depth and bass loudness - but having only heard these kinds of speakers I guess you won't know what you're missing until you hear it. 2 years ago though I was in that boat too.

I don't want to railroad the thread just pointing out the issue associated with driver size, quantity of drivers and bass to have exceptions to the supposed rules. The woofers in the J and E are set-up not to work like pistons or long throw designs. I see the woofers moving on B&W and Paradigms at moderate volumes with discs I don't see happend from AN's. Though that of course may have to do with as Wooch notes as the port frequency which would may be significantly lower ~29hz according to the Martin Colloms review with 17hz -6db

Again not to railroad the thread I only wanted to get to the issue of the driver = bass extension thing because the speakers cost a lot of money as does quality bass no matter how you want to arrive at it. But to note that a lot of folks buy a speaker and then want a sub later because they are uhappy with the bass - bbig companies could have offerred a lot more bass the first time around - but then they might not sell you another box later if you were happy with the speaker fully in the first place - good way to keep selling though.

[N. Abstentia]

I dunno, I'm not to impressed with this commentary about Audio Notes room at the 2004 CES...keep in mind this room was designed by AN techs, and the equipment was hand picked by them:

"We felt the smallish, monitor speakers used once again limited the body and dynamics and even the warmth of the sound in this room."

Looks like AN isn't perfect after all.

That's why I prefer mulitple drivers working together instead of one small one working it's arse off trying to do everything. All dynamics are lost.

Here's the page, do a 'find on page' for the word kondo and you'll see it.
http://www.audiofederation.com/catalog/show-reports/CES-January-2004/report/

[RGA]

I don't see the A/B listening though and you left out the "Musical yet accurate, detailed yet romantic, classical music played effortlessly with no collapsing of the soundstage nor rendering of detail into a wall of sound.

Listening for a few minutes and judging a speaker is a bit spurious because plenty of other speaker will grab you by the scruff of your neck and have big DRIVE - problem is that DRIVE will be there STAMPED on everything whether it is there or not.

By the way Kondo use different speakers. They should not be using the name Audio Note either - maybe these folks got confused.

The E "The most expensive model in the test group did at least help justify its price with a top rating in the listening tests. Praised for providing loads of detail, subtlety and insight, this is a good all-rounder which draws its compromises very artfully, delivering an even overall tonal balance with excellent low bass weight and extension, yet also creating music with lively and invigorating dynamics."
http://www.hifichoice.co.uk/review_read.asp?ID=475

I'd like to know how much more bass tthey expect than 16hz and from a speaker that can rattle the walls. Perhaps they would prefer a very humped up midbass?

Then there is another show take

"The Royal Device Laura Studio Mk II with Miranda Horn was capable of a
sparkling midrange and tonal opulence rivaling those produced by my Apogee
Duetta Signature and Genesis VI. Then, the defining moment for the Italian
loudspeaker occurred when it was conjuring up incredible low-level resolution
resembling those from the Audio Note AN-E SEC Silver speaker, making it the
next most resolute transducer I’ve auditioned." http://www.royaldevice.com/laurareview.htm

Now i'm not saying you won't find speakers that have more bass - you will I have heard them myself - and there are a number of them - but the point is that JUST because a speaker uses bigger and more woofers in a bigger cabinet does not mean you'll get mroe bass or better bass. The AN E and J are proof of that.

Consider that the review of the J in Blind listening sessions was done against competitors floorstanders. They did that beacause the OTHER standmounts because they pale sop ddramitically in the bass department would have had no shot. And even then the comment on the plus side for the J was STILL that it offerred a generous helping of bass(implying that the other floorstanders did not - and the floorstanders were in the $3-4kUS price range.

[brulaha]

I think you need more power to really get more bass. And as others here have said in the past, 10 - 20 watts will not due it. I have a pair of the studio 60's. I was always a bit disappointed with the bass as well. They always sounded thin when I turned the volume above -20 db. They seemed to have a lot of bass when play softly, but it disappeared when turned up, and not at earth shattering volumes mind you. The same was true of the treble however. It would start to sound shrill when turned up too loud. However I assumed it was because I was powering it with a 85 watt amp. I bought a 250-watt amp, and wahlla, huge enormous bass and much smoother treble. So much so I had to readjust my sub woofer. My recommendation is to get a bigger amp. That being said, I think the studio series far out performs the monitor series. If I were you, I'd trade in the monitor 11's for a pair of studio 40's or 60's and eventually get a dedicated amp when you want to spend the extra dough. Just my 2 cents...

BTW, paradigms web site lists the monitor 11 as a 2 ½ way speaker, as a previous poster had mentioned.

[MikeyBC]

Try unhooking the speakers and using a 1.5 volt "D" cell hook it up to the teminals + to + - to - all the woofers should move outward. I have heard of woofers being connected wrong at the factory. Then you'll know for sure its not a phase problem.