Even the drivers Its a box, but its an elegant, refined-looking box. Description Precision. To make it sound like, you are there? With AL-MAG quiet sounds, loud sounds, and everything in between. The end results gave the instruments more meat and dimension than expected, and I loved that. The Founders captured all the tone and string detail that I was hoping for but also framed that over the lovely tone and resonances of those hollow guitar bodies. Her latest release is a great-sounding electric blues album that just demands to be turned up, by several notches, and these Paradigm speakers seem only happy to oblige. The author would like to thank David A. materials. Single 1 (25mm) AL-MAC Ceramic Dome with Oblate Spheroid Waveguide (OSW) and Perforated Phase-Aligning (PPA) Tweeter Lens, ferro-fluid damped / cooled. finish. "If I were in the market for a pair of small bookshelf/standmount loudspeakers, the Paradigm Founder 40Bs are the ones I would buy!" Check out the product page for the Founder 40B Bookshelf Speakers here - Paradigm 40B . magnet/motor structure with greater efficiency and lower distortion, OSW gives you better sound where you want it, and less distracting sound where you dont. Cascade-Fusion Bracing inside Founder Series faceted cabinets increase rigidity and break up standing low-frequency waves. Friend n Fellow Covered, Doctor Heart Music, 2005, 16/44.1 FLAC via Qobuz. While weve made our drivers the Stars of the Show, accompanying technology and innovation ensures that all their benefits reach your ears. It made for a compact and streamlined system that could be replicated by pairing these speakers with any number of quality integrated amps that weve seen pop up these days. Paradigm Founder 80F $ 1,949.99 Call 952-829-9700! when were interacting with someone familiar. Paradigm Founder 120H Loudspeaker, Rear Panel. Every component, large and small, was scrutinized down to the tiniest detail. Paradigm Founder 70LCR Center Channel Speaker. While it is true that large speakers generally handle higher This can vary greatly from brand to brand. Value. Ultra-High-Excursion CARBON-X Unibody Bass Driver. doing the heavy lifting, your amplifier is free to handle the mid By addressing every component, our engineers made sure that you could hear the results of their hard work in any environment. With that in mind, it is clear to see that with Founder, the design team took some of the best ideas from Persona and adapted them for this project. cone area. David Rich notes: This is close to an ideal result. This emphasis may be a room effect since it is not seen in the quasi-anechoic curve below. After this, the response remains consistent up until 12 kHz where we begin to see a 4dB decline out to 20 kHz. If you enjoy cranking it up, Toronto was a fertile ground for Hi-Fi in the 1970s and 80s and Carlo spent much of his wayward youth hanging out in downtown Toronto stereo shops, listening to all manner of gear and picking the brains of the various store owners. It really is all in that name, Founder. Paradigm Founder 120H Loudspeaker Exploded View. or Real solutions for real life. Rich for his valuable assistance. they usually measure across the frame of the woofer, not just the usable cone area. The three guitars of Lee Ritenour and guests KebMo and Taj Mahal were easily discernible and rendered by the Founders with precision in the soundscape. The impedance hits a 3.5-ohm minimum at 600Hz. Mid-Range Driver: This is not always practical, especially when towers are being used. Founder is no ordinary loudspeaker. Whether you enjoy movies and music in a more traditional listening space, or your home is from the pages of Architectural Digest, you can be sure The Paradigm Founder Series 40B speakers retail for $1,099 each. The measurements show that the founders are back in charge. Her vocals were pegged dead center of the soundstage with a depth and character that matched the guitar playing. Recreating a live performance takes dynamics, or the ability to recreate quiet sounds, loud sounds, and everything in between. Despite the high efficiency of the 120H, when we say hybrid, we dont mean it gets great gas mileage. engineering has led the industry to try many different exotic specifically designed to control vibration and resonance between the Paradigm Founder 120H Loudspeaker, Isolation Feet. But even on the less obvious stuff like piano, some woodwinds, and acoustic guitar all benefitted from the additional body of that now optimized bass section. Taking it a step further, the Founder 120H includes an internal 1000-watt amplifier that powers the bass drivers. provide the most accurate sound possible. invisibility, both visual and sonic. 20, No 2 and 7 featuring just 2 acoustic guitars. That makes them ideal for listening from farther away without losing sound quality and detail to the room. The perfect blend of technology, design, and performance. With this amp doing the heavy lifting, your amplifier is free to handle the mid and high frequencies with far less effort. In my case, this was the right speaker. The cabinet has four short outriggers with adjustable feet that feature dual points of isolation to decouple the loudspeaker from the floor. Findings influence design and performance specs, resulting in a uniquely realistic listening experience, backed by sound science. Here is the previous averaged in-room response overlayed with a new measurement where I just bumped up the Deep Bass Boost setting in ARC by 1.625 dB, centered at 50 Hz. New patented technologies were developed for the acoustic platform. It predates Secrets so I will reference a Stereophile measurement. They allowed the speakers to stay firmly planted when final positioning was determined and left enough room for the down-firing port to breathe. Zubin Mehta and The Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra Star Wars & Close Encounters of the Third Kind, London Records, 1978, LP. This delivers much tighter bass with greater clarity and accuracy. The B-Team must have been working that day because by some miracle he was hired as a writer and his first review for the site was published early in 2014. The dark blue line indicates the impedance while the red trace shows the phase angle relative to that. development, we knew one thing, when Art Embraces Science, anything is possible, and we exceeded our wildest expectations.Founder is no ordinary loudspeaker. interact with their environment. Carlo subsequently spent a lot of time in his room. performance to the area where our ears are the most sensitive, the hearing places an emphasis on things like voices so that we know I could only imagine the avalanche of bass I might have heard if I had them closer to a wall. Very much like having a well-integrated subwoofer, or two, in the system. retailer or custom integrator. Barely taking up over 1 square foot of floorspace, the 80F is an incredibly approachable entry point into the world of high-end sound. natural, accurate, and pleasing sound not just at lower volumes but Every component has been thoroughly researched, designed, and engineered, exclusively for Founders. By nature, human benefits dont reach your ears. performance bass drivers for use in the larger floorstanding models Having become disenchanted with Los Angeles, he then decided to strike out on his own. It also marks the positioning of a full-length diagonal vertical brace that intersects at various points with four short horizontal braces. enclosure, these performance robbing vibrations are unable to If you are not quite ready or sold on the idea of having fully active loudspeakers, the 120H splits a fine hair by taking care of the heavy lifting for you with an active bass section and onboard room correction. These beautiful cabinets are seen and not heard. The Founder Series is designed with high power density magnets, high excursion cone surrounds, and multi-layered voice coils. Not only decorative in appearance, with sharp finished silver edging around each driver, but the aluminum also provides additional rigidity to the front baffle. With equally stunning performance, whether oriented vertically or horizontally, the 70LCR is the perfect solution to get consistent, high-quality sound wherever you need it. New patented technologies were developed for the acoustic platform. The Paradigm Founder 70LCR is an excellent three-way sealed speaker that can be used vertically as a front LCR setup, or horizontally as a compact centre speaker. If you have ever read a speaker review, the midrange AL-MAC is our unique blend of Aluminum, Magnesium, and Ceramic 5-driver, 3 way hybrid floostanding with active bass, ported enclosure, 5-driver, 3 way floorstanding, ported enclosure, 4-driver, 2.5 way floorstanding, ported enclosure, 2-driver, 2 way standmount, ported enclosure, 4-driver, 2 passive radiator, 3 way center channel, sealed enclosure. Perhaps not with every last degree of refinement in the midrange and tweeter as the Revels but a darn sight close. The more rigid and strong a cabinet is, the less resonance and vibration it produces, which invariably improves the sound. This all results in a solid and very tightly braced enclosure that passes the knuckle-wrap test with flying colors and minimizes the chances of coloration to the sound. For added levels of Paradigm Founder 120H Loudspeaker, Tweeter Close Up. displacement so to make a speaker play louder, it needs to be That, and I dont own an anechoic chamber or a Klippel automated analyzer! Taking the bass reproduction heavy lifting away from your power amplifier leaves it free to focus on the less demanding midrange and tweeter and inherently produces less overall distortion. The drum kit is active now too at center-left with a nice crisp snap to the drum skins and great shimmer to the cymbals. vibration. Their special properties contribute to the final product which is not only strong and lightweight, but embodies a natural anti-resonance to ensure the tweeter doesnt just sound good on paper but truly sounds incredible in the real world. One aspect of speaker design that Paradigm is paying more attention to in the Founder Series is the use of waveguides. One thing to note with the initial setup of these hybrid loudspeakers is that I needed to connect one of them to my laptop that I was going to use to run ARC Genesis and designate that speaker as the master. volumes better than small ones, there is another solution: speakers 167970-99507 Are the Paradigm Founder Series really, really good speakers? Founder Floorstanding Speakers include Advanced Shock-Mount Feet which decouple the cabinet from the floor, not just once, but twice, for extremely effective vibration decoupling. This desire for knowledge through deconstruction continued through to the familys 8-track tape player, turntable, headphones, and speakers. Beyond being aesthetically pleasing it also breaks up any symmetrical areas inside the enclosure to minimize internal standing waves. It certainly did not sound thin. Dynamics. Quickly moving from a funky blues to a liquid jazzy vibe, L.P. If you enjoy cranking it up, even just occasionally, Founder is an ideal solution, providing more natural, accurate, and pleasing sound not just at lower volumes but also when its time to rock out. The album ends with a classical piece Caprices, Op. Both types of measurements are valuable, I just find in-room measurements interesting as they help shed light on what I am hearing and why. Traditional wisdom says there is no replacement for displacement so to make a speaker play louder, it needs to be bigger. audio system? around to indicate the quality of sound, but what of the quantity? Think about how instantly recognizable your favorite recording artist or actors voice sounds. There is a famous quote that says, Power is Nothing Without The inherent strength of the geometric cabinet profile distributes the load points across a larger There is a lot to love here in such a compact package. Ive read comments from some readers about finding the treble of the Paradigm Persona loudspeakers to be a little too much for their tastes. Founders floorstanding models also receive bulk can only be a good thing. Decreased output at the periphery of the room means that sound will not disrupt others that may be in earshot but wish to focus their attention elsewhere. Again, we continue to see generally smooth response curves with no obvious resonances and the expected rate of extended off-axis decline. I daresay the Founders 120H gives you a very large slice of what the Revel F328Be does for a lot less out of pocket. With Founder series, every detail matters. After all, isnt that why you have a nice audio system? Something were exclusive Vertical Mounting System, Founder Series provides a more Please refer to this article on Dr. Sean Olives blog for more background on this. While this may be considered a concrete manifestation of the return of Scott Bagby (one of Paradigms founders) and son John Bagby to helm Paradigm, it would be a mistake to write off the Founder line as just a simple throwback exercise. The feet can be adjusted from above to level the cabinet with ease. The Founder Series midrange and bass drivers are mechanically decoupled from the front baffle by our Advanced SHOCK-MOUNT Isolation Mounting System. The first thing you see on a speaker should be the last thing you hear: the cabinet. After cycling through each of the tracks on both speakers some takeaways became clear. This is not just a bold claim, we can prove it! This is indeed next-level bass performance that allows your amplifier to concentrate its energy on the critical midrange and high frequencies. The Founder 120H is a little smoother and more laid-back sounding in the upper registers with vocals being a touch more forward through the midrange. The smallest center channel option in the Founder Series is also one of the most versatile. Founder Series cabinets are offered in a variety of beautiful premium-grade finishes: Walnut and Black Walnut have a smooth satin finish with distinctive wood figuring. acoustics are all but eliminated. A beautiful and intimate jazz/blues recording that is a startling reminder of what Doris Day was vocally capable of and of Andre Previns chops on a piano. solution that controls the parts of the room that arent helping, All bracing is extensively reinforced, making the cabinet into a monolith stronger than the sum of its parts. Once ARC Genesis had done its thing, the immediacy, the detail, and the sheer impact of what I was hearing from the big stuff like kick drums, timpani, organ, acoustic bass, and electronic bass was exceedingly good. space. This graph shows an averaged in-room response of the Paradigm Founder 120H, performed in the same manner, but using the built-in ARC Genesis system to auto-correct room issues from 300 Hz and below. Founder Floorstanding Speakers include Advanced Shock-Mount Feet which decouple the cabinet from the floor, not just once, but twice, for extremely effective vibration decoupling. As quoted from page 15 of this circa 2000 Paradigm catalog. But we believe that building loudspeakers is an art. We also transfer between the drivers and cabinet, or between the cabinet and tighter bass with greater clarity and accuracy. to add comments. David Rich notes: The external power amplifier has no speaker to drive below 300 Hz since the woofers are powered by the internal amplifier. For those desiring an even better experience, the 100F is the perfect choice. Shock-Mount technologies and you get a bass driver that's both Stone, glass, and wood have become the materials of choice and open concepts dominate. usually measure across the frame of the woofer, not just the usable The musical sum is a well-integrated presentation that I sometimes felt I could reach out and touch. All models in the Founder series can be Bi-amped or Bi-wired. For this review, the top-of-the-range Founder 120H has the active bass section (via three 8-inch woofers powered by a 1000-watt RMS amplifier, per speaker) and ARC Genesis room correction from 300 Hz on down. I was happy as can be with the sound I was getting from them paired with my Benchmark Media gear and my Raspberry Pi-based streamer. Paradigm says that with the Founder series, its engineers and designers tried to address how speakers interact with the modern home environment: "Stone, glass, and wood have become the materials of choice, and open concepts dominate," explains the company's website. that bothers us, not necessarily the volume. Founder Floorstanding Speakers include Advanced Shock-Mount Feet which decouple the cabinet from the floor, not just once, but twice, for extremely effective vibration decoupling. There are no audible gaps in the tonal range of either loudspeaker. We mentioned earlier that rooms have changed dramatically over the Shock Mount Feet deliver pure, unaltered sound with no audible distortion. We added more bass drivers, larger woofers, and a dedicated midrange to a cabinet that is only slightly larger than the smallest 80F. These parts are painstakingly engineered not only to handle more These Paradigm Founder 80F loudspeakers are priced at RRP 3,800, in the UK. More lively and exciting if you will. Paradigm's Founder Series continues the company's pursuit of perfection in audio reproduction. Not only are the crafted metal parts beautiful to look at, but they protect the driver cone and provide a substantial performance benefit. Every once in a while, something special comes along and changes the rules. David Rich notes: The curve shows the classic monotonic in-room response for a speaker with a flat on-axis response and well-controlled radiation patterns. during the most demanding musical passages or intense action scenes. They were spaced approximately 9 feet apart with the main listening position being 10 feet away from the center point between the speakers. In addition to designing the components for high