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Paradigm Signature v’s Prestige speakers


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I have a pair of Signature S4’s that I love. Connected to a solid valve amp, BAT pre, they are as good as my hearing will allow me to discern. 
With an upcoming move I have the opportunity to set up a dedicated media room and am looking at investing in an Anthem surround amp and Paradigm speakers. 
The question is, how do the Signatures compare to the newer Prestige range? Should I search for Signature S6/8’s, Centre etc to match my 4’s, or sell my 4’s and buy a set of Prestige?

Love to hear from folk that have listened to both. 
Cheers

Phil

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14 minutes ago, Hydrology said:

Prestige are lovely and I do like the look more than the Signatures, but my money is on the Signatures being the better speaker.

That’s what my gut is telling me from reviews I’ve read, though I’ve not been able to find a direct comparison. 
 

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44 minutes ago, Hydrology said:

Prestige are lovely and I do like the look more than the Signatures, but my money is on the Signatures being the better speaker.

 

I agree, with your thoughts on the Signature probably being better given my experience with the Prestige.

I think the they are far too bright and lit up and I found them to be on the point of being unbalanced. There are of course, the usual caveats such as room, system cable, source etc, but after the audition I went away wondering why they voiced them this way.

 

Contrary opinions welcome.

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2 hours ago, rantan said:

 

I agree, with your thoughts on the Signature probably being better given my experience with the Prestige.

I think the they are far too bright and lit up and I found them to be on the point of being unbalanced. There are of course, the usual caveats such as room, system cable, source etc, but after the audition I went away wondering why they voiced them this way.

 

Contrary opinions welcome.

The caveats are the gotcha’s. I bought the Sig’s after being blown away at the retailer. Got them home, connected them to my lovely amps and near died, they sounded dreadful! I spent years tuning the components to get the sound that I knew they could produce. So I know that when set up correctly the Sig’s are fantastic - which is why I’m nervous about entering into this new territory!
 

 

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I’ve got Signature S8s in my main system with the C5 centre and a pair of S2s in my bedroom. They are great speakers but they need great components to drive them.
 

Resist the urge for too much room correction too. My anthem d2v sucked the life out of them. When paired with some classe Pre/pro gear I’m getting a much better result. 

 

the signatures are well made speakers but I think they might be fussy on source.

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7 minutes ago, BugPowderDust said:

I’ve got Signature S8s in my main system with the C5 centre and a pair of S2s in my bedroom. They are great speakers but they need great components to drive them.
 

Resist the urge for too much room correction too. My anthem d2v sucked the life out of them. When paired with some classe Pre/pro gear I’m getting a much better result. 

 

the signatures are well made speakers but I think they might be fussy on source.

I’d love to know more about your setup as the S8 C5 is the nirvana combo I have in mind. This is my first real venture into AV (discounting earlier Bose & Sonos setups). What pre/pro gear would you recommend?

Cheers

Phil

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Well, I have had an anthem d2v for nearly 10 years.  Only recently have I switched my setup to have a 2 channel Pre integrated into the setup. The anthem does multi channel audio for me (bluray, Mac mini, Apple TV and tv).

 

I have stereo listening (CD, LUMIN streamer, turntable) running through a Classe cp-800 in pure analogue mode and this goes out to a classe ca-5300 5 channel power amp.

 

i run two paradigm subs, a sub 1 and a sub 12. Both of these hang off the outputs of a minidsp 2x4hd. Each of my processors sends a single sub signal to inputs 1 and 2 and I multiplex these sub signals inside the minidsp so I have both subs fed and active no matter the source in use.


I like the anthem Pre for movies, but was never happy with it as a stereo Pre. I think that the room correction sucked too much life out of the sound, no matter how much I played with and restricted it in arc.  Since moving to the classe gear I’ve had a not insignificant lift in sound. The whole setup sounds a lot more effortless and is crystal clear.
 

I’m working on room correction using roon to tweak the response a little and so far this has been better than Arc in terms of results and how listenable the result is. Audiolense is doing the impulse generation for my convolution and I’m working with Mitch from Accurate Sound in Canada to build my convolution.


i’m not a huge fan of what a multichannel AV processor does to stereo listening and after the changes I’ve made, I would never go back to that

kind of config.

 

 

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I’ve read your post several times and twisted my brain a fair bit. Its still going over my head ?

However, I get the gist of it and you’ve answered a big question for me. 
I’ve been concerned about the wisdom of spending decent money on quality speakers for an AV amped system. Ie I’ve not been convinced on the hifi quality of any AV amp. 
I was thinking of selling my current amp, now I’m thinking yes, I want the Sig’s, but I’ve got a lot of thinking to do on how to get the best performance out of them. 
Thanks for putting me on the right track. 
Cheers ?

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Another endorsement for the sigs. They do have the ability to improve further as the associated components increase in quality. I was somewhat shocked at how much they improved with the addition of a moderately priced amp and pre combo running via HT bypass.

 

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I own the v3 version of the Paradigm signatures, ie. 2 x S2, c3 and S8. 
 

The s4 you have would have to be V1 or V2, if V2 you atleast have the better tweeter, if you only have the V1, I’d say upgrade overwise if V2 keep. Tge s4 was phased out before V3 came along from memory.

 

JDH 

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4 hours ago, BlackMX said:

Another endorsement for the sigs. They do have the ability to improve further as the associated components increase in quality. I was somewhat shocked at how much they improved with the addition of a moderately priced amp and pre combo running via HT bypass.

 

Yep. Even my audiophile mate who is wedded to his Harbison’s admitted to being impressed. We swapped over his Harbison’s for my S4’s into his high end system ($35k for the turntable etc etc). The S4’s sounded fantastic. To my ears, different, every bit as good as the Harb’s. My mate would probably argue that point but he did say “there is absolutely nothing wrong with your speakers”. For him, thats a big vompliment!

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43 minutes ago, jdh500 said:

I own the v3 version of the Paradigm signatures, ie. 2 x S2, c3 and S8. 
 

The s4 you have would have to be V1 or V2, if V2 you atleast have the better tweeter, if you only have the V1, I’d say upgrade overwise if V2 keep. Tge s4 was phased out before V3 came along from memory.

 

JDH 

Yep  they are V2’s. 
If you hear of any Sig’s for sale at a reasonable price please let me know!?

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Silently listening to this conversation suddenly not content with my Studio100v5's....again...

 

I actually have a room that is big enough to justify the S8's but the money....I got an awesome deal on the Studio 100's and I have gotten them to a happy place but I know the S8's handle older music better and that is the music I like.

 

My family loves what we have though because they can play LOUD and the modern music is easily handled by the 100's.

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2 hours ago, Edward Hewer said:

Silently listening to this conversation suddenly not content with my Studio100v5's....again...

 

I actually have a room that is big enough to justify the S8's but the money....I got an awesome deal on the Studio 100's and I have gotten them to a happy place but I know the S8's handle older music better and that is the music I like.

 

My family loves what we have though because they can play LOUD and the modern music is easily handled by the 100's.

Yep, the 8’s look Massive. I suspect 6’s will work for me ?

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On 28/10/2020 at 4:24 PM, PhilY said:

ve been concerned about the wisdom of spending decent money on quality speakers for an AV amped system. Ie I’ve not been convinced on the hifi quality of any AV amp. 

Howdy Phil, 

 

I run Paradigm Studio 100s v5 and the first revolutionary improvement I got in performance was adding a Musical Fidelity M6si integrated amplifier for 2 channel listening, keeping my Denon 4520 AVR and using its pre-outs to the HT bypass in the MF for surround sound (I have Paradigm Studio CC-490 centre, Paradigm Cinema ADP surrounds, Paradigm Seismic 110 sub as well as an outside Paradigm Stylus 470-SM driven by the AVR). The MF simply opened up the Paradigms and made the sound much more detailed and solid.

 

This week I finally acquired some Musical Fidelity 550k Superchargers and it has taken the mid and upper range to a new level of realism (on certain recordings I can hear the room), detail and sheer weight. The Studio 100s bass was, and remains, exceptional. 
 

In my system the full range of the floor standing Studio 100s has been key to my 2 channel listening (most of our family’s listening, we do music more than TV) and then it has been the increasing quality of the amplification. Given my cabinet set-up I have difficulty in making a pre-power combo work. 
 

From reviews I have read I do believe the S8s would be another level again.  However, given they are not in production I have been reading reviews and quietly mulling over the Paradigm Performa floor standing series (3F or 5F), but am yet to hear them. Would love to hear from anyone who has them or has heard them. 

 

I look forward to reading about which way you go and what results you get. 

FD47E026-A647-4468-A644-DD25B661F350.jpeg

image.jpg

6A02ECFB-599A-4B6A-B8CF-BCB02807B269.jpeg

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3 hours ago, KRSDarwin said:

Howdy Phil, 

 

I run Paradigm Studio 100s v5 and the first revolutionary improvement I got in performance was adding a Musical Fidelity M6si integrated amplifier for 2 channel listening, keeping my Denon 4520 AVR and using its pre-outs to the HT bypass in the MF for surround sound (I have Paradigm Studio CC-490 centre, Paradigm Cinema ADP surrounds, Paradigm Seismic 110 sub as well as an outside Paradigm Stylus 470-SM driven by the AVR). The MF simply opened up the Paradigms and made the sound much more detailed and solid.

 

This week I finally acquired some Musical Fidelity 550k Superchargers and it has taken the mid and upper range to a new level of realism (on certain recordings I can hear the room), detail and sheer weight. The Studio 100s bass was, and remains, exceptional. 
 

In my system the full range of the floor standing Studio 100s has been key to my 2 channel listening (most of our family’s listening, we do music more than TV) and then it has been the increasing quality of the amplification. Given my cabinet set-up I have difficulty in making a pre-power combo work. 
 

From reviews I have read I do believe the S8s would be another level again.  However, given they are not in production I have been reading reviews and quietly mulling over the Paradigm Performa floor standing series (3F or 5F), but am yet to hear them. Would love to hear from anyone who has them or has heard them. 

 

I look forward to reading about which way you go and what results you get. 

FD47E026-A647-4468-A644-DD25B661F350.jpeg

image.jpg

6A02ECFB-599A-4B6A-B8CF-BCB02807B269.jpeg

Thanks for the info & images - sounds like a seriously heavy duty power base and anticipates my next line of questioning - amplification. 
I’ve committed to going Signature and have lined up a pair of S6’s and a NOS C5 centre. 
I’ve also lined up an Anthem D2 pre, though I’m not 100% sure if this is the way to go as it kind of commits me to going with an Anthem P5. 
I don’t have enough knowledge of AV amps to know if this is the best combo for the Sig’s. Any advice appreciated. 
Cheers

Phil

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