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paragon
01-16-2005, 05:12 AM
????? Problem with txt. Wait please.

Eckhard

paragon
01-18-2005, 02:47 AM
Last friday i had the chance listen to a rebuild Paragon only 18 km away from my location. First impression was how big this speaker is. And she is a really Beauty!! You can`t see it on any picture.
He bought an original 78 build Paragon and open it to take dimensions from. There is no change in dimensions. Thickness of wood is about 4cm and you can get it in every veneer or colour you want. His cabinet maker did a very good job.
All tolerances are very close. No wide gaps or anything else. He said this is better build than the original one. Drivers are original LE 15A, 375(2440,2441), 075 (2402) and N500, N7000 crossovers. He prefers LE 15A`s and refoam or recone all drivers. To get the drivers is his problem. Most of them are damaged.
Size of the room is about 5 x 8m. All speakers are driven by simple low cost electronics. Kenwood pre and power amps, simple CD players and an old Thorens record player. He said you don`t need high cost electronics to drive speakers well. The sound of this impresses me. The reflecting sound wall works very well and you can hear the instruments on their right place and depth. Explosive dynamic and loudness is of course an ease and you need only a few milliwatts (?). This is the jazz speaker. Hornsound of the mid is unincisive, because of the reflection wall i think. Compared to the Quads left and right sound is similar to them. There is a little bit more Highs from the Quads. Sound is going down to 40 Hz in this room. He prefers to drive the Paragon with active, electronic crossovers. Well , that`s all. After 1 1/2 hours i looked into my purse and leaving without the Paragon.:(

Eckhard

Hofmannhp
01-18-2005, 03:41 AM
Last friday i had the chance listen to a rebuild Paragon only 18 km away from my location. ....... He prefers LE 15A`s and refoam or recone all drivers. To get the drivers is his problem. ......
Eckhard

Hi Eckhard,

hope you told him about this forum....:bouncy:

HP

Guido
01-18-2005, 04:15 AM
Hi Eckhard!

Thanks for the report.

Very interesting :bouncy:

scott fitlin
01-18-2005, 07:17 AM
I think I understand the Jazz sound you speak of! Very dynamic and explosive, but somehow mellow and creamy sounding mids! With the right Jazz recordings the horn has a liquid type sound character!

It was the sound of that era, and to me, it is still great!

Nice to hear it still works!

:D

Jan Daugaard
01-18-2005, 08:50 AM
This is the link to the German cabinet maker:

http://www.dinew-hifi-system.de/vintage/JBL_Paragon.html

Price from 17.000 euro (depending on the finish, veneer etc.)

paragon
01-18-2005, 12:58 PM
I want it, want it, want it, want it,...............
This is it (uuuahhh, uuahhh) by Huey Lewis !!

Eckhard :D

MatthiasA
01-18-2005, 04:12 PM
rebuilt it !

i think the material ! will be very cheap
complete material ( mdf ) and crossing mdf (my H2600 horn) to bend the roundness plates
ähm i think about 200-300dollar for all the wood plates in the paragon !
and you have all the material you need !
then you need old wood plates the cheepest you get for the
templates ! in which you can bend the crossing mdf !
then about 100-200dollar for the color or if you want furniture


the Horn of my selfmade S2600 is about 30dollar
the Cabinet about ähm 40dollar including the grill plate !

but.... you must do it by yourself :)

MatthiasA
01-18-2005, 04:41 PM
and you need a CNC mills like this !
with this machine ive built all of my speakers :-)
for example the diameter of woofer in the S2600

paragon
01-19-2005, 12:38 AM
Thanks Matthias, we`ll see.

Eckhard

Guenter
01-19-2005, 07:09 PM
I want it, want it, want it, want it,...............
This is it (uuuahhh, uuahhh) by Huey Lewis !!

Eckhard :D

well I've had one for a number of years. it's an 'interesting' but definitely not a great speaker IMHO. I doubt if it even is a good speaker. Blasphemy I know. I love the design and basic idea behind the curved surface (ie more direct sound if you are further from side or other). The Paragon provides this 'wall' of soft sound which for classical music sounds allright but otherwise, not good. Some people I know have complained of a hole in the middle effect - I've never noticed that though. The crossover region from bass to horn is rough, to say the least. No comparison to even a speaker like the Quad ESL ... we are trying to compare 'good' speakers, right? Eckhard, you are paying for an antique, not quality sound.

my 2c

Steve Schell
01-21-2005, 01:07 AM
I agree with Guenter. The Paragon succeeds sonically to a degree due to the use of front loaded horns over its full bandwidth. This, and the use of the fine JBL drivers, provide the effortless sound and explosive dynamics it is known for. The stereo soundstage presentation is interesting on first listen, but does not provide the specific image placement and overall accuracy available from horn systems with more conventional dispersion patterns. It is undeniably a classic design, but I feel that its appearance is responsible for this at least as much as its sound.

Hofmannhp
01-21-2005, 01:17 AM
......... Eckhard, you are paying for an antique, not quality sound.
my 2c

Hi Folks,

I agree with Guenter and Steve with the background of memories from about 15 years ago.

I may compare it with a classic car....... very nice to look at, but the modern cars are a lot better.

HP

Rafael
01-21-2005, 03:35 AM
Hi all,

I had 2 pairs of Quad ESL 57´s , “stacked” like the mark levinson HQD system, standing left and right from my old d 44000 system – it looked similar to the pic. It was funny that most “audiophile people” were happy with the quads and praised their midrange purity and holographic sound while “normal” people and real musicians all prefered the paragon´s sound by far. Believe it or not: with correct EQ, delay and active crossovers there is not much difference in terms of midrange purity and soundstage between the two systems, I had the chance to A/B them about 10 months. I had no problem to sell the paragon if I prefered the sound of the Quads, but finally I sold the Quads.

Regards

Rafael

Jan Daugaard
01-21-2005, 04:55 AM
Hi Rafael,

it would be interesting to know how much EQ you applied? And at which frequencies?

And how much time delay? And how did you achieve the time delay?

Grüße aus Kopenhagen
Jan D.

Maron Horonzakz
01-21-2005, 07:52 AM
I had done some experiments on placement of 075 tweeters. I made a special bracket to mount above eliptical horn/375. This faced curved panel. And imageing was better than I expected. I felt placing 075 in bass horn wall was flawed. Later I switched to the 2405 slot tweeter for extended highs.

Rafael
01-21-2005, 09:05 AM
Hi Jan,

to answer your question:

I use a simple dbx driverack which allows all controls in time delay and c/o parameters. The EQ needed is depending on your listening room and interface with the speaker(s). With a good measurement mike, you can easily find the "big" mistakes in frequency response. Some folks want to hear generally a somehow "digital colouration" or so in these digital speaker managements. Believe me- this is not the case when you find the right alignments. There is no other way to compensate the great time delay between the drivers in the paragon. You can find the right delay time by making a scale drawing of the paragon and your listening position. The way the sound wave of the woofer has to go through the folded horn to your listening position (here about 500 cm from the speaker) is about 90 cm longer as the way the midrange driver has to go: and this is the time the 375 must "delayed". Same with the 075, the way is about 105 cm´s longer as with the woofers. As I said: depending on your listening position. I must admit that I didn´t like these digital gear at first (I was a "tube and analog man") and without the needed experience you can easily reach a total wrong result. But when done right...there´s no way back.

Regards

Rafael

Guenter
01-21-2005, 10:01 AM
Hi Jan,

to answer your question:

I use a simple dbx driverack which allows all controls in time delay and c/o parameters. ........... There is no other way to compensate the great time delay between the drivers in the paragon. You can find the right delay time by making a scale drawing of the paragon and your listening position. The way the sound wave of the woofer has to go through the folded horn to your listening position (here about 500 cm from the speaker) is about 90 cm longer as the way the midrange driver has to go: and this is the time the 375 must "delayed". Same with the 075, the way is about 105 cm´s longer as with the woofers. Regards

Rafael

Like Rafael I also measure my Paragons using a impulse measuring system now so common with computers. I found that the arrival times at a reasonable listening position between 075/375 very well alligned in fact. Note that does not preven 'massive' comb filtering because of their spatial seperation. Like Rafael, however, I also noted 'significant' delays between woofer and 375. I was serious contemplating digital delays to clean this up..... was to expensive at the time I had these speakers. I guess it's doable these days. When I previously said 'soft' I was refering to lousy imaging in that the instrument placement was soft and vague. The big strong point of the paragon, of course, was the horns. Most of my friends had never heard a good horns and were blown away by this, the bite of trumbpets etc. Non horn speakers will suffer in this regards, until I heard the Yamaha NS1000's in the 80's. It is these speakers that convinced me to sell the paragon more than anything else. Now I've got my home brew system much along Widget's earlier set-up. I'm loving it again, dynamics and imaging. Great!:D

cheers

Jan Daugaard
01-21-2005, 02:55 PM
Hi Rafael,

I've sent you a personal message.

paragon
01-23-2005, 10:22 AM
What are you doing ? I´m down. :(

Yes, this is an old construction. Yes, there are better speakers.
But i love it. It`s an impressive, very good looking and working part
of audio technology. And nobody knows that this is a stereo speaker system:D ,
when i have it at home (don`t know when).:applaud:

Eckhard

Guenter
01-24-2005, 09:59 AM
What are you doing ? I´m down. :(
Eckhard

Hi Eckhard, not trying to make you feel down (if that's what you meant). Just a reality check re your purchase; don't get me wrong - if I had to spare money and the room I'd love to have a Paragon sitting in my livingroom (or a 300SL in my garage). It's a great looking speaker with an incredible 'coolness' factor (my wife has a diametrically opposite opinion - of course, what else is new) but it is an 40+ year old antique.

cheers, guenter

Maron Horonzakz
01-24-2005, 12:05 PM
I understand a Paragon was in the White House when President Kennidy was there. I wonder if the Goverment keeps that kind of stuff. They keep Lincolns bed so why not a work of audio art.

Rafael
01-25-2005, 04:58 AM
Hi Maron,

a paragon in the White House...interesting info. From where did You get this information ? Any pics would be cooool.

Thanks in advance

Rafael

Maron Horonzakz
01-25-2005, 09:28 AM
I believe I read it in Hi Fi- Stereo Review. The magazine is now out of buisiness. The government saves everything historicle from the white house. I just wondered if they saved it or got rid of it.

John
01-25-2005, 05:19 PM
As far as i know whatever is the personal property of the President can be removed by him,but any purchases or gifts to the president remains the property of the white house and the people of the united states of america. I understand that they have a storage facility that holds all the different pieces of furniture and art that has ever been part of the white house. And the president or the first lady can pick from this collection of items to use or not to while they are in control of the Presidency and the White House!!! At no time can these items be bought or sold. They are in trust for the people of the U.S.A:D

Maron Horonzakz
01-25-2005, 05:44 PM
HHHMMMMM...If that Paragon has the 150-4 woofers they might still be OK. But if the unit had the LE 15 woofers. The woofer surrounds could be in bad shape. :blink: