Listen to a Paragon

[paragon]

????? Problem with txt. Wait please.

Eckhard

[paragon]

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]

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....

HP

[Guido]

Hi Eckhard!

Thanks for the report.

Very interesting

[scott fitlin]

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!

[Jan Daugaard]

This is the link to the German cabinet maker:

http://www.dinew-hifi-system.de/vint...L_Paragon.html

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

[paragon]

I want it, want it, want it, want it,...............
This is it (uuuahhh, uuahhh) by Huey Lewis !!

Eckhard

[MatthiasA]

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]

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]

Thanks Matthias, we`ll see.

Eckhard

[Guenter]

I want it, want it, want it, want it,...............
This is it (uuuahhh, uuahhh) by Huey Lewis !!

Eckhard

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]

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]

......... 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]

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]

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.