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Written by Ben S. on 2025-01-10 at 21:45

Just bought a unicorn: New-in-box front bookshelf speakers for the 5.1 set that I only bought the center+surrounds+subwoofer for around 15 years ago.

The parent company decided to retire the home audio products sold under that brand and use it exclusively for car audio.

We didn't buy the front speakers because my wife already had decent tower speakers, but the tweeters have worn out, and bookshelf speakers are a better fit for our usage (we don't have a big room and don't listen to music).

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Written by vga256 on 2025-01-10 at 21:49

@HunterZ cool! what brand of speakers?

i've been slowly putting together a 7.1 set of (used) Paradigm monitors from about 15 years ago, and it has been fun finding them cheaply

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Written by Ben S. on 2025-01-10 at 21:54

@vga256 Infinity, which I gather was well-regarded as a solid budget brand.

Funny coincidence: Our old tower speakers are Paradigm Monitor 7's.

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Written by vga256 on 2025-01-10 at 22:00

@HunterZ cool! they made some very solid speakers in that era.

i couldn't be happier with my monitor 7's. they're big and bulky, but produce such nice clarity.

mine are long overdue for some servicing however - the gooey ferrofluid has broken down

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Written by Ben S. on 2025-01-10 at 22:05

@vga256 there's something wrong with the tweeters in mine I think - they're muffled to the point that I can't make out dialogue when it comes out of them instead of from my center speaker (streaming trailers/recaps are sometimes only in stereo while my receiver thinks they're 5.1 for some reason).

It's not an external wiring issue - I've actually got them bi-wired right now because my old Yamaha RX-V665 supports that.

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Written by vga256 on 2025-01-10 at 23:28

@HunterZ 🤔

one sure way to test if it's the speaker (or just a 5.1 -> stereo downmix problem) is to connect one monitor at a time to the center channel, and test out voices in 5.1 mode. if it's still muffled, then you know for sure.

if it is the speaker - that might be a worn out foam, or even ferrofluid that has gone gooey - or both. the muffled voices on mine are definitely noticeable

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Toot

Written by Ben S. on 2025-01-11 at 00:51

@vga256 I just spent probably an hour listening to different test videos, and the treble is there but definitely much more faint on the Paradigm towers (left/right) than any of the Infinity speakers (center/surrounds).

On the other hand, I'm quite impressed by the bass response of the towers when I tell my receiver to use them instead of the subwoofer.

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