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bookshelf to floorstanding-real upgrade?

I have 3 month old NHT sb3's that replaced Paradigm Titans. Much better sound, especially bass. Also, have great metal stands which make a big difference. I can still trade my Titans on floorstanding Paradigms-monitor 5's. I wonder if this is really the an upgrade & whether the Paradigms will be much better. I won't be able to bring my NHT's when I listen to the 5's & I can't bring the 5's back (200 miles). I thought the Titans were great until I bought the sb'3s...I have a small apartment and maybe I should just relegate the Titans to a backup system..any advice?
dla405j

Showing 2 responses by subaruguru

subaruguru
1,374 posts
 
I like Phasecorrect's advice, but would also suggest that you get BETTER monitors, such as the new JMLabs or baby Spendors. Several NHT dealers have woefully suggested that the older Super Ones were MUCH better than the newer ones, so I'd recommend that you focus on midrange purity first, and then add a sub for that bottom end. Three-ways are MUCH trickier to get right, and I suggest that floorstanders do NOT start to sound good until the Thiel 1.6, 2.4 or Revel F30 level. JMO
subaruguru
1,374 posts
 
The 1.3 was a nice speaker, albeit too flat-bright for most tastes. With a nice tube-amp I can see why they wowed you, though. Getting SMOOTH-freq response and CLONED-PAIR midranges is in my opinion still the greatest task for speaker manufacturers to get right. So at moderate price points you can either get a fine-sounding two-way monitor or a compromised but bassier three-way. We all know this.
An acoustician/speaker designer friend and I built some 6.5 two-ways a decade ago, and I asked him about the shape of the cabinet, and he said that humans seem to favor the sound from boxes that are about the size of a large head. Aside from the physics of freq-resp and cone diameter requirements, 5 and 6" midranges DO seem the most honest, if cabinet-diffraction "cuppiness" is designed out somehow.
Spendors, Harbeths, Rogers, Sonus Faber, the Revel M20 and even the Triangle and other $500 versions all have their champions, and often sound better than the bloated brothers farther up their product line. Getting a small cabinet to behave quietly is a LOT easier than a large one. Hence a tendency to separate "satellites" from woofer "bases" in some high end designs, too (Wilson, Verity et al)....I'm not sure that the CURRENT NHT midrange is any better than the Paradigm ref series, but BOTH are mediocre compared to those mentioned above. Others will also add their favorite Soliloquoys (sp?), or Josephs, ProAc, Epos, etc., for options. Have fun.
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