Upgrade for Paradigm Prestige 75F?

Adam, to be honest the speakers I settled on were much more expensive even at their used price. Funny you mentioned it though. When I listened to them at shows or in stores, to me they sounded sleepy or as you say "blended."

When I owned the Studio 100s I was auditioning the S3s at home over a weekend when this offer popped up. Being able to compare all three at home was way more insightful than auditioning in the store. I found that Paradigm has a house sound that I spent time and money trying to overcome. Within the first few minutes even my family could easily hear the difference as well as that house sound.

The Paradigm's were more dynamic with more highs, mids, and lows which is what sold me in the first place. The reason these new speakers seemed sleepy was because I couldn't hear that stark differentiation of those highs, mids, and lows. They were simply making music. During my time with all three of the Paradigm's I'd listen to an album or two and become board. What the other speakers revealed was not boredom but a fatigue from being able to clearly differentiate the drivers from the listening position. I have to put my ear very close to the other speakers drivers just to hear they're working. In all, a difficult lesson finally learned.  

Years later I briefly heard an all Audio Research system driving Paradigm Persona 9Fs at a store. Clearly the best Paradigm's so far, meh.

   

Thanks b_limo and m-bd.  I will continue the search!  My friend has some Harbeths that I like a lot.  I will try to audition more British speakers.

m-db, one of the things that attracted me to the Paradigms in the first place was how I could hear each instrument so clearly and the timbres were so separate from the other instruments.  Other speakers I listened to had a cohesive sound but instruments kind of blended into each other particularly in low mids and upper lows.  The Paradigms are great in this area.  To me, they really outshined their competition at their price level at accomplishing this.  I would hate to lose that quality in getting a speaker that had a more rounded and full upper midrange.

In my upstairs system I have the ultimate point source in the form of single driver Omega speakers.   Timbrally they are gorgeous.  I love them but they would not work for the downstairs system.  The sweet spot is VERY small and they lack enough bass to fill the living room.

Anyway the search continues.  Thanks for all your feedback!

steakster thanks for the suggestion.  I don't have power conditioning but I'm pretty sure it's not distortion.  I'm fairly familiar with what distortion sounds like in its different forms and what I'm hearing is not it

thanks

Similar to b_limo I've owned Studio 100s versions 1 then 2s when I was auditioning, at home, their then recently released Signature 8s when I purchased a different brand that I've used ever since. Only then did I realize I had been listening to a speaker and not the music.

Converting your analog signal through digital signal processing or subjecting your digital signal to yet another digital conversion might be a Band-Aid but not a solution.

Listen for more of a point source that's difficult to differentiate the tweeter, midrange, or the woofer. Much less of a speaker, more musically cohesive. Good luck with your search.   

Its your speakers.  I’ve had a bunch of paradigms and feel the same way about as you do about all of them with the exception of the Sig 2 V.3’s.

I like revels Be stuff... they sound really nice!

BUT, I think you’d be happier with that laid back british sound.  Harbeth, spendor etc.  Dynaudio came to my mind as well.  I’ve always been a fan of Dynaudio and for me, they do the tone well.  I’m also a fan of seas excel and they have that laid back but detailed sound also.

Trying to audition some speakers would be smart, otherwise research research research, speakers that have that sound you are looking for, buy used and resell if you don’t like them.  I don’t see you disliking something like harbeth though...

Unfortunately, there’s a huge misnomer that driver material is the Biggest problem with speakers.  While the material can interject it’s own inherent characteristics into the sound, it’s the crossover that dictates what those elements will do or don’t do and when people hear something they don’t like, the driver material is generally the easiest and first thing to get blamed.    
The cabinet/environment that those drivers are put in will affect things as well, but a lot of it circles around the crossover and just because someone uses a really expensive fantastic material for a driver when designing a speaker doesn’t always mean they knew what they were doing with it.  Best example of that is Bowers using Kevlar.  When the patent ran out, you could find Kevlar on $399 Sounbars at Walmart, but the Kevlar didn’t make those Soundbars sound like speakers worth a thousand dollars.  They used a cool material that had no bearing on that product’s performance.  Bowers had been using Kevlar for twenty years before anyone else.  Then there’s budget.  What’s the target price point for the design?  That influences a lot as well.  So, in the end, driver material doesn’t play the biggest role in the sound of a speaker and that’s what I wanted to get across here.
Thanks.

That Paradigm has an aluminum tweeter that many find to be bright sounding. If you want a floor stander there are some nice Spendors listed here . The A5r is a 2 1/2 way like your Paradigm. I doubt you would go wrong with them!

Thanks Adam. I wasn’t trying to infer that anything was wrong with your Peachtree, but you pointed out that there were a lot of aspects about the speakers you liked so I was trying to point out that you haven’t maximized them to their fullest potential. Anthem and Paradigm are built off of each other and speakers are an instrument. Just like if I handed the same guitar to Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton and had them play the same tune, the guitar would sound drastically different. That is also what ARC Genesis will allow you to do. If you want your speakers to sound as if they were running on tubes, ARC will let you roll off your mids and high frequencies.
Changing the speakers means you’re looking for a different tone - like if you had a Fender and now want a Taylor. Just trying to present some options...Thanks again!

thanks sbrents73, I thought maybe it was the peachtree that was the culprit of the harsh high mids but I tried it with some different speakers (at friends houses) and it didn't have that problem.  I think its the speakers that are responsible for the sonic signature.  I think I'd rather focus on the speaker part of the equation rather than getting a new amp (as cool as the Anthem might be)

thanks gongli3, My friend has some harbeths that I like a lot.  Much more lush in timbre than my paradigms (can't remember the model but on the less expensive end of the line).  The Prestiges do better with soundstage and detail though.  I'll look into Spendor.  I was also interested in Revel.  Anyway, thanks for the suggestion

I think you should consider looking at the Anthem STR Integrated Amp.  You can do a lot with the new Anthem Genesis Room Correction.  If you like all the aspects of the speaker but are having a problem in that one area, Genesis will let you tune that.  Bass also affects harmonics and you may have some things going on in your room that is accentuating that particular frequency range.  

200w x 2 into 8ohm, 400w x 2 into 4 ohm, and 550w x 2 into 2 ohm. Anthem Room Correction (can be turned on or off), Direct Analog Bypass, MM & MC Phono Stage with adjustable Rumble Filter/RIAA Curves 10Hz - 60Hz with Presets built in for Columbia, Capitol Records, and several others if you have a big pre-1975 album collection of a particular label - Can make "Virtual Inputs" and can assign the RIAA presets to an MM or MC virtual input created (up to 30 total). Do you want Room Correction engaged? Turn it on in an input. Don’t want it, turn it off in another input. Want subs to play with the system or not, assign them in the input. Tons of flexibility no other Integrated has and exceptional sound along with it. 

Built-in AKM - DAC’s with Asynchronous USB which processes 32 bit 384kHz and 32 bit 192kHz on all other digital and analog connections. 

Surround pass through and the ability to run two subs in stereo or mono where you can use Anthem Room Correction on those as well. 

People who comment on our Room Correction - MOST have not used our newest ARC Genesis that we launched in May 2019. Ton's of new options to control as well as PHASE with Subs. Please check it out at anthemav.com Our products require about 300 hours of break-in and that is per input - most people don't know or share any of this on these threads.

Thanks for your time!

   I would visit all the hifi shops you can and audition dark sounding British offerings perhaps like Spendor and let your ears be the judge. If you can, try to audition the speakers at home for a few days, if the shop allows that, since you want to hear them mated to your front end electronics. 

   It's good starting point to get recommendations, but in the end, you got to love it, and so since you seem to have very good ears, I would just try to hear as many speakers as I can, and go with the one that does it for you.

   I love my Paradigm Studio and don't have your particular complaint. I have mine mated with McIntosh front end, and they sound superb for my classical music ambitions.