How Do You Get Great Sound Without Disrupting the Décor of the Room?

Your home is decorated, and now it’s time to add the home theater system of your dreams to the living room television, but space is a challenge. You have your receiver and amplifier, but the room is just not big enough for floor standing speakers. Also, your significant other does not want “ugly speakers” as part of the decor. For any audiophile that cohabits with a non-audiophile, getting the sound you want that the decorator in the family likes is a challenge. There is hope. If you are struggling to find a compromise on your home theater with your significant other, here are three ways to overcome the standard objections to adding a sound system to a display.

1. Do we need speakers? We purchased a new TV. Today the speakers on the new televisions are on the back of the display. This means, when they are mounted on the wall, which the typical way to put the tv in the living room, the speaker sends the sound to a wall, then it bounces off. The result – horrible sound. A quality speaker designed to accompany the displays will redirect the sound while improving the quality and the experience of your new television.

2. I do not want a speaker sitting on the table under the TV or around the room. Getting the ok to rest a speaker on a piece of furniture or have floor standing speakers around a small living room can bring on harsh words. Avoid this conversation by purchasing speakers that blend seamlessly with the display. Décor speakers are available in both horizontal/sound bar and side-mounted / vertical configurations. Speakers can be combined to create a slim, elegant, high-performance audio system that is customized to the exact height and length of any wall-mounted, flat panel television. This is a custom-built speaker that will seamlessly blend with your display to not take away from the aesthetics of the room. 

3. We cannot have true surround sound, so why bother? While surround sound may not be possible, improving the sound from your television with a Décor speaker is the perfect solution. The Décor line of speakers come in one, two, or three channel specs giving you the flexibility to use any size television and match it with high-performance Paradigm home theater audio, without worrying about mismatched aesthetics or poorly blended sound.

With these tips, you should be able to come to a compromise on getting the quality sound you want in a sound system that does not disrupt the look of your living room. See our full Décor line on our website to see all the options available. 

Paradigm In-Wall Speakers Shown UK Love

Paradigm's popularity is growing in Europe as value becomes a major motivator for speaker and electronics purchases. Helping deliver this message to the UK is Paradigm's partner and distributor, aptly named Anthem Audio Video Solutions.

Anthem AV Solutions Director James Buckle wrote an excellent piece on Paradigm's architectural offerings for a UK trade publication called HiddenWires: Paradigm Custom Install Speakers. In addition to offering background information, he writes about some of Paradigm's most popular in-wall/in-ceiling speakers and subwoofers. Architectural speakers are an area of huge growth in the UK and abroad as aesthetics and discretion become increasingly important. The accompanying lifestyle photography with overlaying product shots supporting the article is a nice touch. Job well done HiddenWires.co.uk and Mr. Buckle.

Paradigm Electronics HomeTheaterHifi.com Factory Tour

A brief but informative overview of a recent Paradigm factory tour was posted on www.HomeTheaterHifi.com's new forum section they are calling the "Cave," by J. Andrew Yang.

We encourage Paradigm fans to join the forum and offer feedback on products and other home audio/video related matters.

One of the highlights from the article:

"The biggest thing that should strike anybody is the degree to which Paradigm is vertically integrated. R&D, design, prototyping and manufacturing are all conducted on-site for nearly every component. The driver voice coil, cone, caps, surrounds, spider, magnets and basket are all manufactured on-site. The inductors for the crossovers are wound on-site. Tool & die for the molding processes are fabricated on-site. The wood veneer is applied on-site. The list goes on and on."

Mr. Yang is right-on with his comments, speaker quality is our number one priority and there's no better quality-control than having every aspect of the process right in front of you.

A more in-depth Paradigm factory tour with images can be found here.

The Importance of Audio in Gaming

Sound and Vision editor/blogger Will Greenwald wrote an interesting post about audio and gaming entitled The sound of gaming where he postulates the following:

"Video games and home theater enthusiasm seem like the perfect match. A far cry from the days of pixelated sprites and harshly synthesized sound effects, modern video games have all the hallmarks of a top-notch Blu-ray release: high-resolution graphics, Dolby Digital surround sound, and tons of interactive features. Unfortunately, the twin houses of gamers and home theater buffs almost never mingle, despite how well their equipment can work with each other. "

While we would recommend a Paradigm Cinema Phantom or Micro system over Mr. Greenwald's choice of speakers, we agree with his point about the lack of mingling between home theater and gaming buffs, despite the obvious shared interests.

Greenwald gets very specific in his breakdown of how quality audio can enhance the gaming experience, including this commentary on the importance of a subwoofer:

"When you have a subwoofer, the weak "Bang. Bang. Bang." that used to waft from your television becomes a proper "BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!" Bullets, rockets, bombs, anything involving combustion is going to sound better with the beefy bass of a subwoofer behind it. In Red Faction: Guerrilla, where virtually every man-made structure is destructible, the extra power is invaluable. Between the 5 satellites to provide the soundscape and the subwoofer to provide the rumble, I felt like an EDF stronghold was collapsing before me, thanks to the judicious combination of high explosives and a ridiculously overpowered sledgehammer."

We'd love to hear more noise like this from the gamer community and press.

Paradigm Launches Reference Hybrid Millenia 10 and 20: In/on-wall Style Redefines Architectural Speakers

Ultra-slim flat-panel television displays finally have met their sonic and aesthetic match, as Paradigm Electronics announces its first-ever partly-in-wall/partly-out-of-the-wall speaker designs. The new Reference Hybrid Millenia™ 10 and 20 integrate reference-quality build materials into a form factor that protrudes less than an inch and a half from the wall!

Conventional on-wall speakers jut out four to five inches, dwarfing the depth of most wall-mounted flat-panel displays. Although great sound is paramount, floor space and visual appeal (or discretion) are important secondary factors in the purchase of speakers. Paradigm’s new models are slim enough to visually complement ever-slimming flat panels for years to come, even with the grills on. By partially recessing a Millenia Hybrid into the wall, the speaker gains a deeper, more stable enclosure with inherent performance advantages over traditional on-wall mounting techniques.

Each Paradigm hybrid speaker is engineered to incorporate the predictable effects of a wall on the speaker’s frequency response. The speaker’s pre-attached glass-reinforced injection-molded polymer (GRIP™) bracket is optimized to exploit maximum wall area for a complete absence of vibration, even when performing at maximum output.

Like all Paradigm® Reference Millenia speakers, the Hybrids’ high-frequency drivers exhibit timbral clarity and transparency comparable to the very best electrostatic or ribbon designs. Midrange drivers deliver an accurate, lifelike and critically revealing performance with extraordinary detail. Bass response, free of cone standing waves and micro distortions and reinforced by the wall, offers exceptional articulation. Add Millenia 10 Hybrids or Millenia ADPs as surround/rear speakers and then complete your Millenia home theater system with  room-pounding bass from a Paradigm® Reference subwoofer. 

Millenia 20 Hybrid and 10 Hybrid, designed for two-channel or multi-channel configurations, can be mounted horizontally or vertically. Their simple three-step installation process is made even easier by the mounting templates that securely cradle each speaker. Once the template is in, the speaker is wired and adjusted to cover the cutout. Tighten four screws to hold the speaker in place, and installation is complete.

Audio Callibration Tips for Home Theater from THX

ElectronicHouse.com offers a helpful and informative article on callibrating audio in a home theater titled Five Easy Steps to Superior Home Theater Sound.

The article is an easy-to-follow and comprehensive look at what you can do to ensure the audio pumping through your Paradigm speakers is not compromised by secondary conditions and is maximized whether it's a two-channel set-up or a 7.2 surround configuration.

Quoting EH.com reporter Bob Archer on why audio callibration hasn't caught up to it's video cousin, "...the audio community has had a difficult time making the transition from two-channel to home theater, and its educational efforts have been primarily equipment-centric, which has limited the public’s knowledge on the topic of audio calibration."

Nice work Bob, hope to see more articles like this in the future.