TITAN...Great! But Not Quite The Equal Of The Alpha Or Atom!
Written: Jun 24 '03 (Updated Apr 16 '06)
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Pros: Open natural sound that belies its size and price!
Cons: Cannot handle more than 75 clean watts. Not quite the equal of PSB's Alpha.
The Bottom Line: The Paradigm Titan offers above average overall performance that falls a bit short of others like the PSB Alpha B and AR PS-2062. Give the Titans a listen!
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| sam-pro's Full Review: Paradigm Titan Main / Stereo Speaker |
It is not uncommon to find small speakers outperforming larger floorstanding models these days and certainly two Canadian based companies like Paradigm and PSB make quite a statement with their high performing low priced Titan and Alpha models respectively. The similarities are rather striking!
Both boast enclosures less than a foot high with 6 1/2" woofers and metal composite tweeters. Although rated at higher power ratings the little gems can only handle about 75 watts of clean power before breaking up. The tweeters tend to resonate at higher input levels.
The enclosure of the Paradigm Titan is solid as a rock itself! Equally impressive is the use of HD binding posts for cabling the speaker with quality OFC pure copper wire!
The handsomely designed grill is very transparent acoustically and should allow the ported speaker system to project sound to the listener in a non-obstructive manner. The Paradigm Titan is very efficient and should require little power to drive properly.
My listening tests mainly involved a wonderful CBS MASTERWORKS recording of Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" performed by the London Philharmonia Orchestra with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting.
The Titans were impressive! The soundstaging was excellent showing great breadth, depth and height with very good instrument placement. Clarity was excellent also at complex parts of the disc with surprisingly extended bass. High frequencies were very well dispersed as I was able to move about the showroom with little or no change in sound!
I did however notice some phony upper bass irregularity which might fatigue a perspective buyer down the road. Here is where the PSB Alpha B has the Titan clearly beaten! You may want to subwoofer the speaker system later and Paradigm can fill that need very nicely indeed!
All in all the little Titan is appropriately named as it is a somewhat miniscule speaker that puts out a big sound! It has the ability to make larger top-of-the-line models sound sick with their overly large bass sound that muddies the respective speaker's mids and highs! All too many times this is the case! The Titan will have none of that!
Top models like the Martin Logan Sequel and the B&W 802 do not have this problem...at least not to the degree others have. The B&W 801 does!
Listen to the similarly priced Bose 201 Series IV, the PSB Alpha B, the B&W 203, the AR PS-2062 and the JBL N24-II for some fun comparative shopping. The little Paradigm Titan may very well be what you are looking for!...PJS Series II
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): N/A
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Epinions.com ID:
sam-pro
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Member: Peter J Sammon II
Location: The Bloomfield Burying Ground, USA
Reviews written: 218
Trusted by: 121 members
About Me:
Every once in awhile something great arrives at relatively low cost to you...Priceless!
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