Always Adventures in AV readers will know that I spend a lot of time checking out the latest home cinema productions in various locations around the world.
My latest outing took me all the way to Mississauga, Canada (about 28km southwest of Toronto), where I was hosted by Paradigm, Martin Logan and Anthem to check out their manufacturing plant, learn about their brands, and talk to various key members of their team, including the owner, Scott Bagby.
While I’ve been exposed to a real deal of hi-fi and home cinema beauty (stay tuned for more Paradigm related articles coming soon), I’m starting with a new location.
Custom home theater speakers are, by their very nature, difficult for us to test. Drilling holes in our ceiling and cutting pieces in the walls of our AV test room is unstable, which is why we stick to speaker packages made up of floor standing and standing speakers.
Paradigm’s bread and butter, however, is customization. The company also makes a variety of ‘traditional’ speakers, including the impressive Persona range and the newly developed Premier V2 series (expect a functional review of these speakers soon), but the main focus during my time in Canada was the speakers that custom installers fit into walls and ceilings.
Speaking of which, I’ve been joined by a select few custom fitters from the UK. This included members of the Pulse Cinemas team and dealers from its network, all of whom were very knowledgeable on the subject and provided me with valuable insight.
Eager to brush up on my knowledge, I used this visit to Paradigm headquarters to take a crash course in setting up custom installations, and walked away convinced that I needed to cut some holes in my walls and ceiling.
Paradigm told me about its Ci Elite V2, Ci Pro V2, and Ci Home V2 speaker ranges, which include everything from powerful floor-standing speakers that fit your walls, to in-ceiling speakers the size of dinner plates made to be broadcast throughout your home with a multi-home music system.
Those height speakers are, of course, also suitable for delivering Dolby Atmos height effects, and the clean, minimal look of having the speakers on the wall facing the TV – Paradigm has this arrangement set up in its office – is attractive.
Not everyone wants high-end speakers taking up space in their living room, which is completely understandable.
Stepping into the Paradigm home theater room is what really sold me, though. Wall and interior speakers, as well as discreet subwoofers, were hidden behind transparent materials, and the room was finished with plush recliners and acoustic panels to absorb unwanted noise.
Powering the room was a stack of Anthem AV amplifiers, and a Kaleidescape system that handled the movies. I watched the clips from it The Greatest Show Ever, Midway again Yesterdayand I really enjoyed the loud, enveloping and cinematic sound.
The low-range frequencies from the in-wall subwoofers placed inside the walls surrounding the room were particularly interesting. The bass produced in this system was distributed evenly in the room, creating an experience of immersion and balance.
Although this is the highest mentioned room, of course, than anything in my house (especially my living room), it inspired me to dig deeper into the world of custom home cinema and hi-fi installations.
I won’t be able to cut holes in my ceiling – I don’t think my landlord would be happy about that – but it has given me some ideas for our home cinema screening room…
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