I've got what I imagine is a somewhat strange question:
I've had pair of Lineaum tower speakers for 10 years or so. This is not the small Radio Shack speakers that I often see mentioned, but a 40" or so model with a six-inch or so Lineaum driver that seems to cover much of the range, and an 8" woofer.
So I decided to start to look around for replacing these, wondering how the start-of-the-art in affordable speakers is these days.
Just yesterday I listened to two speakers I thought might be promising: the Paradigm Studio 20 and the new-ish Era Design 5. The sales guy also offered to let me hear a very high-end B&W model for comparison (I think one in the 800 series).
Now the issue is this: I came back and listened to the Linaeums and thought they sounded pretty good in comparison. In fact, despite the notably less defined bass (my one primary criticism of the speakers), I thought the Lineaums actually sounded better than all but the B&W.
As I said, this is the first two (well three) new speakers I've listened to of late, and it actually wasn't in the best of circumstances, so I'm not fully confident in my perceptions. But I'm just wondering if anyone out there has any experience with Lineaum speakers that might give me some sense of how to compare them to more traditional alternatives today. Can I expect to find something under $1500 (and preferably less) with the same kind of mid-range clarity and ease? I quite liked the Eras, but they did not sound quite as smoothly detailed in the mid-range on first impression.
I've got what I imagine is a somewhat strange question:
I've had pair of Lineaum tower speakers for 10 years or so. This is not the small Radio Shack speakers that I often see mentioned, but a 40" or so model with a six-inch or so Lineaum driver that seems to cover much of the range, and an 8" woofer.
So I decided to start to look around for replacing these, wondering how the start-of-the-art in affordable speakers is these days.
Just yesterday I listened to two speakers I thought might be promising: the Paradigm Studio 20 and the new-ish Era Design 5. The sales guy also offered to let me hear a very high-end B&W model for comparison (I think one in the 800 series).
Now the issue is this: I came back and listened to the Linaeums and thought they sounded pretty good in comparison. In fact, despite the notably less defined bass (my one primary criticism of the speakers), I thought the Lineaums actually sounded better than all but the B&W.
As I said, this is the first two (well three) new speakers I've listened to of late, and it actually wasn't in the best of circumstances, so I'm not fully confident in my perceptions. But I'm just wondering if anyone out there has any experience with Lineaum speakers that might give me some sense of how to compare them to more traditional alternatives today. Can I expect to find something under $1500 (and preferably less) with the same kind of mid-range clarity and ease? I quite liked the Eras, but they did not sound quite as smoothly detailed in the mid-range on first impression.