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Paradigm Legend v3
Tall Canadian
By Michael Jones
October 2002
Canadian
company Paradigm have carved themselves quite a reputation over the past
decade for creating good performing, high value loudspeakers.
The model under review is the Legend, the largest model in Paradigm’s Performance Series. The Paradigm importer suggested to me that the Performance series is aimed largely at people with cheaper amplifiers and home theatre receivers, although the smaller Atom model has become known as a best buy for impoverished audiophiles.
Tall and imposing is an apt description of the Legend. It’s 1023mm height means that the speaker will dominate a room, though the 197mm width tries to keep this speaker as slim as possible. Tall, slim speakers such as the Legend can be difficult to get and keep stable, particularly on uneven floors. I’d suggest some careful adjusting of the spikes and then rocking the speaker back and forth to embed the spikes in the floor underneath the carpet. (For a polished wooden floor, try a small coin under each spike).
Big as the Legend is, it’s still an attractive looking speaker. The veneer looks particularly fine for a speaker in this price range and the speaker is designed - unlike most - to work well with the grills on.
The problem with most speaker grills is that the design causes the sound to bounce off the (usually) wooden structure. This is known as diffraction. The Legend is designed so that the tweeter sits proud of the front baffle, with the grill designed to gently taper away from the tweeter. Nice touch, Paradigm.
Under
the grill are four drive units per speakers, plus a large port for bass
loading. Although the Legend has four drivers, it is a two and a half
way loudspeaker. This means that all three of the 165mm cones work at
lower frequencies, in order to provide more bass power. Above 600Hz the
lower two woofers roll off, leaving most of the midrange and lower treble
to the topmost woofer. At 2.5kHz the 25mm ceramic/metal composite dome
tweeter takes over.
The Legend is rated at 89dB sensitivity and is “compatible with 8 ohms”, to quote the spec sheet. This means that just about any amplifier should be able to drive the Legend with ease.
So how did it sound? Big and warm with sharp imaging.
Dvorak’s Serenade for Strings had a delicious sense of warmth and body to the strings, while the tune jumping from one string section to another was easily discernible in space. There was a hint of some excessive wiriness on the upper strings, though, which also bothered me a little on some other classical works.
One of my favourite albums is John Hiatt’s 1987 classic Bring the Family. On the track Tip of my Tongue, Nick Lowe’s bass guitar purrs away deliciously, with more than adequate power. Hiatt’s voice betrayed a touch of chestiness, which also came out with some other male singers.
Bass power is a theme that kept cropping up in my listening to the Legends. While many speakers can be clean and precise in the bass, the Legend had the power, the authority and clout to please bassheads as well as more normal folk.
Many bigger speakers can get quite murky in the bass, producing lots of energy but not allowing you to hear what is producing that bass energy. With the Legend it was easy to follow bass guitar lines, with the notes starting and stopping cleanly. The pitching of bass notes was not so clear, with a “sameness” to the pitch of, for example, bass guitars.
The Legend probably wouldn’t appeal so much to the pernicky audiophile, on to their fourth or fifth loudspeaker upgrade. Instead, it’s more likely to be a first or second purchase for someone after a big sound for music or home theatre. In that, the Legend succeeds admirably.
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