Paradigm Atom speakers for bedroom system?

I have a pair of Atoms and find them great for the price. Have them up on the Premier wall brackets made for them too. Before I got more serious into headphones I was well into two-channel audio and I used to swap my Atoms into my system every once in a while and was always floored at how good they were for what they are. I was swapping out $1,000+ monitors for them and they always seemed to communicate the music almost as good as any monitor I owned. They have a full bass region that goes into the midrange so they sound bigger than they should. The treble is well defined and open and is nicely integrated and doesn't try to shout "hear me" like other tweeters. They did have a nice open soundstage and good imaging. Thing is I had 2-3K of electronics behind them and they sat on 100 pound speaker stands too. While they still sound good on the brackets up on the wall with a Denon receiver behind them, of course it's not nearly what I was hearing when they were in my main rig. On the wall soundstage and depth is greatly diminished and frequency balance is skewed a bit, but you have to expect that since they will up against a wall and not out into the room on stands. Good little speakers.

I purchased a pair of NHT SB2 from J&R for $300.00 shipped from about a month ago. J&R is authorized and in my opinion, the NHT speakers are on a whole different level from the Atoms.

Never heard the Grado SR-125, but I own SR60's, and also Paradigm Atoms. Like both a lot. The atoms are my surround speakers in my Home Theater setup, would highly recommend them.

While I went with PSBs for my HT setup, I felt Paradigms were a very close second, and if I were buying only bookshelves I might have gone with the Atoms over the comparable PSBs--so I think the Atoms are a great choice in that price range.

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One of the most celebrated inexpensive small bookshelf speakers in recent years, the NHT SuperOne, is still available at OneCall.com. They are a NHT authorized dealer and should be available for about $250.00/pair.

However, the SuperOne's successor, the SB2, is much MUCH better. The SB2's bass response goes deeper and it is tight. NHT speakers are generally very revealing....they will sound excellent with good gear, but horrible when driven by lousy gear.

The SuperOne has foam surrounds, while the newer SB2 has rubber surrounds.

I know the Advent Prodigy....aren't they just short floor-standing speakers? The Advent Graduate was the large bookshelf speakers.

I just gave away an old pair of Original PSB Alphas to a friend as a birthday gift and topped it off with a vintage Rotel receiver and JVC CD player. After I hooked it all up, she popped in an obscure country cd and I was surprised at how good the PSB's sounded. The guitar sounded so right. Not bad for a 10 year old pair of bookshelf speakers. Sometimes you can find them used for around $100 on Audiogon.

redshifter,

I think with the NHTs, upgrading to better source components and amps will not resulting in the speakers being the bottleneck in system performance.

I believe the Atoms are going for something like $190/pair, right? For a little over $100.00/pair, the NHTs offer a bigger midrange/woofer so your speaker can go lower, a speaker design (acoustic suspension) that's easier to place (no rear port to consider), magnetic shielding, and a much MUCH better looking speaker.

By the way, here's the prototype of upcoming NHT mini-monitor at CES featuring digital room corection.



This new NHT mini-monitor uses the same aluminum tweeter at the current SB series and features a magnesium woofer from SEAS.

How about the SB series in silver/grey??

Where is people getting these prices for the Atoms? Just wrote in another thread and repeat it here, got my pair of Atoms brand new (V2) a year and a half ago for just $130, brand new in an authorized dealer (All Pro Sound, Pensacola FL). Don't think their price would have gone up so much in that time, even for newer versions.

I personally don't think NHT's of similar price would surpass the Atoms. I once compared my Paradigm Titans and Atoms to NHT towers (so $1K+ NHT's). A/B switching them (using a Sony ES receiver) was completely unnoticeable, the Paradigms have as neutral a midrange as the NHT's. Where you could tell there was a difference was in the bass since the NHT towers had 10" woofers. Also they were a slight touch brighter than the Paradigms. Other than that, A/B switching female voices, and orchestra music was basically unnoticeable, only if there was deep powerful bass involved, or shrill highs you could tell a switch had happened. This was in my opinion, as well as in my friend's opinion, the owner of the NHT towers, who contrary to his expectations was quite impressed by the Paradigms.

Incidentally, another friend of ours brought NHT superzeros, they sounded like cheapo PC little speakers compared to the Atoms and Titans. Their sound didn't match at all, not even close, their bigger brothers, or the Paradigms. The Titans and Atoms however had basically exactly the same neutral midrange and lower treble signature as the NHT towers.

Don't really know redshifter, never heard the v1's myself. BTW, by now Paradigm might be in their v3 or v4 version. Still, I wouldn't think the Atom's brand new street price is above $150. I might be wrong of course, that's why I inquired where people are getting those higher prices from.