paradigm atom v1 versus RT25i

jawhog

Been having some fun playing around with classic bargain speakers. Right now the paradigm atom v1s and RT25is.

Bought the atoms and they were in pretty good shape. I had read that a lot of people had rotting surrounds. Being curious I opened up the back (grills are not removable) and took a woofer out. Looked fine. I touched it, it ripped and crumbled.

Well a little research and $20 later I had a refoam kit in hand. It went pretty well. I took off the old surrounds, cleaned everything up with rubbing alcohol. Glued the new foam to the woofer and then glued the surround to the basket while I played a 30hz test tone to keep everything centered.

The first one didn't come off perfectly. When I got everything back together had a lot of woofer vibration noise. I could only diagnose this to an incorrectly centered woofer. So I used a wet paper towel, soaked the glue off and tried again. This time I played a bass sweep instead of a single tone to better listen for problems. Bingo, all good this time. Woofer number two went fine.

All back together now and these are really impressive little speakers. They're not much to look at inside or out, but they are great at what they do. A little recessed, but kind of in a good way that let's vocals sound very clear and not boxey at all.

jawhog

nguyendot

WOW those are Atom MK1's ! The first of the first. I just sold a pair to my boss for $40. I had some MK1.5's too (exact same but with 5 way posts), along with Titans. Very nice speakers. Dad has my RT25i's now. Enjoy!

jawhog

So then I go and pick up some Rt25i's which get damaged in shipping. UPS dropped the box so hard that the magnet from both the tweeter and woofer separated on one of the speakers. So I'm stipping that one apart and I have to say that the inside of the 25i is impressive compared to the atom to say the least. Much stronger construction. I was mining the box to salvage anything I could and just to explore. (I'll be putting the crossover up for sale in case someone needs one).

Here were some noteworthy tidbits (some might be obvious, but I hadn't really noticed before).

Front and back baffles are plastic
Nice strong inner baffle that partially separates woofer from tweeter area
magnet assembly on rt25i woofer is pretty beefy.
There are actually three ports on the 25i, the big one in back and then the two smaller ones that face forward (those are the anti-resonance ones or whatever they're called).
The powerport is actually screwed onto the back, I always pictured it as one molded piece, but if you look closer, it's obvious that it is two pieces.
Feeling that little cone on the powerport, I always imaging this fully smooth exit of air from the port with all this aerodynamic modeling behind it. When I took the powerport off, there is actually an edge of 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch between the port and the back baffle. Seems weird that this wouldn't be smooth.

It's little hard to see the edge, you can kind of pick it up along the left side in the second picture.

jawhog

I thought it might be cool to save the powerport and give it to someone that has a chipped or damaged one, but I'm not sure there's any room to remove it without the port tube getting damaged (I just ripped this one off as you can see in the hanging cardboard).

jawhog

So I was able to compare the speakers, but just one at a time since I only had one 25i. I could listen for tone, but not for imaging or anything.

The paradigms have reasonable bass extension for their size, darker in the mids and softer in the treble. It has a very put together and balanced sound. I preferred the atoms for tv. I had mixed feelings about their music performance. As a near field monitor they sounded great, but in a small listening room, the mids were lost. I've had this problem with other paradigms including three different versions of studio 20s. Guitars become lost in the mix. Anything with a prominent buzzy guitar is just wrong. Husker Du, Minutemen, Jam, Foo Fighters, Fugazi, Zeppelin, Green Day, Melvins. You name it, the guitar is wrong on these in a small room. Although if you're two feet away from the speaker it just works somehow.

Rt25i. A tad more bass extension, way more forward mids and more prominent treble. For all the guitar based music listed above these were superior. The music just had more energy. But when it came to tv and movies, those prominent mids gave the speaker a boxier sound. Voices sounded less natural. I've never quite been able to find a speaker that completely solves this dilemma for me. I have another pair of 25is on the way, so I'm going to go ahead and set up a front 3xRT25i. This is all in my second rig that I use for playing around. A month ago I was running Paradigm Studio 20 v5s and an older paradigm studio CC v2 as a center channel that cost about $1000 all together. Now I'll be using three speakers that cost me about $100. It's going to be a totally different sound, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have fun with it for awhile.

jawhog

Meanwhile, I'm going to put the atoms on my desk running off a Dayton T-amp. Since that t-amp is pretty sparkly, it is a nice mix with the darkish atoms.

jawhog

A few more pics of the refoaming process

jawhog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9FMkrF-7k0

This was the bass sweep that I found worked really good for listening for any vibrations or mounting problems. If the woofer could play through this file without funny noises, then it also was flawless once it was remounted in the cabinet.

jawhog

In post number two, notice the deformation of the foam under the red clip. This is where I went wrong on the first try. I think some of those clips pulled the woofer out of place while it was drying. On the second try, I only used weights to hold the foam down instead of clips so it would stay centered.