Subwoofers?

You might try an inexpensive pair of Audience Conductor series ic's with your sub. It's amazing how the entire line of Audience cables will minimize time smear and provide at least some subs a much more accurate lower bass reproduction. Some Audience dealers will provide up to a 60 audition time period.

Secondly, it's highly probable that the type of bass you may be dreaming of simply cannot take place with your current strategy. Why?

Primarily because the amplifier sections of some to many active subs simply will not provide the absolute control over the subwoofer driver that is an absolute must. The sub amps may be satisfactory or even good, but certainly not great. (I'm a believer that if the subwoofer mfg'er's amplifiers where really that good, they'd spin off a whole new line of amplifiers.) It has been stated on more than one occassion that many very expensive 2-channel amps also fail miserably at the bottom end. Therefore, the sub mfg'ers are not alone here.

You stand a far better chance at obtaining the deepest, tightest, most well defined bass if you should instead opt for:

1. A pair of full range speakers like the Von Schweikert VR-4 Gen III SE's (retail at $6k) that supposedly accurately go down to 16Hz. (Keep in mind most subwoofers cannot not go down to 16Hz). And a full-range speaker like this also eliminates any potential crossover problems that seem to concern many.

2. Finding the best amp possible to help get the speakers accurately reproducing way down there without sacrificing any other part of the frequency spectrum. Good luck finding one.

3. Finding the best speaker cable that eliminates/minimizes the time smear that is so commonly found in most cabling. Not to mention purchasing such a cable without having to sell the farm.

-IMO

As someone very knowledgeable once told me... "Bass is slow ... It is the high frequencies that provide the illusion of speed."

There are many factors that can affect bass performance and before ditching the Paradigm you might try optimizing its performance by fiddling with its location in the room, crossover frequency, and phase control. I got my Servo-15 to mate seamlessly with InnerSound Eros electrostatics (which are very fast speakers), so something may be wrong with your set up. Bass is extremely room-dependent and simply buying a more expensive sub may not solve your problem...

Plato thanks for the advise I have tried numberous adjustments to the X30 furnished with the servo. I am really limited on sub location, I could rotate it if you feel that may be beneficial. Have you ever tried another crossover? I have listened to the Innersounds and you are very fortunate indeed.

I agree with Plato. I don't know your sub, however, I have mated ML with a genesis sub. It may be that to get an optimum mix there are four things you should try. 1. Lower the crossover point. 2. Check to see if the crossover slope can be changed to something like 24 db or even faster 48 db. 3. Change the location to right between the speakers and slightly forward or in a corner behind one of the speakers. 4. Finally have you tried bass traps?

Get the Stadium and stop worrying. It's just so much more musical, and still has astonishing output capability. Avoid the temptation to buy the Storm, it's not nearly as good.

And contrary to the above:

(1) Bass "speed" is indeed an issue, and is indeed difficult to achieve with very large drivers without getting very expensive (as in, many times the cost of the driver used in the Paradigm). I'm not disagreeing with the theoretical statement that bass is slow compared to higher frequencies, merely stating that in the real world, good-sounding 15" drivers are VERY expensive.

Technical diversion: You always have to think about these issues from the perspective of TIME. Just as an example, if a midrange driver has a 1 degree phase lag on a 1 kHz pulse (due to inertia), that is a delay of about 0.04 seconds. If a subwoofer has the same degree of phase lag, the delay at 30 Hz is 1.25 seconds! It suddenly becomes clear why the bass driver must be so good if it is not to sound "slow" compared to the rest of the system.

(2) A properly set up sub/sat system will almost always be superior to an equivalent full-range system, simply because it is almost impossible to set up a single box in a location which optimizes both imaging and bass response. It's more difficult to get the sub/sat right, but when you do, it's amazing.

(3) It is quite easy to design a good sub amp as long as it's not required to sound perfect in the mids and highs. The main requirement is a really big power supply, and this is obtainable quite easily. This is the other big advantage of the RELs: the signal to the sats never passes through the sub's circuitry, so it can't possibly get screwed up.