Subwoofers?

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.

I recently posted a question here (and on AudioAsylum) looking for recommendations on a tight, fast, musical 15" subwoofer for 2-channel music only in a fairly large room. The majority of responses from both threads were for the Paradigm Servo-15.