Review: Paradigm Signature Sub 1

At the inaugural National Hi-fi Show, in 2009, there were some impressive demonstrations, in what was a stereo hi-fi dominated show. It wasn’t without its AV highlights with several traditional hi-fi, plus some more naturally AV focused manufacturers, demoing full multi-channel systems to varying degrees of success. As I wrote on the AV Enthusiast Blog, the top performing room of that list, by more than a small margin, was the Anthem/Paradigm/Sim2 room.

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Reference Status. There, I said it. You can’t mark it down for being hard to move because so is my wife and I still keep her about. Like the wife, in just about every other respect, it’s just so damn easy to live with. Whereas other subs may have you fiddling about with separate movie and music settings to bypass their deficiencies, you just plug the Sub 1 in, tune it once, put the microphones away and sit grinning like a nun who’s found the soap; for hours on end. I never thought that movies needed a bit more bass or that music sounds a little bloated – It just did accurate bass, as loud or low as you could want, and then stopped exactly when it wasn’t being asked to anymore. It never drew attention to itself in an unpleasant way; it turns itself on and off without missing the beginning of an effect; and looks gorgeous in any front room. If only it was a bit bigger and more powerful, so as to go a bit deeper, then it would achieve as close to bass perfection as I can imagine. Oh dear! Paradigm may have; with 10” drivers and 3400/7000w of power and called it Sub 2. I think I may actually be scared…