Good bookshelf speakers - how much to spend?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife and I are considering doing minor remodelling on our living room (probably a little smaller than an average living room). Currently we own some reasonably nice full size speakers (Paradigm Monitors). We’re considering putting in shelves and stuff that would make full-sized speakers awkward.

So we’re wondering how much we’d have to spend to get small/bookshelf sized speakers that would give approximately equal sound quality. Obviously it’s all subjective, etc, but we’re looking for general ballpark guidance here…
thanks!

2

As luck has it, Paradigm makes bookshelf speakers. No guarantee that they’ll match your full-size ones, but they go for about $260.

Does your new room layout allow space for a subwoofer, and the flexibility to place it wherever it needs to be to sound good?

3

If you go with a Paradigm Mini-Monitor, you are going to get pretty similar mid and high range quality to your old Monitors. As someone else has mentioned, you can get these for like $250-$300.

What you will be missing is the bass aspect, which means you will need to get a subwoofer. The problem is that subs can be expensive. The subs that go with the Monitor series are listed as $700-1000. I suspect you may get a certain amount of discount through a dealer.

I would plan on $1000.

4

Fortunately I already have a subwoofer… which (as I understand it) can be shoved off in some corner or basically used as a lamp-stand or something.

Thanks for the responses!

5

You can get very good bookshelf speakers for $200-500 a pair.

About Paradigm, make sure you listen before you buy. I’ve seen some measurements in Stereophile of newer Paradigm speakers (specifically the 5th version of the Atom here) and it didn’t measure as well as older versions. The measurements and the manufacturer’s reply to the review indicate that they’ve compromised fidelity in order to increase efficiency (meaning they will play louder for a given amount of power.) So, the new Paradigms might not sound as good as the old.

Some other good companies to look at are PSB, Energy, NHT, B&W, Ascend.

Are you doing stereo or surround? In order to blend the sub properly, you need a crossover that will remove the bass from the main channels and remove the high frequencies from the sub. Most subs willl do the latter but often not the former. Any home-theater receiver will have the proper crossover functionality, so I would recommend a home-theater receiver if you have a sub, even if you’re only using 2 speakers.