Paradigm introduced a new line of speakers at CEDIA 2014, the Prestige. The Prestige line has three floor standing models, a bookshelf model, two center channels and a surround. The floor-standing models retail for $3,000, $4,000, and $5,000 a pair in the three main finishes. There is a custom midnight cherry finish that is extra for each speaker. All of these feature a tweeter with a new lens guide over the tweeter that both protects it and is said to help with output and dispersion.

The towers are all 2.5-way models with combined midrange-woofer drivers and rear ports. The drivers feature a new surround, ART, that allows for higher levels of output due to increased extrusion. All the models feature nice binding posts and magnetic grills to give them a clean look for placement in a living room. The floor-standing models should be shipping by the end of the year, with the other models to follow next year.

In a demo, the F85 model ($4,000 in piano black) sounds very good, with a large soundstage and very good detail on acoustic voices. Next door, MartinLogan was showing off the Neolith that they first debuted at the Munich Hi-Fi Show in May. The Neolith stands an impressive 6’3″ tall, the same as me, and weighs far, far more. They are going to retail for $80,000 when they are eventually released. There are a few standard colors that they will come in, but for $80,000 you can get them custom made in almost any color you want.

The MartinLogan demo room was one of my favorites from the show. It wasn’t just because of the sound quality, but because of the material itself: Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense Blu-ray. The front channels were the Motion 60XT models that were just released and they sounded very good. The concert is very clear, with vocals from David Byrne being as clear as I’ve heard the film. Martin Logan has been very good recently at picking some of the best material out there for their demo rooms, and this year was no different. The Motion 60XT is a speaker I wouldn’t mind spending some more time with at home.