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Angled view of the Paradigm Titan bookshelf pair showing the black ash finish on the cabinet sides and tops

Rear of the Paradigm Titan bookshelf speakers showing the Performance Series model labels, spring terminals and rear ports

Paradigm Titan v1 Bookshelf Speakers – Vifa Tweeters, Canada

Name: Paradigm Titan v1 Bookshelf Speakers – Vifa Tweeters, Canada
Brand: Paradigm
SKU: 19109
Price: 145.00 CAD
Availability: OutOfStock

$145.00

The original Canadian-built Titan, the version with the Danish Vifa tweeter.

✔️ Condition: Good — presents as very good overall with one exception: a ding in the side of one cabinet
✔️ Covered by Radique Warranty
✔️ Includes Perpetual Trade-Back Program eligibility
✔️ Expertly packed for safe shipping

Out of stock

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Other bookshelf speakers we have in stock now

3 in stock · $125.00–$295.00 · all ship

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Paradigm Titan v2 Bookshelf Speakers - Serviced - Canada$225.00Ships

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Custom-built Radique Audio speaker cables with gold-plated banana plug, spade, and pin connector terminations

Whatever you end up with, it needs cable.

We hand-build speaker cable to your exact length and terminate it however you like: banana, spade, pin or bare wire. Tell us the run and the ends, and it ships ready to plug in.

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Description

The original Canadian-built Titan, the version with the Danish Vifa tweeter.

What it is

The Titan earned its reputation the hard way. From 1991 onward it collected praise from reviewers who kept arriving at the same conclusion by different routes: that a speaker this inexpensive had no business sounding this good. High-end sound for people on a low-end budget was the phrase that stuck, and it stuck because it was true.

They are musical, detailed and satisfying in a way that small speakers usually are not, and in the mid-bass they will surprise you. A pair of Titans can move more air than their size suggests, and the first time a bass line arrives properly in a small room you tend to look at them again.

What makes the first version distinctive

The Titan ran through six versions across its life, and they are not interchangeable — but the differences are not a simple ranking. Paradigm improved the Titan as it went: later versions got a better cabinet, better hardware and proper binding posts, and they are Canadian-built too.

What the first version has that none of the others do is the tweeter.

The original Titans used a Vifa dome — specifically the D19TD-27-08, a three-quarter-inch ferrofluid-cooled poly dome built in Denmark by Videbæk Højttalerfabrik, a firm that spent decades as the OEM supplier behind a long list of high-end European loudspeakers. It was an extravagant part to put in a budget speaker. Around 1995 Paradigm moved the driver complement over to units of their own manufacture, and the Vifa never came back.

That is why the early pairs still get sought out. Not because they beat the later ones on the spec sheet, but because that tweeter has a character people go looking for, and once Paradigm stopped buying them there was no way to get it again.

The cabinets are black ash with black grilles. The grilles on this series are fixed rather than removable.

One thing to know before you order cable: this is an early Version 1 and the terminals are spring clips, not binding posts. Paradigm moved the Titan to five-way binding posts late in the run, and this pair predates that. Spring clips take bare wire or a pin, and they will not accept bananas or spades — worth knowing if you already own terminated cable.

The surrounds, and how we know

These have been re-foamed. We can tell you that with certainty because we did the work ourselves, three years ago — and we know where the pair has been since, because we sold them and have now taken them back under our Perpetual Trade-Back Program.

That is worth more than the re-foam on its own. Foam surrounds are the thing that ends a twenty-five-year-old bookshelf speaker’s life, and on a used pair you are usually taking somebody’s word for whether they have been dealt with. Here you are not. Three-year-old surrounds are barely into their working life, and the pair has come straight back to the bench that did them.

Condition

Good, and honestly described.

Overall these present as very good — the cabinets are clean and the pair look after themselves well for their age. There is one exception: a ding in the side of one cabinet. It is a single mark on a side panel rather than anything structural, and with the pair in position it sits out of the sight line.

Everything else is sound, and they still present well.

The Vifa-tweetered original, with surrounds we did ourselves and one honest mark.

Available for pickup in Kanata, or shipped across Canada and internationally — we have sent equipment to fifteen countries in the past year, each piece packed in-house in 275 lb test double-wall boxes. Live shipping rates for your address are calculated at checkout. Backed by Radique Audio’s Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty and our Perpetual Trade-Back Program. Available for audition by appointment in Kanata.

Paradigm Titan v1 Specifications

Design: 2-way bookshelf loudspeaker, rear-ported cabinet
Tweeter: Vifa D19TD-27-08, 19 mm (3/4 in) ferrofluid-cooled poly dome, made in Denmark
Woofer: 165 mm (6.5 in), re-foamed by Radique Audio three years ago
Amplifier range: 15 to 100 watts (rear plate)
Typical program: 60 watts maximum (rear plate)
Sensitivity: 89 dB (1 watt / 1 metre)
Nominal impedance: 8 ohms, minimum 4 ohms (rear plate)
Terminals: spring clips — bare wire or pins only, no bananas or spades
Grilles: fixed, not removable
Finish: black ash with black grilles
Built in Canada
Dimensions: (Height x Width x Depth) 13 x 9.5 x 8 inches (330 x 241 x 203 mm)
Weight: 10.5 lbs (4.8 kg) each

🔌 Speaker Cable and the Right Connector

The speaker terminals here are spring clips rather than binding posts, so banana plugs and spades will not fit — our own gold-plated pin connectors are the right answer, and they make connecting and disconnecting far easier than stripping bare wire every time. We also hand-build speaker cable here in any length you need, terminated to suit, on our Custom Speaker Cable Builder. 👉

🔌 Speaker Cable and the Right Connector

Our own gold-plated pin connectors are the right fit for the speaker terminals here, and they make connecting and disconnecting far easier than stripping bare wire back every time. We also hand-build speaker cable here in any length you need, terminated to suit, on our Custom Speaker Cable Builder. 👉

✅ Buy With Confidence — The Radique Promise

Backed by Radique Audio’s Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty and our Perpetual Trade-Back Program. When you’re ready to move on, we’ll take it back. That’s the Radique difference.

📦 Watch how we protect your gear — our unboxing video.

📺 Curious about our business? Check out our YouTube channel for behind-the-scenes videos and more!

📞 Questions? Use the Ask a Question button above, or call us at 613-416-9995.

Additional information

Weight	23 lbs
Dimensions	22 × 13.5 × 17 in
Impedance	8 Ω
Power Handling	51–100 W
Sensitivity	86–89 dB
Woofer Size	6–7″

About brand

Paradigm at Radique

We service Paradigm, too. Bring us your own Paradigm speakers and subwoofers for repair, servicing or restoration (speakers up to 80 lbs each), with a 90-day warranty on the work. See our Audio Service page

Paradigm has designed loudspeakers in the Toronto area since 1982, with engineering roots that run through Ottawa: it took part in the National Research Council's loudspeaker research here, and its research lab has been in Ottawa since 1993. We've had more than 600 Paradigm listings so far, covering 193 different models, more than any other brand we resell. Every used Paradigm here is inspected, tested and serviced as required, then photographed in-house and covered by our Bumper-to-Bumper Warranty and Perpetual Trade-Back Program. Don't see the model you want? Tell us on First Dibs and we'll email you when one arrives.

Our five best-selling Paradigm models so far: the Cinema 330 v.3 on-wall speakers, the Mini Monitor bookshelf speakers, the Monitor 7 towers, and the PS-1000 and PDR-10 subwoofers.

The Paradigm story, 1982 to today

Jerry VanderMarel and Scott Bagby founded Paradigm in 1982 in the Toronto area, VanderMarel running sales and marketing and Bagby design and manufacturing. Their first speakers made their debut at a Toronto audio show that year, and Paradigm says 12 dealers signed on.

The Ottawa years. In the 1980s almost every major Canadian speaker maker measured its designs in the National Research Council's anechoic chamber here in Ottawa, and Paradigm took part in the research Dr. Floyd Toole led at the NRC, which paired chamber measurements with blind listening tests. Paradigm built its own anechoic chamber in 1988, sparing its engineers the five-hour drive to Ottawa. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was one of several Canadian companies in the NRC's Athena project, which studied speakers that adapt to the room. NRC scientists Peter Schuck and Marc Bonneville then joined Paradigm, which says it opened its Ottawa research centre, PARC, for them in 1993. That lab went on to design Anthem's electronics and its room-correction system. A 1990s Paradigm Titan is now part of the collection at Ingenium, Canada's science and technology museums, here in Ottawa.

Growth. Paradigm moved into the US market in the mid-1980s, added its first in-wall speaker in 1989 and launched the Monitor series in 1990. The Titan was a hit by 1991, the Atom followed in 1992, and the PS-1000 of 1994 was its first powered subwoofer. By 1992 Stereophile counted about 256 Paradigm dealers in the US.

Reference and the new factory. The Reference line, with its Studio speakers, arrived in the mid-1990s; Stereophile reviewed the Studio/100 in 1997. In 1998 Paradigm bought Sonic Frontiers, which brought Anthem into the family. In 2001 it moved into a new Mississauga factory with what it calls the hemisphere's largest privately owned anechoic chamber, at 33,000 cubic feet. A tour that year found the plant finishing 1,500 speakers a day, with driver frames cast, cones moulded and voice coils wound in-house.

Changes of hands. Co-founder Jerry VanderMarel left in 2005, when the private-equity firm ShoreView Industries became Scott Bagby's partner; together they went on to buy MartinLogan. Compact lines such as Cinema were built overseas from the start, and from the 2010s Monitor was too, while Prestige (2014), Persona (2016) and Founder (2021) have been built in Mississauga. In 2019 Scott Bagby and his son John bought Paradigm, Anthem and MartinLogan back from ShoreView, and their company, PML Sound International, added GoldenEar at the start of 2025.

Which Paradigm is which?

Performance Series (1990s to 2006): the entry line, with the Atom, Titan, Focus, Esprit and Phantom. A 1990s Titan's label reads "Performance Series … Made in Canada". At the end of 2006 the Atom and Titan moved into the Monitor line.

Monitor (from 1990): the step-up line, and from 2006 the entry line; today's version is Monitor SE. In the early 1990s it was topped by the Studio Monitor tower, in real wood veneer.

Reference Studio (mid-1990s to mid-2010s): the Studio/20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 plus matching centres, with die-cast aluminium driver chassis and aluminium-dome tweeters, made in numbered versions. From the v.2 generation of 1999 the sides came in laminate or, for a little more, real wood veneer. A favourite here is the Studio/80 v.2, a slim 2.5-way tower from about 1999 to 2003; the pairs with real wood sides are the ones to find.

Signature (2004–2016): the flagship of its day, part of the Reference family.

Cinema (from about 2000): compact home-theatre satellites and centres in polymer cabinets, designed to be used with a subwoofer, later sold as Cinema CT packages.

Millenia (from 2006): slim aluminium-cabinet speakers made to suit flat-panel TVs. The little MilleniaOne was Sound & Vision's 2011 Product of the Year.

Stylus (from 1999): weatherproof outdoor speakers.

Today's lines: Monitor SE, Premier (2018), Prestige (2014), Founder (2021) and the Persona flagship (2016).

Subwoofers: from the PS-1000 (1994) and Servo-15 (1996) through the PS and PW series to Defiance (2018).

Buying used Paradigm: what to check

The rear label. Where a Paradigm was built depends on the line and the year, and some names were reused (the Atom and Titan moved from Performance to Monitor, and the Esprit name appeared in more than one line), so the label tells you exactly what you have.

Veneer or laminate. On Reference Studio models from 1999 on, real wood veneer sides were an option; look closely at the sides before you assume.

Woofer surrounds. Owners report foam surrounds needing replacement on some older models, including early Titans. Press gently around each one.

Powered subwoofers. The amplifier is the part most likely to have aged. Run a used sub at volume and check that auto-on still works.

Everything we list is inspected, tested and serviced as required here, and comes with our warranty.