Millenia Lp 2

Paradigm Millenia LP 2

The Paradigm Millenia LP 2 is an ultra-slim on-wall loudspeaker from Paradigm’s Reference Millenia range, designed to sit beside a flat-panel television without occupying floor space or projecting into the room. It is important to be clear about what it is, because it is sometimes described incorrectly: the LP 2 is a passive loudspeaker. It has no built-in amplifier, no Bluetooth and no signal inputs of its own — it connects to an AV receiver or amplifier with ordinary speaker cable, and it can serve as a left, centre or right channel speaker in a stereo or home theatre system. Its cabinet is only 1-3/4 inches deep, yet Paradigm fits five drivers into it: one tweeter, two powered bass-midrange drivers and two passive radiators, in a two-way bass-reflex design.

Key features

• Ultra-slim 1-3/4 inch profile: A depth of just 2.5 cm in Paradigm’s metric listing, 1-3/4 inches, lets the speaker sit close to the wall beside a flat-panel display.
• Five-driver, two-way design: One tweeter, two bass-midrange drivers and two passive radiators in a bass-reflex arrangement, unusual driver count for so thin a cabinet.
• S-PAL dome tweeter: A 25mm (1-inch) satin-anodised pure aluminium dome, ferro-fluid damped and cooled, behind a perforated aluminium mesh screen.
• Anodised unibody bass-midrange cones: Two 114mm (4-1/2-inch) drivers with 37mm high-temperature aluminium voice coils, Nomex spiders, nitrile-butadiene rubber surrounds and neodymium magnets.
• Passive radiators: Two matching 114mm anodised cones with precision-tuned resonance systems extend low-frequency output without a conventional port.
• 92 dB room sensitivity: Sensitivity of 92 dB in-room and 89 dB anechoic, with a suitable amplifier power range of 15 to 130 watts and compatibility with 8 ohm amplifiers.
• Wall or tabletop use: Supplied for wall mounting and with a stand for tabletop placement, finished in black gloss with brushed aluminium accents.

Performance specification

Paradigm rates the on-axis frequency response at plus or minus 3 dB from 120Hz to 21kHz, with response at 30 degrees off-axis holding to 15kHz and low-frequency extension of 75Hz under the DIN standard. The crossover is a second-order electro-acoustic design at 2.6kHz. Maximum input power is 70 watts. Those figures describe a speaker designed to be crossed over to a subwoofer in most systems: its strength is clean, articulate reproduction from the upper bass upwards in a cabinet that barely leaves the wall, rather than full-range bass from a slim enclosure. Paired with a subwoofer handling everything below the crossover point set in the receiver, the LP 2 forms the visible part of a system whose bulk is hidden elsewhere.

Why the thin cabinet works

Aluminium cones are used because their stiffness pushes cone resonance outside the driver’s operating band, reducing distortion compared with softer cone materials, and the heat-dissipating basket and motor design addresses the thermal limits of drivers working in a shallow enclosure. The passive radiators perform the role a port would normally take, without needing port length the cabinet does not have. The result is a speaker whose dimensions — 63.5 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm as listed by Paradigm, at 3.0 kg — suit displays up to around 60 inches in Paradigm’s positioning, and rooms where floorstanding or deep bookshelf speakers are not an option.

System building

Using three LP 2 speakers provides identical left, centre and right channels, which is the ideal arrangement for dialogue and front soundstage coherence, while a pair serves a stereo television and music setup. Surround channels can come from elsewhere in the Millenia family. Because the speaker is passive and 8-ohm compatible, it works with the amplification already present in most AV receivers, and its high sensitivity means modest power goes a long way.

The Millenia LP 2’s proposition is specific and well executed: reference-range Paradigm driver technology in a speaker 1-3/4 inches deep that mounts on the wall or stands on furniture, for listeners who want proper separated loudspeakers without giving up room space to them.