I've had the CC-170 for three months. It is paired with new Paradigm Phantoms in front and Paradigm Titans as rears. The whole set-up is seamless with the center channel really handling the load. I've heard no distortions at high dbs and it provides very clear sound in lower levels. Once I purchased the CC-170, I was amazed at all the detail in movies that I had been missing. Background noises, glasses clinking, cars driving by outside, etc.. For the money, this speaker cannot be beat. I paid $175 at my local dealer whom has been very good to me. As with all of my Paradigm's, this is another five star rating.

Great, clear sound

None really

I am very happy with this speaker as my center channel. It provides crisp, clear dialogue and sound effects, and blends in perfectly with my Atoms. It's a great buy for the price.

I compared it with the bigger, more expensive CC-350, which was marginally better, but not matched to the Atoms I was getting.

My system:

Kenwood VR-410 receiver
Paradigm Atom, CC-170 and PDR-8
JVC XV-521 DVD player

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Compared to Tannoy and Energy

Review of Paradigm CC-200 (CC-170's predecessor) Spectacular sound in 3 and 5 Channel Prologic. Sounds superb with Titans as fronts (for 3 years) and Monitor 9's as fronts now for 3 years.

None

I know that I was a little vague in my strengths of the speaker, I'll clarify a few things.

I bought my CC-200 from an authorized Paradigm retailer, and it wasn't even new. I bought it in March of 1994...it was damaged (it was on a shelf and the owner dropped it on it's face and broke-off the Paradigm label. At the time the CC-200 was $220 new and I bought it for $180, and I have never regretted it since. The label was glued back on and you can't even notice that the speaker was anything but new when I bought it.

Now to the actual review:
The CC-200 is an 80 Watt speaker at 8 Ohms and can reproduce frequencies as low as 55 Hz (Although I think it actually goes much lower). It integrates nicely with the Paradigm Titans as a center channel. I really noticed the sound in 3 Channel Pro-logic the most. The CC-200 acts as a subwoofer for the Titans and I even notice a significant difference in low frequency response I get from it when acting as the center channel for my Monitor 9's.

This speaker is beautiful... the cabinet is black ash, not the charcoal finish you get on the cc-150, 170 and 350. To me I really don't like the charcoal finish for a speaker...I know that it has no real bearing on the performance of a speaker, but I want all of my speakers to match.

In comparison to the CC-350, I found the CC-350 was a bit too overpowering when matched with the Monitor 9's in Dolby Digital. I found that it lacked the bass I want when I watch a movie. Another thing, the CC-200 is about 8"h x 17"d x 12"w, so it was built with the same philosophy that Paradigm has with all of its loudspeakers. Wider dimensions isn't better, but rather deeper dimensions make a quality sound.

I doubt that I'll ever upgrade to the cc-350, but since the cc-200 is no-longer available, I would recommend the
cc-170 for people looking for a good center channel for their HT.

I give it a 5 all the way!

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This is the only Center channel I have tested on my home system, but I've demoed cc-350 at the cc-200 sounds much better.

I've read some complaints that this unit lacks bass. In my epinion, that's not really a bad thing. I've heard some other center channel speakers that sounded totally muddy. Sure they had good bass, but their sound was not clear. The Paradigm seems to have fine bass, but more importantly, it's a clear non-muddy sounding speaker. It's important to have a good clear sounding center speaker since it is used mainly for dialog and subtle effects and you want to be able to hear those nicely. I personally wouldn't want a speaker that made all the main characters in a movie sound muddy. The Paradigm CC-170 fits the bill for good clear sounding dialog.

Before adding it to my system, I just had a set of Paradigm Mini Monitors, a sub, and some little surround speakers. For over a year, I thought my home theatre system sounded great. Then, I added the center channel speaker. Wow! It was almost like earmuffles had been lifted from my ears! Now, when watching DVDs, the movie dialog is very clear, just like in the movie theatre. No longer are there times when the music and sound effects are loud, but the dialog is hard to hear. After tweaking the output settings on my receiver using the THX set-up settings on 'The Fight Club' DVD, I have a great clear sounding system. I can hear every nice subtle sound effect like the rustling of a person's shirt. It really does make watching movies a more cinematic and enjoyable.

The build quality seems ok. I do have one complaint though. When I fist hooked up the speaker, I noticed that only one of the drivers was emitting sound. I then opened up the box by removing the speakers using a phillips screwdriver. All the wiring looked fine-everything was connected. I then tightened everything back up and plugged the speaker back in. Now it worked fine, both drivers were emitting sound. I'm not sure what happened, but the unit is working fine now and performed flawlessly ever since. Maybe it was just a wire that was slightly off or something. Who knows..

This was the second time I had a problem with Paradigm speakers, right out of the box. When I originally got my Paradigm Titans, the drivers were totally loose, rattling inside the speaker cabinet! I brought those back to the store and the store informed my that it was shipping damage.

Perhaps Paradigm has a problem with the way they ship items.

Your lesson in this should be to make sure your Paradigms work perfectly when you buy them. If possible, have the store check them out before you accept them. At the very least, visually inspect your very speakers before taking them home...