Imaging-A well produced C.D. will give you goose bumps. Excellent performance with all types of music. Natural sound. Pride and care shows in build quality.

HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!

This review is on the "new",improved 2002 version of the Monitor 11,the 11v.3. I find the speakers to reproduce the fine details of the music, very transparent. Instruments, all instruments sound very natural. Cymbals so real and without the harshness, the brightness, I've heard from other manufacturers. The midrange again, very natural, remains consistent regardless of output. Sound is produced so effortlessly, it's as if the speakers were challenging you to push them! And the bass, so quick, so accurate...have I mentioned natural? I find myself on certain tracks, so taken by the bass I shut everything else out! But what really blows me away is the imaging. Vocals, or main instruments are dead center with excellent separation between other voices and instruments. It is truely amazing that Paradigm can produce such a wonderful product at this price point. I've driven as far as fifty miles to audio stores to listen to speakers, a lot of speakers. I've listened to speakers for the same money, and much more money that were a joke next to these! If I paid $865.00 a speaker I would be just as pleased! Some personal notes. My speakers sit exactly where they should be, according to Paradigm's owners manual. In my room, I'm ten feet back. My speakers are seven and one half feet apart, toed in. I have them bi-wired(Audioquest Cables)and I also run Paradigm's PDR-10 sub with my mains(check out the reviews on that marvel.) My speakers are video shielded. Without the shielding the price would have been $785.00!!! Unbelievable! I've never enjoyed music more. ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT Yamaha RX-V 1000 Receiver Sony CDP-CA 70ES Compact Disc Player Audioquest Caldera Speaker Cables Audioquest Subwoffer cable Straightwire Interconnect Cable

Build Quality, Price,Looks, Crystal clear highs and midrange. Excellent Imaging and bass,go Very loud and dont lose clarity.. just hearing.

Weakness? I can hear all the defects in CD's that ive never noticed before. I Failed my hearing test!

I was first planning on spending about $400 to replace my 7-year-old Sony speakers but it turned out I went a little over. I went to Ultimate Electronics and listened to every speaker in the store. I was thinking on getting some Infinity’s or Boston Acoustics. The Martin Logans were way to expensive for me. My friend told me to go and listen to Paradigms because they are excellent speakers and don’t cost you and arm & leg. I then headed over to Hi Fi Fo Fum and listened to the Paradigms and immediately fell in love with them. I first bought a pair of Phantoms. When I got them home I was so amazed at the way the preformed. A week later I brought them back to Hi Fi Fo Fum and traded them in for the Monitor 11's. When I got these home there was a big difference not only in bass but also in midrange. The Phantoms seem to lack a little in the midrange. It was a hard decision to choose between the Monitor 11's and the Studio 60's. I liked the Monitor 11's looks better than the studio’s. The Monitors also have a lot better efficiency. I listen to my music a little loud. The Monitors go very loud and they don’t lose any clarity at higher volume levels. I am very pleased with my speakers and am saving up to get the ADP-370 Surrounds and CC-370 Center Channel.

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Compared them to Martin Logans, Boston Acoustics, Polk Audio, Jamo, Infinity, Klipsch,JBL, (Bose-HAHA What a joke )Bose stands for B-etter O-f with S-omething E-lse.

Just about everything, exceptional sound stage, great depth, pin-point accuracy in their imageing. Absolutly wonderful. They are truely deserving of their 5 star rating.

None, do a superb job of just about everything imagineable.

Well, I'm going to wind up eating crow. I had a pair of Monitor 9's for a little under 3 months. I was very happy with them for jazz, rock, and HT, but recently I've been listening to more and more classical. The 9's were feeling very congested when they had to reproduce classical music, they were missing spaciousness. So I went back into my local shop and did a blind copairison of the 9's versus the 11's. Well, the 11's did a far better job of imageing the soundstage. Although I still think I prefer the tone of the 9's. Anyway, after trading in my 9's I called my girlfriend and we started going through the classical discs. Shostakovich's 4'th balet suite was first. After the climax of the piece my girlfriend began to wonder if I had forgotten to switch over to 2 channel mode. I told here it was in stero, but she decided to walk over to the surrounds and place her ear up against the tweeters just to make sure. Excellent! The second test was Holst's Planets. I skipped foreward to Jupiter and gave her a listen. There it was, a full bodied orchestra in my living room. All the depth and richness that the 9's were having a problem with was reproduced faithfully enough to draw a seating diagram of the orchestra. Dropped in Lisa Ekdahl's Back on Earth. Granted the bass wasn't quite as rich as I remembered on the 9's, but the imaging was vastly superior. Alas, the 9's were a great speaker, and I think a better speaker for HT given their sonic atributes, but the 11's certainly rule the roost with large ensembles.

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Monitor 9, Infinity SM150, Loyds bookself models from the 70's, Sony...a few others not memorable enough to name.

Price, Build, Looks, and unbelievable smooth mids and mid bass.

Very nice wood I am scared to not get it scratched, like a new car.

I have had these speakers for about 4 months now, and I can''t wait until I listen to them everyday. These Monitor 11s were purchased after many hours (about 3 months worth) of extensive research and demoing. I have compared these with the other Paradigm monitors. Compared with the monitor 9s, the monitor 11''s 3 woofers allow the speaker to give a very smooth mid base that does not over extend itself. The Monitor 9s has more more bass power but if you are looking for great sounding, smooth bass you should go with the monitor 11s. I have also compared the monitor 11s to more expensive speakers such as Martin Logan, M&Ks, Magnepan and Boston Acoustics. What I have found was that. You should get the Martin Logans if you have the space and money because they are big and expensive ;-) but these Paradigm Monitor 11s ou performed the boston acoustics, Magnepans and are similar to the M&Ks, but are much less expensive than all of them. You can check them out yourself but the key to buying speakers, if you are new to being an suedo audiophile is... if you can tell the difference then why pay more. Go out to your local audio store and demo all the products in your price range and see which one sounds better for yourself. I can tell you this though, if you are lazy enough to just take my advice and not go check these speakers out on your own. The Paradigm Monitor 11s are the best sound for your money, and it is not like you are buying bad speakers. These speakers will last you at least 10 years. These speakers you will never need to take in to fix. Compared to for example the bostons they have a history of problems. Any ways here is my system I listen to them with: Marantz 18-ex Marantz cc-4000ose I also have the mini monitors as rear speakers and the cc-370 as my center speaker.

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Bostons 90, M&K 750, Magnepan, Martin Logan

These speakers are extremely realistic/faithful/believable in their reproduction of all the different instruments of a symphony orchestra.

They were a little bright right out of the box but have since mellowed and no longer have this problem.

I am currently listening to a CD of the Central Michigan University percussion ensemble through my Monitor 11s powered by a Harmon Kardon PA 5800 with a decent Marantz CD player. As one would expect, the recording has a huge assortment of percussion instruments from bass drums, tympani, bongos, blocks, cymbals, triangles, bells, tam-tams to name a few. In other words, these speakers are really put to the test given all of the different timbres and frequency ranges present in the recording. Also, due to the nature of percussion instruments with there sharp attacks, the transient response of the speakers is also greatly tested. Simply put, these speakers do an amazing job of reproducing all of the different percussion instruments. What is so striking is that the sounds are so believable. Bass drums and tympani actually sound like bass drums and tympani instead of a boomy mess. Bells and chimes sound extremely realistic, and the tam-tam is fantatic. It would be difficult to imagine anyone not finding these speakers to be extremely faithful in their reproduction of music. I mainly listen to classical music and, assuming the recording itself is good, I find them to be extremely realistic in their reproduction of the variety of instruments in the symphony orchestra. Incidently, they also sound great at low levels. I feel no need to "crank" the volume to hear the music. The detail is completely present even at low or moderate listening levels. Also, these speakers do not need any help from tone controls or an equalizer. They sound great by themselves.

EVERYTHING! Great Bass, Great Mids, Great Highs, Great Precense and imaging.

None, except that they don''t go down to 20Hz. :) I might get kicked out of my apartment.

These speakers are so awesome, I know most of what should be said has been said already, I just want to put my two cents in. I "only" payed 700 dollars for these because they were returned, previous owner needed the video shielded version and these were only owned for about a week. These are the first speakers I have ever owned that leave (almost) nothing to be desired. The "almost" is the lowest of bass frequencies that will be present once I purchase either the Paradigm PS-1200 or PW-2200. Everything about the sound is incredible. Again, these speakers are what I consider my first REAL speakers. I was totally thrown off when I first plugged in my (monster) speakers cables and only heard the high frequencies! I was scared that I might have gotten a pair of duds! I rushed to the boxes (which were missing all documentation) and found these little golden pieces of metal that looked to perfectly fit between the two sets of terminals. Once installed I was instantly in LOVE! I have them hooked up to a Pioneer Elite VSX-33TX reciever for amplification and eventually Home Theatre. My audio source is a Pioneer Elite DV47A, hooked up to reciever both with Toslink and Analog stereo.

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Not too similar, but my previous speakers were Klipsch SF-2''s. Lots to be desired with them; I had them matched with a Klipsch KS12 Sub. I returned them to get the Pioneer Elite DV47A. Before those I

Sharp and crisp. You can distinctly hear a seamless transition from low bass to the extreme highs. Most speakers have a sweet or preferred range. Not these, they give accurate reproduction through the entire spectrum. From Diana Krall to Metallica the speakers are seamless and unmatched. You can hear the strings and yet still get the rumble of the-60hz bass without fuzz. It is clear and strong. I was really surprised at the clarity of the bass in this speaker and SEAMLESSNESS between the bass, midrange and tweets. WOW!!!!!

Yeah right.....the only weakness would be to make the mistake of not buying this speaker. Pay attention they do have a shielded and a non shielded version. If near a tv be sure to get the shielded version.

These speakers are the best bang for the buck that I have been able to find!! A friend of mine paid $2,200 for B&W 605? w/ built in subs. I swear my 11 v 2''s kick the B&W''s ass in every way. I now need to upgrade my amp to get the most out of these speakers. I originally wanted Magnepan 3.6R''s w/ Tube amps and a Krell preamp. When the bride saw 30K for a system w/ only 2 speakers and a single disk CD player she freaked and this sweet dream was history. I will upgrade my amplifier next year....any ideas e-mail to swiller@beer.com. Yup these are my mains I will add the ADP-370''s, CC-370 and PW2200 w/ X-30. Now I just have to figure out what amp. Tube or solid state??????? The only thing that I have heard that beat this speaker is the Magnepan 3.6R with a strong class "A" tube amp.

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N/A I am entry level.

Sence of high quality product. warm sound, also great looking speaker (specially if you remove the grills. when I showed them to my frieds they dropped their jaws to the floor WOW) price $$

Not a one.

This speakers are very good. After I hooked the up and power them on I was amazed of the sounds that come out of these monsters. The highs,Mids and lows are very nice. You hear every instrument. I would recomend these speakers to anyone looking for good sound, you can compare these with speakers that cost 1000''s more. They are a must have. Great for anything you listen to.

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Monitor 7, B&W

Clarity, solid bass, sense and feel of high quality product

none

I demoed psb, b&w, klipsch, polk, bose, and infinity, all within the same price range. The closest to come to paradigm were the psb''s. With the psb''s however, I found they were lacking in certain areas. I found myself wanting something more, more punch, more clarity. They were missing that jump out and slap you factor. The paradigm 11''s have that. Vocals stand out and up front, drums hit hard, strings are clean and sharp. And I have yet to fully break them in. There is just something sweet about what my ears take in from paradigm speakers. I couldn''t be happier with my choice.

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used to have the previous model of monitor 11''s.

sound fantastic and great for movies.....

no complaints....

I traded my studio 40's for these new monitor 11's and im very happy with these speakers. they provide clear high's, nice easy listening base, and virtually no distortion when you need to turn them up.... as i wrote, i have an Elite 500 watt amp and it kicks butt.... no problem with these monitor 11 for great sound and price.... believe me, you will be happy just like me if you have a pair of them.....

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studio 40's, nuance speakers, and bookshelf polk audio's.....