Awesome sounding speaker!

None!

These work very well with my SVS 20-39 sub. I couldn't believe the bass they can produce for a bookshelf speaker. More than my monitor 7s could. I'm very happy with these speakers.

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Monitor 7s

Nice clean and fast sound. Very musical. Handles all sorts of music quite well. Especially female jazz vocals. Very good value for the $.

Can be pretty "hot" on the top end with some operatic soprano voices and Milt Jackson can really "sizzle" through these tweeters. I am still breaking them in, I think, so they may become less hot with time. Have about 300 hours on them so far. And I don't listen very loud.

Overall these are very nice speakers and an outstanding value. As with several other reviews, I purchased mine used and listen to them in an apartment setting while waiting for my new listening room (house) completion. I purchased them with an eye to moving them to the rear position should I ever (mostly likely will) move to an HT set-up. For now they are serving as my main speakers. I listen primarily to FM broadcasts of classical and jazz. When selecting my own music it is primarily the same thing, although I do move into classic rock (Stones, Led Zepplin, ZZ Top, etc.), as well. My only real complaint is that the top on these speakers seems to be pretty hot when listening to certain sopanos and Milt Jackson. Have to really cut back on the volume with certain recordings. I don't think it is the recordings, as they are primarily JVC XRCD items, which are uniformly excellent. They do seem to be getting better with time, but are not great, as of yet. But, they do extremely well on all other types of music that I prefer. Again, an excellent value. I am using the Paradigm stands. Associated equipment:
California Audio Labs CL-10 CD changer
Rega 25/RB900 arm/Grado Sonata
Sony ST-S444ESII tuner
Sony TA-E90ES preamp
Sony TA-N77ES amp
Nakamichi 202SX cassette player

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I have moved to this size speaker from floor standing speakers due to temporary apartment living, so can only compare to a pair of Mission Argonauts (outstanding speaker), Paradigm Studio 60 v1 (another excllent value) and Aerial 6 (nice furniture, but never did 'grow' on me like a good speaker should).

Clarity and accuracy, especially for the under $1000 U.S. price point. Solid construction.

For the under $1000 price point - none.

Having upgraded my system since writing a review in early October I felt compelled to correct for some earlier oversights.

Upgraded to a 100W high current amp from a 60W amp seems to have eliminated earlier complaints about weak extended bass. These speakers now have no problem shaking the floor. Despite the manufacturer's minimum amp requirement of 20W, it would seem 100W is optimum.

Bi-wiring seems to improve the sound some what - not sure why. The difference is hardly noticeable though, I was only able to detect a difference when comparing a bi-wired left speaker to a conventionally wired right speaker.

Female vocals (jazz and pop) and acoustic and wind instruments (piano, saxophone, guitar) sound exceptional on these speakers.

In my opinion these speakers are definitely a worth a look. Highly recommend.

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Checked out models from B&W, Totem (Mite), Energy (XL25 and C-4), Bose, Mission, Paradigm and PSB in the sub $1000 price point.

sound

they need good[read expensive] speaker stands to get the best out of them.

i switched to premier speaker stands and the sound went from good to excelent.

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ar's

Great imaging, midrange response, Steve Young owns a pair! Great looks.

No deep deep bass response. Need stands. So so efficiency. Not best speakers for heavy metal.

What else can I say, sound very real, great for vocals, acoustic, jazz, rock. Look terrific especially with real cherry side panels.

All components made in house by paradigm. All research and development done by Paradigm. Great warranty. Low price (900 for mine).

Above all, Steve Young owns a pair and I hear that Dan Marino is auditioning a pair. Three Hall of Fame QB's can't be wrong!

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Paradigm ref 60, 20, PSB, B&W, Klipsch

Great imaging, soundstage, strong bass response (for bookshelf), awesome looks, 3D holographic sound, versitility in 2 channel and HT applications, very musical

Can sound harsh at really loud volumes. Small size and 6.5 inch woofers can't produce loud low frequencies.

A lot of speakers do certain things very well (low frequency response - Dynaudio), midrange (B&W), high frequency response (JM Lab) etc. These don't do any one thing that stands out. They just sound AWESOME.

I can listen to these for hours and never grow tired of the sound. They are clean, open and above all, musical. If you live for the low frequencies you will to add a sub. But if you like beautiful reproduction of vocals, strings, drums, etc. These are for you.

I play drums and feel that these reproduce the "real" sound of drums better than ANY speakers I have heard.

Listen to Boy Thai, and Potato (Jose Valdez, Cuban Jazz) and you will know what I am talking about. When I auditioned them, I slipped in a disc and immediately knew these were for me. The hair on my arm was standing on end!

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JM Labs, PSB, B&W, Boston Acoustics, Vienna, Monitor Audio, Dynaudio

IMAGING!!
Ability to play clear and loud
Huge bang for the buck
Build quality

None to speak of, adjusting for price - none at all!

I borrowed a pair of these a month ago from my local audio shop to try them out in my own environment. This was NOT a mistake - and it sold me on them - but not my wife.

So...I picked up my order the other day despite her Marge-esque rumblings, and wired them up to my SR7000 - along with the Studio CC, and a PW2200.

I can't really add anything new to the positive posts below except this short story:

My wife's view could be described as typical whan it comes to AV equipment - either no opinion at all, or something like "All that stuff is the same, so I have NO idea why you are spending all that money! Harrumphhh!" >

Well my friends - today she heard them for the first time when she went home for lunch. I had the CD changer breaking them in while we were at work for the day. I figured she'd turn the system off and go about her business, gawking at them in disgust.....nope. I got an enthusiastic phone call from her screaming WOW!!! over the Beatles.

This is what these speakers can do - turn an an Atheist into a true believer!

Buy them!

By the way -

I have them Bi-wired with Monster MCX S-1.

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nothing

Realisim in the mids, smooth but detailed treble ok lower end.

None

I use to own a pair of B&W 602S2. Then one day I went into an audio store and WHAM! it hit me like a ton of bricks. The Paradigms were so life like with a black background. DEAD QUIET!It was as if the musician was inside the speaker.After making my purchase, I just gave away my 602s NO COMPARISON! These have to be the best speakers I have heard in it's range. I have heard $3000 + speakers that could not catch up to them. Listen, the guys that give the Paradigms a bad review, just look at their associated equipment and I am sure you will understand why. Try them out ! My Gear.....
Classe CA200
Classe CP35
Parasound DA 2000 Ultra Analog D/A converter
Parasound Transport
Monster M2.4 Bi wire speaker cable
Nordost Balanced interconnects

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NHT 2.5i Other Paradigms

The new studio 40 from Paradigm Reference is basically a bookshelf Studio 60. It has more punchy bass than the Studio 20 but not as much as the Studio 60. It's meant to be place on a speaker stand in a vertacal position. The midrange is as sweet as all of the Studio's are, and the bass is extremely tight and punchy. It has a excellent overall sound. I would recommend the use of a subwoofer with these speakers though. In my opinion I would spend the extra cash and purchase the studio 60's, just because of the lower bass extention. But the 40's are more flexible of placement.

I purchased the Studio 40 v 2 3 weeks ago as a good listening speaker in my acoustically disgusting main-room. As I am moving in the next few months, I was after a speaker I could use in my master bedroom once my house is ready.
After auditioning a number of speakers in the mini-monitor class from numerous manufacturers (Sonus Faber, Paradigm, Revel etc), I selected the 40's because of their solid all round performance. They do not have deep base. There again, the base is definitely improved in a bi-wire configuration. Use of the port plugs and room placement proved important for obtaining the best sound in my system. They have good imaging, and even on the cheap stuff I am using this with, the quality of music reproduction is quite astounding.

For the $$$ I paid, their intended use and great visual appearance, they definitely rate as *****. Compared to my reference system (Proceed AVP, CDP and AMP2, Nordost cables and interconnects and Sonus Faber Grand Piano speakers), they do not match up - mostly due to the current systems lower quality components.

Once my house is finished, and my system is operational again, I will be happy. Until then, the Studio 40's complement my cheap system nicely, and did not break the bank. The light-cherry veneer matched my furniture in the bedroom, so spousal satisfaction quota was very high.

One Note - these speakers do need a good variety of bass, midrange and treble rich music to break them in, and at least 100 - 150 hours. I left the whole system on while I was at work, using the JVC in random play mode to get a good mix of music.

Bedroom System:
Harman Kardon AVR70 (nice and cheap - no DTS or AC3 but who cares?)
JVC 200 CD player (my wife's toy - not bad for a $150, but you can really
hear the difference between this and the CDP)
Monster Cable M series cables (850i interconnects and MCX2 x 2 speaker cables for bi-wiring)
Monster HTS1000 Reference AC line conditioner
el cheapo rack (it is solid, heavy and doesn't move - given the other components, who needs more?)