Brent is wrong!He probobly sells Paradigm.This is why he grins with pleasure when talking about Paradigm.Paradigms sound god awfull when used with ANYtop notch electronics.With most junk mass market recievers they sound okay.Try
putting Paradigms on Krell,Mark Levinson,ARC,Sonic Frontiers,Classe',Golden
Tube Audio,B.A.T.,Conrad Johnson,Cary,or any other revealing high end electronics and you will be disappointed by the sound of them.These top notch
electronics will reveal all of the flaws in these speakers.Stay away from Paradigm.They are a joke!PSB loudspeakers are far better.So are Martin Logans,B&W's,Magnepans,Kef Referance,Apogee's,Theils,Vandersteens,and every other hi-end loudspeaker.Paradigms are foul sounding.Well Stereo Review and
Corey Greenberg like them.This is because Paradigm advertises extensively
in this low-fi magazine.I did back flips when John Atkinson of the beloved
"Stereophile" gave high praise to the active Paradigm speakers.I went to hear them and had to shut the music off after 3 minutes the treble annoyed me so much.Stereophile has indeed fallen to coorperate B.S. ever since they put J.Gorden Holt by the wayside.What a shame this hobby used to be fun.J.Gorden Holt was very honest and sincere.Now it seems that whoever advertises the most in these magazines gets a superb review.This is wrong!Coorperate B.S. for sure.
I cannot and will not say one good thing about Paradigms.Whenever anyone tells me that they either bought a pair or are considering a pair,I tell them they have made a mistake.They have been tricked by advertising propaganda.Don't buy
ANYTHING from Paradigm.The factory deserves to burn down.The dude in charge of
Paradigm has a BIG head literally.Big in size, it looks like a pumpkin,and his
attittude is through the roof.I went to a Paradigm seminar at a local dealer
where they were demenstrating the referance line with they're referance sub-woofers.The sound was so unaccurate.Not only was the treble real tizzy,but
they were playing a piece with an upright Bass that shook the room.Tell me when
was the last time that you heard a live upright Bass shake the room?.....Never......Upright Basses don't rumble the room.I told the guy from Paradigm this and he couldn't reply.He looked at me like I didn't know what I was talking about and kept lying to perspective customers.I proceded to get drunk on the wine they were serving and poked fun at him for the rest of the
evening.This company is clueless about accurate sound reproduction.All they
care about is sell,sell,sell.Kind of like BOSE.The same nonsense only on a smaller scale.Buy Paradigm if you like but don't say I told you so when you are
disappointed in the money you wasted down the road.

After listening to the Thiel 1.5, NHT 2.5i, Hales Reference 3 and seveal other $2000 pairs of speakers, I found that none offered a better overall sound than the Studio 60's. All were about the same size and all differed in sound, but in overall sound quality and presentation the Studio 60's provided reasonable depth in base but much tighter than all but the Hales. An excellent and smooth mid and relatively bright, but not brittle top end. Am running an Aurum class A preamp and McIntosh MC300 into them, listening primarily to older jazz and they are just great. As someone who does about 50% of his work at home in front of the stereo, I greatly appreciate the Studio 60's overall smoothness, which allows me five-six hours of listening per day without making me audio weary. Also a great value.

The Paradigm Studio 60 continue to impress me. I've had them now for about a month and the more I listen the better they sound. These speakers coupled with my Denon 3200 provide fantastic response across the whole spectrum. It took about a week before I really began to appreciate them. I will say that this combination seems make for a great home theater setup as well as straight stereo listening.

Someone interested in purchasing these speakers would have a difficult time after reading the reviews below. Too bright, no midrange, no bass, poor imagery, along with a host of complements are all quite confusing. Of course, the comments by Jake, Audio Albert (a/k/a Jake) and Elwood (Jake as well?), since they seem to have an obvious bias against Paradigm and provide no detailed explanations to their reviews should be ignored. I've had mine now since April, so I'll add more confusion to the mix.
After auditioning speakers from Klipsch, Polk Audio, Infinity, Monitor Audio, Castle, Definitive Tech, ProAc, Pinnacle, Acoustic Research, Advent, and Mirage, among others, I purchased the Studio 60s after hearing a pair in a dealer's showroom. At the time, they were driven by an Audio Research amp and pre-amp. What impressed me most about these speakers was their accuracy, tight bass, separation of instruments, and outstanding resolution of high notes. Other speakers listed above may have been as accurate, or may have handled highs and lows, but none seemed to reach out and "grab" me as the Studio 60s did.

Since that time, I have heard Studio 60s driven by various amps, including: Adcom, B&K, Jolida, Carver, Classe, Rotel, Parasound, Golden Tube and finally, Belles and Conrad-Johnson MF2100. After hearing all of these combinations, I feel fairly safe in making the following comments:

With the wrong combination of equipment, these speakers can be bright. I tend to like detailed highs, so this was not always a problem for me, but I can understand the comments. In particular I found that Parasound, Rotel and Adcom did not fair as well as other amps with respect to this characteristic. Changing speaker cable from mere 12 gauge zip cord to Audioquest Type 6+ seemed to help also.

On almost all of the amps, the midrange and midbass were thin, although the midrange tended to be delicately handled. The last two amps I auditioned, the Belles and C-J, solved this problem quite well.

The bass has the ability to be quite tight and deep. The Parasound (HCA1000A), Belles, C-J, and Rotel (RB-991) really did well in this department, with the Belles being the best. These speakers thrive on power, and those amps delivered the most amperage. The B&K and Jolida 502A did not work well with these speakers, causing them to have a boomy and/or ill-defined bass response.

I finally ended up purchasing the C-J. It and the Belles really allowed these speakers to come into their own. When powered by appropriate amplifiers, these speakers exhibited natural, open and detailed highs, a solid and airy midbass and midrange, and tremendous bass. The soundstage is reasonably wide and deep (and could probably be deeper in my room if I didn't have a large picture window behind the speakers!), and the imaging is decent, though not remarkable. Separation between instruments and notes is also excellent.

I must admit that I have not heard much of the Paradigm's competition in its price range (msrp $1100), such as NHT, Meadowlark, B&W, or Vandersteen (although many of the models listed above to which I listened were more expensive than the Studio 60s). However, I can say that with appropriate amplifiers, the Paradigm Studio 60s are excellent, regardless of competition. Highly recommended for someone looking in the $1000-$1500 price range (and perhaps even higher if looking at certain other manufacturers offerings).

Remember when you went to a good restaurant and and ate a fine dish that was very pleasing to the taste buds or maybe when you smelled a pleasant aroma of some sort (I know it sounds gay)? Well thats what Paradigm Reference Studio/60's was like for me when I first heard them at home. Silky highs, beautiful, warm midrange and authoritative but yet lucious bass. Do yourself a favor and audition these speakers before you buy.

First of all, I'm not sure what classifies someone as an audio enthusiast but I'd just like to point out that I watch a lot of movies and like to listen to alternative and dance/r&b music so this review is based on how these speakers should perform for those purposes. And don't forget, there's nothing like listening to something with your own ears. That's why there's so many different speakers out there... different speakers for different ears. What sounds good to me may sound awful to you. Now on to the review:
Well, I just auditioned a pair of these at our local dealer in Ottawa. To tell you the truth, I'm quite impressed with their performance. Now, I wasn't able to really push these the way I would like to and in fact, I only got to test them with a good listen to the Eagles live album. What I can say from what I heard is that they are very clear and well defined. The voices sounded incredibly natural (unlike my Paradigm cc-350 for some reason) and the instruments were clear and bright. I did find them a little bit lacking in the lower bass but that might just be my ears being used to hear it (I like alternative and dance music). The bass they did produce was nice and tight though so for the true audiophile, I think they would like 'em a lot more than I would. As for soundstage, I find them a "little" bit lacking in that area. Though they do have a very good soundstage, I found that if you're not in the perfect sweet spot, you lose a lot of the immersion you get out of the movie or song. Maybe by moving the speakers apart or closer together, you can create a larger soundfield but I wasn't able to test that.

To me, one of the most important things (if not the most) is for a speaker to produce a very natural sounding voice. I want to feel as though the person is talking to me or singing to me. If I put a CD by Jewel, I want to hear a clean/pure voice. These speakers will do that. I've seen speakers that make some music sound better or make musicians sound better but they seem to over produce or over correct the music. Sure your music sounds better but it isn't a natural/pure sound. So, if you want a good clean sound that hasn't been bloated, you probably can't really go wrong with these.

Hope this helps,

Patrick

Wow! Quite a lot to digest below. I recently auditioned a pair of the Studio 60's (along w/the 80's and 100's) and must say many of the comments I've read below could apply with two BIG qualifiers ... be sure of the components used AND the source cd you're using to audition. The source equipment was solid stuff (Marantz cd transport, I forget the DAC, through McCormack pre and power amps) thus I'd have a hard time blaming the equipment, then again I'm not as smart as Jake. I truly enjoyed these speakers! In my opinion, they provide a solid level of performance compared to price. The treble can be harsh, lower bass can be lacking but I found the harshness was due more to the mastering of the cd I was listening to rather than the speakers. Once I put a well engineered cd in the Marantz the whole character of the speaker changed. The lack of lower octave bass was due more to the listening room, to a much lesser degree the drivers in the 60. (Obviously the bass extension was better on the 80's and 100's.) Once we moved the 60's to a different room (same equipment) they became much more warm, deeper bass and wider soundstage with the same clear definition.(I heard a saxaphonist inhale at the beginning of a piece where I never heard it before!)
I've compared these to B&W CDM1 Se's, Linn Kabers and Martin Logans along with some very expensive Aerial 10T's. The Studio 60's are not nearly as nice as the Aerials but then again they cost 1/5th that of the 10T's! The 60's compared very nicely with the Kaber's at half the price, plus you can play the 60's louder than the Kabers. All told, for the money (about $1000) the 60's look good, sound terrific, are solidly built and provide a wide, dynamic and definitive soundstage. They love power, so be sure you push them with some authority! I would highly recommend these loudspeakers to anyone with limited funds looking to add a solid cornerstone to their system.

I was extremely impressed with Paradigm's performance wrt its price range. I was very satisfied with my first pair of Paradigm, the 7SeMkIII I got 5 years ago. I recently upgraded to Studio 60, and added a CC-450 for center channel. Bass are more controlled and defined. Highs are less bright. Performance is no shame comparing to others twice its cost. Best value again.

I have had these for a few weeks now and they are just coming into there own. They can be bright right out of the box, but given some break in time they mellow nicely. They are perhaps the best value in audio today. For music they have it all, neutral response, clean, airy highs and superb, tight bass. In my HT setup they lack only the very bottom end. A decent sub will provide just the right punch.
Related equipment:

HK AVR 65 receiver.
Paradigm CC450 center
Paradigm Monitor 3 surrounds
JBL 12" powered sub.

As a musician, I was looking for a speaker that could produce a smooth midrange with a wide (and dimensional!) soundstage. I found this with the Paradigm Studio 60's. I feel that they are the best buy (and the best sounding) of the Studio series. It is hard to reproduce the sound of a french horn, but the 60's do it with ease. Coupled with the MIT terminator II cables, they seem to outperform speakers costing several thousand more. Yes, it does depend on your whole system to make the difference, but I have seemed to have found it in my system. An excellent choice for audio AND videophiles!
NAD 925 5 channel amp
Pioneer Elite SP-99D processor
Pioneer Elite DVL-90 DVDLD player