I can't speak to the Paradigm Active 40's but I had Gallos for several years. One of the last amps I used with mine was a Unico Secondo and it was a great match for these speakers so I don't think it is the amp. In fact I liked it better than any other amp I used with the speakers. I had all Acoustic Zen cables when I bought the Gallos. I also had a heavily modded jolida 502b which is 60 watts and I thought it was a bad match too, maybe not enough power. So I started trading amps. A McIntosh 6900, a wyred4sound ST500, Clayton S40, the Unico, and finally ayon Spirit II back to 60 watts a channel and tubes. Somewhere along the way I tried a few other speaker cables including Kimber 8TC which were a better match than the AZ. I ended up with Morrow audio cables. If this had been my first system change I might not have had to go through all those amps. I would try some Morrow cables before anything else. They really opened my system up with the gallos. YMMV. I think you also need at least 400 hours to get them to open up. Good luck.
Gallo 3.1 sounds slow and veiled...why?
I have just 'upgraded' to Gallo 3.1 from my Paradigm Active 40's and must admit I am less than impressed. I was running the Active 40 from a Benchmark DAC 1 via a Audio Research LS2b and thought the Gallos would be an improvement. I'm running the Gallos from the DAC 1 through a Unison Unico with Underwood LV2 mods. Interconnect is Kimber Silver streak and speaker cables are Kimber 8TC. The gallos sound slow and veiled compared to the Paradigms....quite a difference! What's going on? What's all the hype on these Gallos? Or are the Paradigm Active 40's THAT good?!!