Love My Maggies But.....

I believe the N.E.A.R. 50Me II's have all the qualities you are looking for. God bless.

A former Maggie owner, I was on the same quest as you last year. I haven't heard those particular Paradigms, but I'm familiar with the 2.7s, and you may have a hard time equaling or surpassing them for $1000 used.

Your post requiring both openess and tonal accuracy pretty well descibes the strengths of Alon speakers, by Accarian Systems. Plus you get Maggie coherence in a full range, dynamic floorstander that also throws a huge soundstage.

I found sonic happiness with Alon V Mk IIs. The designer, Carl Marchisotto, designed for Dahlquist, and since you liked the DQ10s, I suggest you check out the Alon IIs or discontinued IVs. I would strongly and emphatically recommend the Vs except that they're going to be above your budget ($1600-$2200 used).

The Alon dipole tweeter and midrange are mounted on a baffle above the bass enclosure, resulting in a remarkably open, transparent sound like planars and stats. As much as I like Maggies, they do have a slight "coloration" that can mask natural timbres. The Alons have that open, unboxy sound I love, are absolutely coherent top to bottom (they go low, and I defy you to find the crossover points), throw that big soundstage with a wide sweetspot, image great, are very dynamic plus they're extremely neutral. If you have good elctronics, the realism on good recordings can be startling with these speakers.

The only downside is that they need to be tri-wired. Proprietary Black Orpheus tri-wire can be bought used here at Audiogon, where I purchased mine. If your amp(s) can drive big Maggies, they should have no trouble with Alons.

You don't see Alons written about that much, but they're wonderfully musical speakers, especially for those of us who hate the "boxy" sound of dynamic speakers but have run into limitations with planors/stats. Check out their website or e-mail me if you have questions.

Thanks for the responses. I will certainly keep an eye (ear?) out for the speakers mentioned!
I have to admit, I put in the resistors that came with the Maggies to tame the brightness on Pop and Rock and that did help a lot. But the search for perfection continues!

I second Rackon's suggestion. A used pair of Alon IIs will give you many of the V's virtues for a lower price that should be around your $1000 benchmark, though lacking a little ultimate resolution and finesse that the V's offer (I would not recommend the IVs). Same with the Alon Lotus speakers. All of the Alon speakers are quite versatile, sounding good with all types of music, and while designed with tube amps as a reference sound fine with solid state as well. Very underrated speakers, in my opinion.