Paradigm or Monitor Audio's?? Any thoughts?

hello, i have the studio 60's and am using a denon pma 2000ivr integrated amp that is rated at 80 watts but is high current it brings out goobs of bass from the 60's. give it a listen.

In your message you stated that you are going to add the center and backs later. From this I am assuming that you are interested in speakers for a home theater set-up? I am sure you will also be listening to music too. Anyway, I guess I am a rare breed over here on Audiogon (not much disscussion about MA) and I would say that I would go with the Monitor Audios. I started out with a pair of S8 about 1 year ago and then I purchased a pair of Gold reference 60 from MA. In my opinion these are fantastic speakers for their price. They are very easy to drive and work extremely well for both music and home theater. Some people feel that MA in general are bright. Maybe at first but after they have been burned in they sound fantastic especially if they are connected with a good pair of cables such as the Zu Cable Wax which I use. I am not sure that "bright" is the correct way to describe them. My opinion is that they are very detailed with a very tight bass response. When I was auditioning speakers I listened to the Paradigm Monitor series and the PSB stratus golds. In my opinion these speakers were not as revealing as the Monitor Audios I auditioned. I am not sure how much you want to spend but I would look here on Audiogon for Monitor Audio. If you want a bookself speaker you might want to look at the Gold Ref 10 and if you want a floor stander the S6 should work very nice or you could check out the Gold Ref20. Good luck

You might look into Anthem for your preamp/amp. They are the sister company to Paradigm. I think they are even made in the same building as Paradigm. When I got my Studio 40's I had a Yamaha receiver. There was much less bass when I got them home than when I auditioned them. (I did try several different speaker placements) I am still trying to decide what to upgrade my components to. I am thinking about Rotel, Outlaw Audio and NAD. Do you have a price range? Any space restrictions?

When I got my Studio 100's I plugged them in to my Onkyo HT receiver and was impressed. I already had the Studio CC and a pair of mini monitors for the rear. Still somewhat disappointed in the bass I added an Anthem MCA 20 amp and wow. After listening a while I found a Sonic Frontiers Line 1 pre for sale on Audiogon and that improved the two channel sound enormously. After that I added the Virtual Dynamics Audition cable package (biwire) and all was wonderful. My only knock now is that in the last several months the bass has become a bit muddy and has a peak around 120 Hz. Time for new tubes in the Line 1 I guess. If you are going to take things a step at a time because of budget condiderations then I would say go ahead and do it because you will wind up with more of what you want in the end.