Review: Paradigm 9se mkIII Speaker

Category: Speakers

I have had my pair of Paradigms for about three years now. I bought them just before the full re-design of the Paradigm line. Anyway, I have had a chance to listen to just about any kind of "audiophile" speaker that is available and feel the Paradigms truly hold their own.
They have a very clear, very powerful sound that has always been very pleasing to my musical tastes (extremely varied). Be warned, though, these bad boys MUST be positioned safely away from the rear wall--thay love to give you muddy bass. Don't get me wrong, the bass is nice, but if you pull them out about 2 ft. from the wall, the sound really opens up and becomes, well, excellent. Keep in mind I am running these with a relatively high quality amplifier (Parasound HCA-1000A) that makes me envision a Heineken VS. Pabst battle when I swith back to my Yamaha reciever's power.
If you want a great speaker for the money, but one which you MUST feed a lot of power to really see what they do--buy them, by all means, buy them. I guarantee you will not be sorry.

Associated gear
Yamaha RX-V800 A/V receiver
Parasound HCA-1000A amplifier
Sony CDP-XA20ES CD player
Audioquest Ruby interconnects
Audioquest Type-4 speaker wire in biwire configuration

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