When I first encountered the Paradigm Mini Monitor v.5, my first thoughts were, "meh... another small bookshelf speaker with a good brand name, and little else." On the advice of a friend, (now my BEST friend) I elected to audition a pair before completing my predetermined purchase of floorstanding Nuance speakers.

It sounds rather cliche, but when the salesman fired them up, I could not believe these were the speakers that were running. The whole room was alive with sound, a natural, effortless sound that I would only attribute to much larger and more expensive speakers.

Being the eternal skeptic, and knowing full well what can be accomplished in engineered listening rooms vs reality, I laid down a deposit and brought them home for an audition. I was fairly certain I would return them before the week's end, despite the $300 difference over the Nuances I had tried.

My amplifier provides outputs for 4 front channel speakers. I disconnected the JBL and Acoustech research bookshelf speakers I was using, and listened to the Paradigms in 2-channel stereo, so I could be disappointed and then be over with it. Deja vu all over again! I was utterly amazed by the sound.


The good:

Imaging was vastly improved, and suddenly I was able to hear things in the music I wasn't able to before. The reverb in the singer's voice was eerie, the soundstage was vast, and the midrange became smoother and less fatiguing yet more detailed. Test tracks of sine wave frequencies confirmed a neutral sound with no audible peaks or valleys down to about 50 hz (!) in my listening environment.

As impressed as I was, however, I am a bass junkie so I fired up my PS-1200 sub. The new high pass signal(80 hz) seemed to slightly improve the midrange definition, but it was still necessary to lower the level of the sub by roughly 3dB to compensate for the newly found low-end grunt over the previous system. Yes, these two outperformed FOUR that I thought were good...

These speakers sound fabulous with any material I throw at them, and never show any signs of distress regardless of how abusive I (or the signal) get. Similar to the difference I noticed buying my first CD vs tape... my treasured old speakers are dead to me.

*Update: Now combined them with used ADP-170's for my rears, and they just SING together! I also highly recommend any Paradigm ADP (di-pole) surround speakers for those in the market.


The bad:

Unpackaging these speakers, they do look masterful. Removing the grilles for the first time, I realized that they are held onto the speakers by magnets rather than snap detents. "How quirky and cool!" I thought to myself. Removing all the platic wrap, I tried to place the grilles on the speakers again, but saw that they were misaligned.* Turns out you need them on stands, or the provided feet to elevate them slightly to align the grille.

However, even with them elevated, there is significant (1/4") play both horizontally and vertically. It is almost impossible to align the grilles so that they are perfectly and symettrically positioned. To me, it doesn't matter.. I consider speaker grilles to be like clothing on a beautiful woman; completely unnecessary. However, many customers will use the grilles and for them this may be a problem. Tsk, tsk Paradigm.

*NOTE: A few months ago (summer 2008), Paradigm released the new v.6 with which they have completely eliminated this problem with new mounts.

This is the only serious flaw I can find. Overall, these stand out as impressively engineered and well constructed. If you're really anal (like me) the following are the nitpicks I have:

Fresh from the box, as impressed as I was, I noticed a little bit of harshness to the sound from about 8kHz up. After two days of continuous loud music to burn them in (my neighbors LOVE me) the image filled out even more, the harshness disappeared, and the bass extension improved slightly. Similar results can be had after about a month of NORMAL use, as stated in the product sheets. With most high-end speakers this is both necessary and recommended.

These speakers are amazingly neutral, and will reproduce the signal given to them very accurately. Any weaknesses in the recording will be spotlighted by these speakers. Hiss and pops that were peviously inaudible are now highlighted and VERY audible. However, this is what one should expect of high-end speakers; sacrifice gladly made.
Note to self: Stop stealing music off the internet.

These speakers look pretty sharp, but with an essentially all-black system, the white midbass units look odd, out-of-place, and rather condom-like. The bottom line is, they are said to be made of a special lightweight composite, and they definitively WORK! There is minimal perceptible tonal difference between low and high power outputs.


Overall conclusion:

These little wonders will be at home, and probably a great improvement, with any home system. They take up very little space, and give huge sound. Those biased against bookshelf speakers really should give these a listen. When you bring price into the equation, it's really a no-brainer. I've seen speakers at a much higher price and larger size simply embarrassed by these. My ears have been permanently spoiled.