Basically Brilliant
CANADA’S PARADIGM offers a truly impressive range of speakers for audiophiles and home theater enthusiasts alike. The company makes so many speakers, in fact, that I sometimes have trouble keeping track of what’s what in the Paradigm lineup. With luscious, hand-lacquered cabinets and Beryllium drivers, the Persona line is the flagship offering, one that Sound & Vision reviewed in a 5.1-channel configuration in our September 2017 issue (also online at soundandvision.com). While we found plenty to like about that Persona rig, at $31,000 it clearly represented a luxury purchase. Fortunately, the Paradigm family also includes speakers aimed at budget-conscious listeners, such as the Monitor SE series.
As you might expect from an entry-level offering, the Monitor SE line mostly sticks to the basics. In this case, that means simple, yet solid MDF cabinets in either a matte-black or high-gloss white vinyl finish. Although the look of Monitor SE speakers may be basic, the line does borrow elements from the company’s pricier offerings such as an X-PAL aluminum-dome tweeter and Perforated Phase-Aligning (PPA) Lens, a metal shield that serves to protect the tweeter and, according to Paradigm, smooth output by “blocking
