Crafted in Canada
THE OTHER DAY a friend who’s neither a videophile nor an audiophile dropped by my home to watch a movie. A pair of loudspeakers I had just finished reviewing for Stereophile, our sister publication, were sitting in a corner, waiting to be packed up. When I told him their price—$6,000/pair—he appeared shocked. Even Paradigm’s affordable new 700F speakers, then as now serving as the left/right channels in my system, are pricier than he would like were he to invest in a system of his own (unlikely!).
But most home theater fans know better. Spending as much for speakers as you might for a top-of-the-line 65-inch UHDTV isn’t something they would consider outrageous. Case in point: Paradigm’s Premier series. Consisting of six models ranging from the $800/pair 100B bookshelf speaker to the $2,000/pair 800F tower model, this series counts among the most intriguing new entries for a 5.1 surround sound speaker system priced under $5,000.
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Paradigm boasts that its speakers are designed and built at its own facility. But they don’t use the more specific phrase, “Made in Canada.” The reason? While the cabinets and drivers are Canadian-made, some other components are sourced from overseas. However, that’s the case with most loudspeakers today, and in fact much of the Premier line’s competition is manufactured entirely off-shore.
I chose
