"a stylish and affordable launch into the world of high-performance audio"

They certainly are attractive.I believe Paradigm is mostly targeting the home theater crowd.I'm nowhere near as nitpicky regarding SQ with our very modest ht set up.Movies and the soundtrack music sound really good but falls short for music only listening.

Another low cost floorstander. I don't see anything wrong with that. Someone looking for something better than earbuds,or HT in a box,this is another choice that won't put you in the poor house.

The larger part of performance improvements possible in generic speakers are brought about via lore and applied lore.

I don’t expect the speaker to sound exceptional I expect it to sound acceptable. Acceptable to the average ear.

Like a klipsch HT speaker, or a Polk HT speaker, or a JBL HT speaker.

All of them being made in china. With budget drivers. Like... drivers that are $10 each.

The economics of speakers has not changed. There are no exceptions. This is just Paradigm breaking down and getting their slice of the best buy slumming money.

Wharfedale>Paradigm any day of the week.

$374 for one speaker. Figure half of that is the cabinet. That leaves $187 for 5 drivers and a crossover. Call it $30 per. That's retail. And zero margin. Oh and nothing for binding posts and feet, not to mention shipping carton and packaging.

What could go wrong? 

People love to talk about the law of diminishing returns. Which is bogus. Clearly the diminishing returns come when things get so cheap most of the cost is in the packaging.