Tower Speaker Reviews

Setup
My home theater room is long (25 feet) and narrow (10.5 feet), with a 100-inch-diagonal Stewart FireHawk screen that descends from the ceiling at the narrow end of the room. This left just enough space for the front S8 speakers. I was concerned about the placement of the C5 center speaker, which came with a stand that puts it 17 inches off the floor. I wasn't sure if the lowered screen would clear the center speaker.

But the God of Home Theater Setups smiled on me: with the center speaker at the same distance from the listening area as the front speakers (forming a slight arc), I lowered the screen and it came to within 1 inch of the back of the center-channel speaker! I like it when things work out like that…

I placed the ADP3 surround speakers on supplied stands against the wall on the sides of the sofa that serves as the listening/viewing area (about 14 feet from the front and center speakers). This allowed the ADP3s to be at the recommended ear level, with the front of each speaker a little over 3 feet from the nearest listener. This is probably closer than ideal; despite having a side-firing midrange/tweeter array, the speakers occasionally became apparent as a sound source.

I put the subwoofer in the right-rear corner of the room. Although somewhat unorthodox, this placement—originally suggested to me by subwoofer designer Dr. Poh Ser Hsu—provides the best subwoofer performance in my room.

Paradigm speakers are designed to be played with their grilles on (the grilles help control diffraction), so that's how I listened to them. The speakers have two sets of terminals, allowing for optional bi-wiring, but over the years, I've become skeptical about the supposed benefits of bi-wiring, so I used the standard single-wired connections. The front speakers were toed in toward the listening area.