Sound quality: Paradigm's PW 600 had very good overall sound quality. Bass has good impact, but is a bit boomy and prominent and goes somewhat deep. Midrange is fairly even but is somewhat congested, a bit soft and gritty. Treble is extended but a bit smeared and sizzly. Does a mediocre job of recovering room ambience and sounds somewhat congested and lacks fine detail and treble air. As a stereo pair, it improves from mediocre to decent room ambience recovery, yet is somewhat congested, a bit gritty and lacks in detail and treble air. No significant difference between WiFi and wired sound quality. Can provide enough volume to be heard in a large-sized room. When combined with another Paradigm PW600 to form a stereo pair, they can be placed to provide better stereo separation than many other models and the sound improves, but remains very good.
Ease of use: We found the Paradigm PW 600 ease of use to be good overall. Connecting the Paradigm PW 600 WiFi is excellent, if initiated via WPS method, otherwise it is fairly intuitive, involving an app download to a smart device, following its instructions and entering the network password. The unit provides an obvious indication that the unit is in pairing mode as well as when pairing has actually occurred. Console controls are generally obvious, though not prominently placed where all controls are on the side of the unit and volume controls are medium contrast, marked +, -; and the volume controls work with WiFi and Line-in inputs. The source control button is high contrast, easily switching between WiFi and Line-in sources, though using ambiguous source indicators. The source input control is also a multi-function control to enable/disable auto line-in audio detection. The remote app is adequate providing for volume and transport controls and WiFi source selection but lacks line-in input selection. Speaker Calibration: Requires the download of software "Anthem Room Correction (ARC)" to a PC running Windows 7 or 8 (32 and 64 Bit) where the provided USB Microphone is plugged in. The laptop must be on the same network as the speakers; you need to follow on-screen prompts for calibration positions once measurement start. However, upon completion of the task, the calibration was not automatically stored in the speaker and we found that we needed to perform two more steps not mentioned. First "calculate" and then "upload" to the speakers to take effect, which the speaker registers with a tone. The calibration of the speaker improved audio quality from good to very good. Therefore, it is a key step for the best possible audio quality from the speaker.
