Price Paid:  $1200.00 from used

Summary:
I agree completely with the previous review of this product. The Active 450's are an astounding speaker, it's a shame they have been discontinued, along with the entire active referance line-up from Paradigm. I was lucky enough to stumble accross a complete 7.1 Paradigm Active Referance system, 4 Active 450L/R's, 2 Active 20's, 1 Active C/C and one Servo-15. All cabinets except the Active 20's are high gloss cherry finish (the active 20's are black). One observation I'd like to add to the previous reveiw, although the cabinets came with audiostream RCA's, I noticed a significantly stronger signal through the balanced XLR inputs. I would recomend wiring, or rewiring them balanced for anyone who's using unsheilded cables.

Strengths:
Clarity, and ability to handle power. Cabinetry, and attention to detail.

Weaknesses:
Discontinued, not sure why??

Summary:
The Active 450LR speakers from paradigm represent what I believe to be the best value in high end audio today. I auditioned many hgih end systems which consisted of speakers costing up to $3000 canadian dollars hooked up to some extremely high end electronics and what I found was that none of the passive speaker systems I listened to reached the same level of performance as the Active 450LR. I did think that the paradigm reference studio 80 and studio 100 came close though. In truth I did listen to one set of speakers that outperformed the active 450LR and that was the newly released active/40! But since the active/40 pair lists for $2600 canadian I decided to buy the dealers demo pair of 450's at a cost of $1500 canadian, or about $1000 US.In terms of the sound quality of these speakers, they are nothing short of amazing. The bass is so clearly defined and extended that I now prefer to listen to music with the subwoofer off. I found that these speakers image best when on fairly tall stands, with the tweeters at ear level, although I found them to be less placement sensitive the the passive paradigm reference studio line.
In terms of the treble, this speaker really shines with amazing clarity and recovery of small details. Others have said that paradigm speakers will expose poorly recorded treble and overly bright soundtracks for what they are, and I must agree with that statement.
A nice touch with all of paradigm's active speakers is that they include very long shielded rca cables manufactured by audiostream. These nearly 20 foot cables are comparable to what would normally cost hundreds of dollars to buy by themselves.
The imageing on these speakers is trully amazing, the best that I have ever heard. While some reviewers have said that the active/40's image better, I found this not to be the case, and I believe a better amplifier, not just a better tweeter would be needed to improve the active 450LR's imageing. Also, it has been said that the studio 100 v2 images better, I also found this not to be the case, possibly due to the tweeters being positioned slightly too high on the studio 100's compared to normal seated heights.
So in summary I would like to note once again the amazing value that these speakers represent. To achieve comparable (not quite as good either) sound to this would require at least $4000 worth of speakers, cables and amplifiers. I would like to make one final note and that is that you will probably not be able to find a pair of demo active 450's like I did, but don't dispair the slightly more expensive (and more recent) active/40's sound a slight bit better than the active 450LR's.