My take on the speakers you have mentioned is that the Paradigms have a great mid range sound but as soon as you throw something with bass at them they fall apart. On a quiet day I went to my dealer, made sure he had time to spend and tried every Paradigm he had in the store. Jazz and Classical sounded OK on them but metal or techno sounded bad on their "higher end" speakers.

My advice is to grab some of your most aggressive music you listen to and test it on the Paradigms at your dealer. If you find that there is something missing, get the Axioms.