Paradigm just announced a new brand called Paradigm Shift aimed at a younger audience and those with a focus on audio solutions for personal audio, PC and gaming.

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Paradigm has enjoyed a long history of growth by building a loyal network of specialty A/V dealers who have helped build awareness while selling and installing the company's floorstanding, bookshelf, and architectural speakers. Paradigm Shift represents an additional focus by providing more consumers access to the inherent possibilities for a better overall audio experience through Paradigm sound. The new brand will target mobile music consumers and modern gamers with a focus on enhanced audio quality for products in four different categories including powered speakers, earbuds, headphones, and gaming headsets.

The company unveiled the new brand at CES 2011 and provided prototype demonstrations of the first product in the new line, the new Paradigm Shift Active Atom, otherwise known as the A2.

The new A2 is a powered bookshelf/tabletop speaker designed to be used alone, as a left/right audio system or in stereo pairs with devices such as iPods and other music players, desktop computers, home DJ decks, videogame consoles, and more. The A2 is bi-amped with 100 watts of power per speaker. The A2 can reportedly be used with any devices that have a 3.5-mm mini-jack or RCA outputs or for wireless streaming. The A2 has a built-in interface on the rear panel for Airport Express.

The A2 has an estimated MSRP of $249/each US and an expected availability of spring 2011.