Paradigm Speakers - Problems with Surround Sound Results

That's a fairly common problem, actually. In some cases the speaker isn't good enough, but yours should be pretty good. I think that in general some movie soundtracks are rather dynamic and are meant to be played very loudly, in which case you can hear the dialogue fine, but in most homes there is so much sound reflecting off the untreated walls (and in some cases speakers and receivers being pushed to the point that they sound harsh) that you're forced to turn down the volume, which then makes dialogue difficult to hear.

The first bit of advice is always to make sure that the relative levels of the channels are all balanced. If that is already the case and the problem persists, then you could do what quite a few people here do (I'm led to believe), which is set the center channel level louder than the other channels by 1-3 dB, or as much as you need in order to make dialogue intelligible. This of course would result in a miscalibrated system, but then again it is common for folks to run their subwoofers a bit hot, too--whatever it takes to make your movie-watching experience more enjoyable.

Some people have benefited significantly in this regard by upgrading their speakers (or just their centers), but there is NO guarantee that this would help in your case, unless perhaps your center sounds unclear to you and you wish to upgrade anyway.

Is your whole audio system calibrated with respect to speaker levels? If so, then you're probably getting everything the directors and re-recording mixers intended you to hear. Some movies have tons of surround channel content throughout, while others use it sparingly at low volumes. It's possible that the systems you've heard at the store had their surround channels set too high. On the other hand, you can set up your system in any way you prefer to make it sound pleasing to you--try turning up the surround channels to find out how you like it.

Did you use the Denon's auto-calibration/setup?

These speakers should work together well. Balance is achieved with settings in your receiver.

The Denon you have is fine.

It's probably not the speakers--certainly not the surrounds. Placement, for example, can oftentimes be more important. Are your surrounds set to the sides of the viewers? They're not "rears," as many people call them. And is your center speaker pretty much out in the open, or is it shoved inside a cabinet?

^^^^^
Ecelllent advice. I have Paradigm`s & was not happy with the dialogue. I upped the the center by 3db & it sounds great to me now. I also upped the crossover which made it sound clearer. I am using a Onkyo 3009 on the system.

+1 to the comments above.

Also, and FWIW, I used to have Paradigm Monitor 7v4s, CC-370v3 and Mini Monitorv4s, and what I noticed is:
- the surrounds can benefit from being bumped up by 1-2dB;
- the CC speaker, while a pretty good match to the M7v4s, was a bit weak, and the Studio/CC v2 actually sounded better (fuller, cleaner).

Good suggestion! Subwoofer crossover frequencies are one of the things that calibration/room correction systems often get wrong--sometimes grossly so.

OP, check the crossover settings for each channel. All of your speakers should be set to Small. In your case, the crossover for the surrounds should be set to 80 Hz, the left & right fronts to 60-80 Hz, and the center to 80-100 Hz. Try different settings for the center to see if any of them help improve dialogue intelligibility.

What I've read about the CC370 is that it has a tendency to sound "boxy" and that its upper bass is a bit weak, so setting its crossover higher could potentially help.

I've also encountered several reports of tweeters failing in this speaker. What I would do is turn off the center speaker (set it to None or whatever in the receiver), sit right in the center of the sweet spot, and play back some problematic dialogue to find out whether there is a significant improvement when using a "phantom center." If so, then either the center speaker is faulty or possibly it's not good enough. Upgrading to the Studio series should make a noticeable difference, and at least in terms of tonal balance they don't sound completely different from the Monitor series (according to the last time I auditioned Paradigm speakers, which was years ago)--mostly just clearer and better (the Signature series, on the other hand, did sound different to me). And the latest Monitor series centers also appear to be substantial upgrades, at least judging from the fact that they have dedicated midrange drivers now. Not that I would recommend upgrading at this point--first let's try to find out what's wrong and how to correct it.