System upgrade advice

I agree with those that say the B&W's will be as bright as your current Paradigms. Maybe brighter.

Whats steps have you taken with your current speakers to reduce the shrillness? Have you experimented with room placement relative to your listening position? What about the room itself? Do you have a lot of hard, reflective surfaces in your room contributing to the high end harshness? If so, start to balance the room out with soft, sound absorbing materials - heavy drapes, area rugs, etc. More often than not, the room is the overlooked component in a system.

Finally, your Paradigms have metal tweeters and so do the B&W's. They simply may not be offering a sound that is right for you. If you resort to new speakers, audition some with soft dome, textile tweeters. You may find their sound smoother and less harsh. I know I do. Good luck solving your problem.

I used to have Paradigm Studio 80s and liked them, especially for the price paid. However, my current Gallo Reference 3.1s and Reference AVs are far superior in all respects.

The Gallo CDT tweeter is a thing of beauty and one of the best I've ever heard. In addition, the dispersion characteristics are far superior to the Paradigms. The sweet spot with the Gallos is enormous - you can sit to the left of the left speaker and still clearly hear the right speaker.

I have also heard similar comments about the GoldenEar Triton speakers. And most of them have a built-in subwoofer and digital amp that provides a very satisfying bottom end.

The Paradigms are very good, but there are better speakers out there for the money...

I agree with others that say B&W is not the answer. Look at speakers from Dynaudio, ProAc, Sonus Faber, Vienna Acoustics, Soliloquy, etc.
Speakers that have a soft dome or silk tweeter will usually sound a bit more relaxing than those with metal dome tweeters.

I've had a bunch of digms and they all were a tad bright. Beautiful speakers and they do have a few nice things going for them. I wonder how much more of a refined, slightly more laid back sound you could achieve by replacing the crossovers with something a little better. Not crazy but in the $350-$400 range on crossovers.

Short term fix is to toe the speakers out more. Also, interconnects and speaker cables can offer some tone control.

I think the problems are the speakers first, the Rotel second. The Proceed is a fine preamp and absolutely NOT a bright component.

Another speaker to add to your list is Aerial, they are extremely listenable and certainly not fatiguing.