Paradigm Persona B Loudspeakers Professional Review


I met Jerry Seigel at the RMAF this past October and had a quite lengthy discussion with him on audio reviewing in general. He was very nice in person and not what I expected. I never mentioned this to him, but I always felt he liked everything he auditioned.

Not so for the Paradigm Persona B loudspeakers. I won’t bore you with the specifics of the review as you can read it online, but he summed it up as he couldn’t wait for the audition to be over. The words bright and brittle kept being mentioned in the review and he gave it 2 LP’s out of 10. I have never heard these particular speakers, but I have always felt that Beryllium speakers were too bright for my taste and that is what he seems to say in the review. I am looking forward to what The Audio Doctor has to say about this as he always seems to be pushing their top of the line Persona speakers in these pages.

Has anyone heard the Persona B speakers and what do you think about them? I was actually thinking of a 3rd system in the spare bedroom with some kind of stand mounted speakers. I believe these speakers will be off my review list.
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Showing 2 responses by tutetibiimperes

@stereo5 

It’s funny you mention ‘icepicks in the ears’ because the first few speakers I heard that used AMTs that was my reaction to them.  Then I heard the Triton References, Spatial X2, Legacy Aeris and Valor, the Emotiva Airmotivs, and the Gayle Sanders Eikon and my opinion on them changed completely - something was just off about my first demos, whether it be Room acoustics, positioning, settings on the electronics, source material, or something else.  

There were a lot of Beryllium tweeter speakers at Axpona and most sounded lovely.  The new Satori Beryllium tweeter in particular is making its way into a lot of designs.  

Between the new Revels with the Beryllium tweeters, the Salk Song3A with the RAAL ribbon, the Mangers with their unique bendy-wave driver, the Martin Logan electrostats, and the Legacys with the big AMTs there were excellent examples of treble reproduction using a variety of high frequency drivers that all sounded great.  
I auditioned them at a dealer in Tampa maybe 6-8 months ago and thought they were the best bookshelves I’ve ever heard, no hint of the coarseness, brittleness, or harshness he mentions.  

After getting to hear many more speakers at Axpona I don’t know if I’d still say they’re the best bookshelf/standmount I’ve heard, the Revel M126be, TAD Micro Evolution, and Raidho XT-1 are all right in a pack with it, but it’s probably still easily up in the top five.