I'm beginning to poke around and gather opinions and information about a "super speaker" to replace my aging Thiel 2.4s. I like the idea of bass dsp room correction and I am a bit of a point source type imaging nut (thus the Thiels). So among other choices I've been looking at the Paradigm Persona series specifically the powered 9H with room correction for the bass. However I'm skeptical of the "lenses" i.e. pierced metal covers on the midrange and tweeter specifically because of Paradigm's claim that such screens "screen out" "out of phase" musical information. The technology in the design seems superlative but I just can't get past the claim re out of phase information and the midrange and tweeter covers. What could possibly be the science behind this claim? It just seems like its putting a halloween moustache on the mona lisa given the fact that the company is generally a technology driven company.
It seems like speaker cables must have some effect. It has been difficult for me to find a dealer where you can hear various cables to determine if there is a difference. I am a beginner and need to learn more.
I listened to a lot of speakers before I purchased my Paradigm Prestige 85F towers. Many sounded too bight like the Martin Logan Motion 60's and I couldn't understand why the Bowers & Wilkins dealer was so in love with them. I thought the CM 10 and 804's lacked bass. I just wish I had held off and not purchased my Paradigm's. The mid's act as both a mid bass and a mid voice speaker and I think a 2 1/2 design is asking this speaker to do too much. They sound to harsh when listening to vocals. Now it is difficult to convince the wife I want to get rid of them and purchase the SALK Song3 Encore's. Those are just incredible in that $6,000 price point. He uses expensive drivers and his 4 inch mid driver really is fast and very musical. Vocals really sound incredible and so does the bass.
I am surprised no one mentions ARCAM. I compared the ARCAM AVR85 against an MacIntosh and the ARCAM just knocked its sock off. Incredible detail.
As a beginner there is so much to learn and as a result I really appreciate learning from everyone here.
It has been difficult for me to find a dealer where you can hear various cables to determine if there is a difference. I am a beginner and need to learn more.
The best way to audition cables is within your own system.
A knowledgeable and experienced dealer can be very helpful in advising you on matching and achieving personal and system outcomes; but, I advise against direct auditioning of cables at the dealer.
@david_ten - you are absolutely correct on this. Most dealers have a fairly substantial collection of demo cables. I just went through that process this weekend, auditioning 4 levels of a certain brand.
It’s the only way to know for sure. Notably, the most expensive cable may not necessarily play well with one's own personal rig.
greginnhHappy New Year- are you thinking about changing out Tellurium Q cabling in your system? Excellent advice about working one's way through various levels or tiers of a certain brand. I did it with Transparent Audio's MM2 series. Happy Listening!
@jafant - I actually (stupidly) sold my TQ cables a while ago. I have been using Audience and just upgraded from the AU 24 SX to the Front Row. The cable is amazing but a bit too revealing for my rig. I actually just listed them so sale here this morning.
greginnhMuch Thanks! for the update. Although, I have not auditioned the Tell-Q, I have listened to Audience (pre-SX series) and found that brand very good. Keep me posted on your next cabling brand. Happy Listening!
I will say that the Persona mid/highs measurements in the NRC are horrendous. A beryllium midrange, if not damped will ring like a bell. These speaker are bright and coarse, subjectively and objectively. This may be the right speakers for the aging audiophiles 😉
Science cop how come then so many people find them to be absolutely fantastic when paired with the right electronics, I guess they must sound bright and coarse, in our setup with the T+A and Naim electronics the speakers sound fantastic.
Measurements in an anchoic chamber do not guarantee results in the real world.
In a real world envionrment you will generally have absorbtave materials which will tame the top end with the result of a balanced sound in the actual listening room.
So perhaps if you have a super spartan room these speakers may not be for you.
Conversely a speaker which might measure flat to slightly rolled off in an anchoic room may sound completely dull in a real world enviornment.
Take your pick. It is easier to absorb excess energy it is nearly impossible to add more clarity to a dull sounding loudspeaker.
Your take on the Revels is complete BS as being boring boring boring as you said. Just make all these accommodations as you say the paradigms need. Cables brighter amp may do it for the Reveles huh?
This has nothing to do with being flat or rolled off. The FR with wild swings of -/+ 5 dB indicates some serious issues, most likely from the midrange breakup area (5-8Khz). Also, unacceptable THD in the upper mid.
@audiotroy - With all due respect regarding your post above, an anechoic chamber (an-echoic meaning "non-reflective, non-echoing, echo-free") is a room designed to effectively absorb any reflections of sound. So any "normal" (non-anechoic) listening room even with acoustic treatments will inherently have more reflective surfaces and therefore be more lively (brighter) than an anechoic chamber, not less so. If you’ve ever been in such a chamber it is an eerily quiet and dead sounding environment, so if a speaker is measured to have significant peaks in response anechoically it will only be exacerbated by the additional reflectivity of a non-anechoic room.
Mofojo, did you notice that Revel changed the tweeter from Titanium to Beryillium in the later incarnation of the Salon's did you ever wonder why, also there are very few people talking about them so if they were the class leader they would be generating a lot more excitement on these boards.
Bill_K you missed our point entirely, yes an anchoic room has no reflections and are designed to allow for good measurements.
If you design a speaker with a rising top end it may mean that the designers felt that the speakers would sound more exciting for one, for two many audiophiles who are older have dips in their hearing and three many audio room are Living Rooms with lots of absorbtative furniture.
Would the Personas or any other super clean loudspeakers sound good in a sparsely furnished room probably not, the demo we did with the 3F was in a large room it had carpeting and drapes, and big couches and the 3F on the Naim gear sounded fantastic in that room without a lick of hardness.
Remember one persons bright is another person's detailed and alive, one person's musical is another persons's dull and lifeless.
Audiotroy sells again. He just can’t help it. Like the tale of the scorpion and the frog---it’s in his nature. When I first heard the Persona 9Hs at the NY audio show a few years ago, I thought they were good for the $ but a bit on the bright side. When I heard them again at a dealer, I heard the same thing. I posted my conclusions here on Audiogon. I stand by them. And since I know how to accessorize (with cabling especially), I believe they could be tamed. But taming they do require.
@gpgr4blu - I know you said that you heard Persona 9H at your dealer. The problem is that you did not hear them at Audio Doctor NJ. According to Audiotroy, it is a magical place that possess special powers (perhaps brought to him from extraterrestrials), coupled with his infinite and vastly superior knowledge of all things audio, to provide you with an auditory experience second to none - in fact, far exceeding the design expectations, voicing and performance contemplated by the brands he represents. LOL!
Grgr4blu, we were the dealer at the New York show they did sound good for the money, if you were off access perhaps they sounded a bit bright but give us a break it was still a hotel room, you actually said something nice and yes you can tame them with the right stuff they definately need warmer solid state like Dag or T+A gear or good tubes.
Greginnh, we have a very different approach then your dealer who I know who it is,found pictures on their website you don’t remember we talked once before about the T+A gear and knowing you have the Gato gear and figuring out this dealer sells Luxman, Naim they jut got the line, Paradigm and Kef it wasn’t difficult.
Our demo room with the 9H uses echo buster panels on the walls behind the speakers, shakti hollographs, acoustic system resonators, stein harmonizers, a critical mass rack and center stage footers, Furutech NCF boosters, Audio magic power conditioning, Enklekin cabling and T+A electronics with a Light Harmonic Davinci Dac being fed by a $15k Baetis server.
Our approach is to use room tuning products, cabling, power conditioners and source components to bring out the qualities we want and amelerorate the qualties we don’t. There is an art to tunning.
We can also demonstrate that removing these items one by one totally destroys the sound, and it is not just the Personas all high resolution systems benefit from footers, racks, room tuning devices etc.
Also our main demo room is 26 by 20 with 10 foot ceiling, don’t think your dealer has a single room of that size.
Yes our Persona 9H is pretty magical especially on the Davinci which although is a $35k dac is one of the most remarkable front end imaginable.
Greginnh you are welcome to come visit us if you are in the area and see for yourself. This is a true reference system that to our ears betters many $300k systems, the only thing it lacks it the image size of a much larger speaker system. We have had many customers who have said this system is spooky in its reacreation of an event.
Wcfeil if you read the post from the customer who we flew to CA to tune his system before you and your negative attacks caused the post to be taken down.
We totally transformed his sound from ok to something very special through a cable change, a dac change footers stein harmonizer power conditioning and power cables.
Heard the Magico M series at Goodwins and was not impressed for a $180k
It would be hard to be impressed given the fact that Goodwin does not have the $180K M...
Regardless, these Persona cant be tamed, their aggressiveness brittle sound comes from the midrange breakup mode that are not tamed properly. It does not matter how you “massage” it. You don’t want to hear to the breakup region and no amount of "setup" will change that.
I respect all opinions, because Audio and most things in life are about personal preference. What I don't like is the hypocrisy from many that love Paradigm speakers. I see comments similar to this all the time, "
The issue with any of the cleaner and more detailed loudspeakers is going to be setup or detailed speakers required the right components." While at the same time constantly making statements about how over priced and/or bad a particular speaker sounds. Can't we all agree the speakers can sound very different depending on the rest of the components? I heard Magico A3 speakers sound completely different in separate systems. No speaker can be universally loved!
Ricred1 you have talked with us and you know we call em like we hear em.
In our previous posts we have praised speakers we don't sell including Rockports and recently at the Capital Audio Fest heard the $110k Wilsons and was blown away by their sound on the Krell elelctronis.
What is interesting is you have so many guys like Sciencecop harping on the speakers measurements and not at all of the reviewers who have praised the sound of the system.
As we mentioned we just did a demo Persona 3F on a Naim stack and the sound was amazing in a real room without acoustical treatment, we changed just the electronics from the Classe Cap 2100 with the T+A Dac 8DSD, to a Naim NAC 272 preamp/dac/streamer plus a NAP 250 power amplifier and the sound went from decent to amazing on the Persona.
Ricredi if you notice some of our posts we praise speakers we don't sell and give a reason why we don't carry other particular models. In the case of the Revel Salons they are nice speakers but we feel the Kef Blades are even better after hearing them at several places over the years.
As per Magico in one discussion we said we were intrigued by the A3 but so far only heard them once and did not like that pairing that means it might have been the setup and not the speakers we have yet to pass a true judgement on the A3, the Magico M7 at Goodwins was a decent demo but way too expensive for the sound they were getting.
As per Sciencecop saying we never heard really expensive Magico's at Goodwins I guess they are selling air aren't they
We have said many times it is the pairing of room acoustics, cabling, electronics sources and accessories, that work to create magic in a room with the Personas or any other set of loudspeakers.
We have heard Personas sound terrific or bad depending on what they were being used with and how they were setup.
Troy: Of course I said something nice about the Paradigms. They are good speakers--but not as good IMHO as you maintain. The only reason I bother to respond to your posts is not to criticize the gear you carry (I very much like T&A) but to criticize your constant selling and self promotion. Write like a regular human and you will probably never hear from me again.
Also our main demo room is 26 by 20 with 10 foot ceiling, don’t think your dealer has a single room of that size.
They do. Don’t make assumptions and take underhanded jabs at other dealers. Everyone that works there is also a much less annoying human being.
Our demo room with the 9H uses echo buster panels on the walls behind the speakers, shakti hollographs, acoustic system resonators, stein harmonizers, a critical mass rack and center stage footers, Furutech NCF boosters, Audio magic power conditioning, Enklekin cabling and T+A electronics with a Light Harmonic Davinci Dac being fed by a $15k Baetis server.
Our approach is to use room tuning products, cabling, power conditioners and source components to bring out the qualities we want and amelerorate the qualties we don’t. There is an art to tunning.
Another garbage post. So now to achieve true reference levels with the Persona series one must use a series of complex resonators, footers, room harmonizers and other nonsense.
Some of us prefer to buy speakers that sound good-to-great in regular rooms with decent electronics and setup, with the potential to sound great-to-amazing in a proper room with better electronics and setup. Every one of your posts about the Persona series is always qualified with the "tweaks" required to make them sound even decent, much less amazing. That is not inconsistent with what those of us that don’t like them are saying: that the speaker is inherently flawed and there are better options available. One should not have to go through such great lengths with a pair of speakers that costs $10,000+. But because you have skin in the game, you’re willing to take these ridiculous lengths to defend them on the internet. We get it.
I’m tired of the arrogance in your posts. No matter the topic or thread you post in, there is always the sense that you think (1) you know more than everyone else and/or (2) that others do not hear the things that they hear. If your goal by posting on these forums is to generate sales, in my opinion you have failed miserably. You’ll never see a cent of my money, even I loved Paradigm speakers.
Talking to Audiotroy several times has allowed me to see him from a different perspective. Based on our conversations I don’t see him as arrogant, but someone that has a lot of knowledge and wants to expand his customer base. He never once suggested I sell my speakers, but he has provided several relatively inexpensive ways to improve my current system. I take everything Audiogon members post with a grain of salt, including Audiotroy. I use my own ears to decide what components to purchase.
Bingo! He tries constantly here to expand his customer base. Sell, sell, sell. I really like the idea of the cage match between he and Bo. With any kind of luck, we could be rid of two pompous blowhards.
@ric Maybe he doesn’t try to get you to sell your speakers because he realizes that’s really hard to do, and a daunting task in general. I’m sure he sells you stuff that’s high margin and/or easy to ship for little to no cost (cables!). How convenient.
contuzzi, I've never purchased anything from Audiotroy. My dealer and I have been friends for several years and he allows me to either bring components home to evaluate in my system or I can listen to components in his system. I'm just as familiar with my friend's system as my own. If I was interested in a component that my friend didn't carry, I would purchase from another dealer. I purchased my Audioquest Hurricane power cords from another dealer, because they let me try them at home and my friend doesn't carry Audioquest.
I just don't see the value in trying to destroy a person I don't know. At one time I was interested in a component that Audiotroy talks about on Audiogon, so I called him. Fortunately I was able to hear it relatively close to where I live and I didn't like it.
Why would we advocate Ricredi change from one $30k set of speakers to another?
We recomended Ricredi change from rowland to a different electronics because-the new Monitor audios Amt tweeter is more recessed than the first gen and Jeff Rowlands gear is a bit rolled sounding.
No Rivionale, you miss our points entirely. It is not that a $10k set of Personas needs a lot of tweeking to sound good, but they do like, and respond well to using the right cominbation of electronics. ,
The point made with all the tweeks are being used in our $150k reference system which although is quite expensive the performance in many areas matches or beats systems that we have heard that were $300k and above in price range.
In the example we sited above Persona 3F at a client's home with a normal Living Room, a circa 2008 $5,000.00 Classe Cap 2100 intergrated amplifier, with the $4k T+A amp, and a set of Wirworld Gold Eklipse Interconnects $1,600.00 and a set of Wireworld Silver Eclipse speaker Cables $3,500.00 plus 2 AQ power cords and an Audio Magico Power conditioner the Personas sounded good but not magical, we changed to a $13k Naim stack which includes a preamp with a built in dac and streamer, same everything else the speakers sprang to life and sounded amazing. Same room, same cabling, same speakers just with different electonics and the sound was extraordinary, without a hint of brightness, huge soundstage, deep bass, a great natural midrange.
We preach that it is a system approach you have to have the right combination of products working together.
You are right there are easier audio products which can be just dropped into place and sometimes you can get pretty good results, generally these are the warmer and more forgiving designs which may not ever sound bright, but can sound rolled off and sluggish to other listeners.
By way of an update, I had an opportunity to audition the Paradigm Persona 9H at some length at an Atlanta dealer recently. They did not sound bright to me in that audition driven by an Anthem SR series power amp and pre amp. I have to say I was impressed with them in listening to a a shortlist of tracks that I take with me on a thumb drive. I need to go back after they really have them dialed into the room properly and take another long listen and to take some in room measurements using REW. I did not listen to speakers further down the food chain in this series although they did have the 5F on display. If its the 9H or nothing the problem is the price of a pair, not a problem per se but if I decide to spend that much that means there are other things in the running which I’ll have to travel to another city (perhaps Chicago) to audition. AND Vandersteen is coming out with a new model to replace the 5A sometime this year which could also be a contender. I'm in no hurry to make a decision. The Atlanta dealer offered me a discount on his demo pair of 9H's but it was only 10% so there was no real incentive to deal on those. I've come to expect 10-15% off when I place an order on a new item so a demo unit should be much more deeply discounted than 10%. And at these prices, Magico (S3, S5) and Rockport Technologies are two lines I'm anxious to hear.
Audiotroy has now stooped to the level of trying to steal a potential sale from a dealer that already invested their time into doing a demo for the guy.
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