Paradigm persona vs. Monitor audio Platinum

First of all dumbass I started this blog so I can make as many comments as I like. And even dealers of paradigm persona say they sound bright and one dealer that sells both the monitor audio platinum and the persona says that the monitor audio is much better so if you can't handle that then don't come on here.

And unfortunately mschott the persona series is not very good paradigm is trying to get into the high-end not very successfully their speakers are mid-fi at best they're not in the same league as the monitor audio Platinum but at least I got to give them credit they're trying but that beryllium Tweeter and midrange is a work in progress every speaker I've heard that uses it including magico paradigm and every other has a bright forward sound unfortunately not very natural.I prefer speaker that makes everything sound like it doesn't real life like the human voice piano violin cymbals. Hyper detailed does not mean accurate.

The paradigm persona are good for home theatre not great for music. Go look at the persona beaverview on 10 audio.com, the reviewer gave it a 2 out of 10 cuz he said it was so bright sounding.

I don’t value your opinion. You have no credibility. 

And NABCS if you like bright forward hard sound that's your choice I don't and the paradigm persona are not great at music good for home theatre but they got a long way to go for music. Paradigm has always been a mid fi speaker company they're trying to get into the high-end not very successfully and their way over priced as well. And the reviewers have been bought because they buy advertising in their magazine so I don't believe anything the reviewers say cuz I've listened to them and I know how bad they sound.

bla, bla, bla! .... urbie19, you are so tiring!!

And NABCS if you like bright forward hard sound that's your choice I don't and the paradigm persona are not great at music good for home theatre but they got a long way to go for music. Paradigm has always been a mid fi speaker company they're trying to get into the high-end not very successfully and their way over priced as well. And the reviewers have been bought because they buy advertising in their magazine so I don't believe anything the reviewers say cuz I've listened to them and I know how bad they sound.

Not a single thing you’re spouting means anything !    Cuz different strokes for different folks....DUDE !  Now go out and play on your skateboard.

Hey Ricred, just thought I'd pass this along to you. You should try the wyred for sound 10th anniversary dac. It's using the new ESS Sabre 9038 pro chip. The reviewer at 10 audio.com said it's the most analog sounding dac he's ever heard and he put it up against his VPI turntable and he said it was neck-and-neck. And they give you a 30-day trial. With 100% money back if you don't like it and I can vouch for it because I've got it and it is the most analog sounding Dac I've ever had in my system. I think it will best your Chord dac. I put it up against the $15,000 Sim audio DAC and it left it in the dust it was that much better.

Mshott, and you have less credibility at least I can talk because I have a very high-end system. Simaudio W8 p8, one of the best amps and preamps in the world. Wyred for sound 10th anniversary DAC. One of the most analog sounding dacs on the market right now. Esoteric p10 transport. My wiring is all Harmonic Technology magic 3 for the interconnects and pro 9 reference SE for the speaker wire. And my speakers are the monitor audio Platinum 200 generation 2 because I found them to be one of the most neutral and natural sounding speakers that I heard on the market.

Mikey BC I could give two flying f's what you think and since I started this blog don't come on here nobody's forcing you to.

And just so everyone knows audio Troy either works at our owns audio doctor in New Jersey which is a home theatre installer. so obviously being a home theatre installer he doesn't know very much about to channel and how it should sound. Cuz the paradigm persona don't sound good in a 2-channel system. But keep using them for home theatre cuz that's all they're good for.

Urbie,  all I'm trying to say is while you may prefer the MA over the Paradigm the next guy that comes along may prefer the Paradigm.   One is not better than the other,  just different.   For you to say the Monitor Audio is better is false...better for you maybe but not better for everyone or every system  
And this is a thread,  not a blog FYI 

Anyway,  Have a good day.

"... Simaudio W8 p8, one of the best amps and preamps in the world..."

"...Wyred for sound 10th anniversary DAC (ESS Sabre 9038 ) One of the most analog sounding dacs on the market."

This kind of statements clearly shows the lack of credibility of the person who said it.

Simaudio W8 is a good amp...but very far from being one of the best.
No DAC with Delta Sigma chip will sound analog ever!!

This thread reminds me of the Chevy Siverado youtube skits. 😀

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=2ahUKEwjEjOL0oL3lAhUCMa...

Urbie you should do your homework,

" And just so everyone knows audio Troy either works at our owns audio doctor in New Jersey which is a home theatre installer. so obviously being a home theatre installer he doesn’t know very much about to channel and how it should sound. Cuz the paradigm persona don’t sound good in a 2-channel system. But keep using them for home theatre cuz that’s all they’re good for."

Really?

https://www.stereophile.com/content/kef-chord-audio-doctor


https://www.stereophile.com/content/waterfall-hurricane

https://www.stereophile.com/content/human-highway

https://www.stereophile.com/content/nyas-2016-sunday-near-park-ken

beta site www.audiodoctor.com/wp

Kind of looks like we are experts in two channel audio doesn’t it?

Again if you know how to setup a Paradigm Persona you are going to get great sound.

Your comments about the Persona’s technology is laughable.

The Persona’s use exactly the same material for both the midrange and tweeter which is much more desirable than the Monitor which uses a Heil AMT which uses a thin plastic film as the transducer, and a composite metal/ceramic driver for the midrange, hardly the way to create a coherent sounding loudspeaker.

Also all drivers are made in Canada by Paradigm, with the pure Beryilllium from Brush Wellman, which is the only pure metal foundary that produces the pure metal in thin sheets to make drivers out of.

Other unique technologies in the series include the bass drivers dual voice coil design, the bass driver's suspension, the Phase Aligning Lens, and of course the Anthem Room Correction system.

Another interesting fact is that Monitors all show a depressed top end which creates a polite sounding loudspeaker, so if you prefer a softer sounding less dramatic sounding speaker then you would be a fan of the Monitors. The Personas do have a rise in the top end which only means that you have to have a more damped room with warmer equipment.

As per not selling the Personas are selling very well all over the world and getting fantastic reviews.

Personally Urbie we think you are totally inappropriate, although we sell Kef, Dali, Legacy, ATC, Paradigm, and a few other major lines we would never say that any of our loudspeakers are better than any of the competition nor are any of the other competitive brands either superior or inferior each company’s products have their own unique set of advantages and disadvantages, and sonic flavors, imaging, bass extension, dynamic capabilities, and sound stage height and width.

Although we have only heard the Monitors at shows and at those shows we were not blown away doesn’t mean that the Monitors aren’t excellent and it is possible we would like them as much or more than any of our current brands of loudspeakers.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Whether you pick your amplification or speakers first, you have to select the rest of the chain based on that. I wouldn't choose Bryston amps for my Paradigms because I don't care for somewhat cold, analytical result. I prefer my Marantz with those speakers. It balances the detailed, somewhat forward presentation with a more musical, "sweeter" presentation. My point being know your preferences and assemble your rig for synergy based on that. Declaring a particular speaker bad is nonsense at this level, and it's asinine. Any blanket statement in this regard does nothing but demonstrate profound ignorance of the subject. My $ .02.

I wanted to like the Monitor Audio Platinum series.  I listened to the huge tall ones along with the next one down which is I think the 300.  They sounded very very dark to me on classical music.  Could have been the room or setup but this was with super electronics (D'agostino).  I was impressed in the showroom with the Paradigm Persona 9H but couldn't get it to work in my room.  They measure only slightly tipped up in my room but for the life of me I couldn't get that tamed.  The did seem ruthlessly revealing.  Ended up with Magnepan 20.7's - I'm a detail freak who listens to mostly classical and I've been astounded at the Magnepans including their deep bass, no subwoofer required for me.

Probably the reason they sounded dark is because whoever was showing them was using them with not very good cable. MIT and transparent are the worst cables out there they make everything sound dead and dark. Those boxes screw up everything. I have the Platinum 200 and I use OCC single crystal wire which has been shown to be the best wire out there for audio over the last 40 years because there's no Crystal barriers in The wire. Ofc wire has 300 little fractures in it for every foot OCC has none in 700 ft.

And you can set those paradigm up anyway you like Troy and they're still going to be bright sounding. That's the characteristic of beryllium and you can't do anything about it to change it.

If you have to use a room correction system for your speakers doesn't say much about your speakers does it. I don't see sonus Faber, Wilson benesch Magico, monitor audio or any other top speakers out there having to do that.

Well nabcs, you obviously have no idea what you're talkin about. The p-8 and W 8 was reviewed by many people and they said it was world class bettering amps that cost three and four times the price.And I'll put my P8 W8 up against anything you got any time. Just like you were wrong on the kind of chip that the wyred4sound 10th anniversary dac uses. So obviously you don't know how to read because it's right on their website that they're using the ESS Sabre 9038 pro chip the best chip in the world right now.the W8 is not a good amp it's an exceptional amp and if you don't know that you're pretty dumb. And you probably couldn't afford it anyway.I don't like the way their prices of gone their preamp is now 40,000 which I think is ridiculous cuz it's only about 10% better than the the p-8 which was 15,000. High price doesn't always mean good you know, but simaudio has built an incredible reputation all around the world now you should know that if you know anything about the high-end.

Well they're a lot more coherent than the paradigm persona and it's not actually a heel Tweeter they redesigned it because they found some problems in the original Heil tweeter, and it goes clean right up to a hundred khz which makes the lower frequencies that much better. there isn't a dome Tweeter out there that has the dispersion in height and width like this MPD has 

urbie19... You are the only ignorant here. You don’t even know that ESS Sabre 9038 is a Delta Sigma converter!!

Try a R2R DAC someday to see what is analogue sound!!

If I were to get another ESS Sabre DAC it is an easy choice as to where I would go https://www.resonessencelabs.com/ . These guys are the engineers who designed the chip in an earlier lifetime. Yes, I have heard them several times.

Next DAC I get will be the R2R Denafrips Terminator from China since I want to hear what the big deal is all about.

@urbie BTW - Resonessencelabs are close to you in Kelonwa, BC unless you are really located in the Netherlands.

I have compared their dacs to the 10th anniversary and the 10th anniversary was better. Their top-of-the-line to dacs are $6,000 compared to the 10th anniversary which is $4,500 and they both use a 9028 pro chip which is not as good as what the 10th anniversary is using. They've got the 9038 pro chip which is better.

Nabcs why don't you go read the review on 10audio. He compared it to his VPI turntable and he said it was neck-and-neck and he said it was the most analog sounding deck that he's ever tried. He also said it was way better then the bryston bda3 that he had there.

I heard the Wyred4Sound 10th anniversay DAC with their top of the line mono amps driving the great KEF Reference 1 in a good room. It sounded fantastic. However, I still remember the Resonessencelabs Mirrus DAC played (purposefully) on low priced 10 year old speakers and a protoype amp. The Mirrus was something special that still stood out in my memory after all these years. The Resonessencelabs guys wanted to show the capabilities of the DAC on not so great speakers.

Not saying the Mirrus is better than the Wyred4Sound , since what is really "better".

R2R is the original circuitry it's old and outdated the sabre chip is much better. And it all depends how good the person using it is cuz I've heard dacs with the 9038 pro chip that sound like crap. You have to know what you're doing when you design the analog side.so maybe before you say anything and you should go and hear the wyred for sound 10th anniversary dac.or better yet why don't you buy it cuz it got a 30 day 100% money back guarantee and put it in your system and try it first.

Well it's pretty easy to decide when you hear different dacs on the same system you can tell pretty quickly which one is better and which one isn't and like I said and the reviewer at 10 audio said the same thing it's one of the most analog sounding dacs that he's heard and he put it up against his VPI turntable and he said it was neck-and-neck.

The problem with the top Ressonessence dac is that they're charging $6,000 and there's still only using the 9028 pro chip. The 9038 pro chip is even better but it's very difficult to work with you have to know what you're doing. They're not with ESS anymore they left to start their own company and maybe they just don't have the knowledge to work with the 9038 pro chip.wouldn't you think they would use the best ESS Sabre chip that's on the market instead of the next one down which isn't as good? And why is that? The 10th anniversary dac is only 4500

I like crisp, airy(extended) treble and so I naturally gravitate towards metal domes. I used to love AMT tweeters, but I guess that was compared to softdomes many years ago. AMTs now sound a little dark although still more acceptable to me than soft domes. It’s mainly preference and system matching I think. I haven’t heard the monitors but did hear the Legacy Aeris and next down the line. I think Paradigms are great, but require system matching. My big complaint with Personas and Magicos is the lack of grills. Come on manufacturers, at least give the us the option of putting them on to protect them!

Having said that, I’m not a fan of ESS DACs. They sound too lean to me, and if compensated for, sound too plumy and fat or soft in the bass. Currently using BelCanto DAC 3.5mk2 and pretty happy, but I would dearly love to have the Bricasti that has all DAC options in one unit: r2r, DS, and one bit DSD.
 I also wish everyone could agree to disagree and not attack each other in forums, makes for a worse experience.

Well you should give a listen to the wyred for sound 10th anniversary dac, I think it will change your mind you really have to know how to design the analog side to make everything sound really good. Even the reviewer at 10 audio said it was one of the most analog sounding decks he's heard. They've really done a phenomenal job designing this dac. It is very spacious very natural-sounding. It's not just a chip that makes it sound good it's everything else designed around it properly.

Also the reviewer at 10 audio had a few other dacs they're including a bricasti and he said the wyred4sound was still better.

Actually, this is all kind of embarrasing....

I have no idea about the tweeters. But I heard one of the persona's at the last RMAF.  And I heard an extremely good sounding speaker even under show condition's.

Urbie, the reviewer at 10 Audio has very few known reference components that one would normally compare any component to, his opinions are interesting but no more valid than any other reviewer.

His rating of components is based on what sounds good in his setup, and sometimes, a particular components or loudspeaker may require you to change certain items in order to make that particular component shine with the rest of the components 

If you understand the industry, and have experience there are two types of loudspeakers. 

Many people in the industry refer to an easy to get a particular loudspeaker which sounds good in many setups a drop and plop, kind of loudspeaker.

Loudspeakers which tend to sound "musical" Vandersteen, Harbeth, Verity Audio, many Sonus Fabers, Vienna Acoustics, these speakers tend not to have the ultimate resolution but are always enjoyable.

vs

The very high resolution camp are way more critical of setup in order to get the speakers to sound magical, Radiho, Persona, Rockport, etc.

One could argue that you shouldn't have to work hard to create great sound, however, the same argument can be made with any truly cutting edge product that doesn't hold back.

If you are driving a Porsche 911 Turbo you better make sure if you are driving the car at the track with very high octane gas and your tires are properly inflated and balanced, at 60 mph you wouldn't notice, at 160 mph any difference in inflation, or balance or lack of correct octane and you will not be driving the car without having a  very different experience.

The Personas are quite magnificent when they are setup correctly when they are not they are as you describe. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona dealers

Hi, I have the monitor audio Series 1 two pl300s, a pl350 and two pl100s in a 5.1 system with mcintosh mc300 monoblocks and  mc 250 for the rear channels and using mit s19 speaker cables and interconnects.  Should I switch out the speaker cable to occ?  I have a 21 ft and 22 ft rear channels and about 5ft and 8 ft for front channels.  What occ speaker cables would greatly enhance my sound or another speaker wire would be better?

I think you should Brandon, I tried MIT which is the same thing as transparent and those boxes just screwed up everything in my system they made everything sound dead and flat. There's nothing ofc out there that will match OCC. And the reason for that is because ofc has 300 Crystal barriers per foot which is like little fractures in the wire and OCC has none so when the signal travels down the wire it's not having to jump through the fractures with sheers off little harmonics with your missing when it comes out the other end. The Harmonic Technology pro9 reference SE is a very good bi wire speaker cable that's what I use. Also comes in single wire connections as well. I forgot the name of the guy that sells them for a good deal in the states they're about $1,500 for an internal by wire set but if you don't need that it'll probably be a little bit cheaper. one of the reviewers a few years ago when Harmonic Technology first came out with the pro 9 put it up against this $30,000 speaker wire and he said that the pro 9 was better. and anybody that would pay 30-40 $50,000 for a piece of wire is a total idiot cuz what can you do to a wire to make it worth that much come on. like I said there's a sucker born every day and some people have more money that they don't know what to do with. But OCC single crystal wire has been proven for 30-40 years to be the best wire for audio.

PS you should switch out everything to OCC single-crystal, power cords interconnects everything it'll make a huge difference. And if you're going to go with harmonic tech go with the magic 3 interconnects and digital interconnects that's their top-of-the-line stuff.

Brandon, 

Here is another perspective. First a bit of background we have been dealing with cables for a very long time. 

Our dealership started with Harmonic Tech, and then we moved to Acoustic Zen which was designed by Robert Lee who also designed Harmonic Tech first. The Acoustic Zen cable was better.

We then moved to Synergistic and Audio Quest, both of these wires were better. 

Lastly we moved to Nordost and then finally to Wireworld which was the best out of the wide ranging manufacturers.

The type of wire is just one element of a cables construction, most cable from the major companies use six nines or greater quality copper or silver which means that any impurities in the wire have been eliminated.

Your choice of dielectric,  shielding materials, alloy types, wire construction all matter as much as just the type of copper.

Brandon you should try to borrow other wire companies and judge for yourself. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

First of all audio Troy not all companies use OCC single crystal wire.MIT and transparent don't and their wires sound awful and the companies you're saying all charge a fortune for it and acoustic Zen was never better than harmonic tech and Brandon if you want another good company try neotech, their parent company supplies mostly everybody with OCC single crystal wire. There's only three companies in the world that are licensed to produce OCC single Crystal 2 in Japan and one in Taiwan which is neotech.And don't let audio Troy tell you that anything ofc is going to be better than OCC cuz it's been proven for 30-40 years not to be the case. And as for manufacturing like I said neotech makes OCC cable for pretty everybody so it's all manufactured the same way now.the only difference you're going to get ripped off by companies like audioquest who are charging a fortune for single Crystal. Neotech and Harmonic Technology are the most reasonably priced the other ones are very expensive.

And audio Troy which harmonic text stuff was acoustic Zen better better than the magic better than the truth link better than Pro silway. Because I know for a fact and I have the magic 3rd generation and the pro 9 SE 3rd generation that nothing acoustic Zen made was better than that.and I compared the two so I should know and he only charged a lot more.

And stop lying to Brandon Troy most companies are not using six nines or greater because in copper there is only six nines that's the purest, 7 nines is in silver so get your facts straight.

And like I said the construction now has been perfected using air tubes that isolate inside the wire individually insulated wires so if you want to overpay with audioquest go right ahead but if you want is good quality go to harmonic tech or neotech call me because neo take makes the wire for pretty much everybody.

And here's another little tidbit of information for you  Troy which I'm sure you don't know. When Albert von schweikert was working with Jim Wang at harmonic tech him and Robert Lee conspired to try and steal the company from Jim I wonder why, because his later designs were better than anything acoustic Zen was making. And how do I know this because I got it straight from the horse's mouth the former owner of harmonic tech because I just happened to be friends with him because I helped him open up the Vancouver market with Harmonic Technology.that's what kind of a low pond scum Albert von schweikert is.