Thanks for starting this thread and raising awareness on how good the new Paradigm Personas really are.
I work with a gentleman, Dave store owner with 27 years experience, here at Audio Doctor in Jersey City NJ, and I do part time sales and turntable setup at the store. I am a bit of a technical nut with engineering background so when Dave told me about the incoming Paradigm’s I was very intrigued by the advanced technology in the new line,
We just sold off our demo pair of Signature V3 about two weeks ago, and we did a comparison of the old line vs the new under the same circumstances, when listened to side by side the new Persona’s are way better than the older Signatures.
We have two sound rooms with the new Persona speakers: we have the Persona 9H with T+A electronics from Germany in a full blown reference setup that costs around $150k with all the cables, power conditioners, electronics and digital and we have the Bookself Persona B and Persona 3F in our all purpose room with $13k of Naim gear, as well as many other components in a more down to earth setup.
I think the reason why you came away from the dealers demo as being impressed by the Persona but questioning how much better they are over the older Signatures is the difference between your setup, which uses much superior electronics, cabling, dac etc and this dealer who had a much more modest pairing of electronics.
We have found the Persona sound great on the new Micromega M100 $4k, better on the Naim 272/250DR setup, $13k, and we have and the speakers sound totally amazing on the T+A HV electronics.
So the moral of the story is these speakers deserve the best in partnering gear and when setup with matching components, they can easily stand beside speakers that cost 2-3 times their price!
I have heard $100k Rockports, $120k Kharmas and $70k plus Wilsons, $70k Vandersteens, the Person 9H can match any of them and in many areas out perform all of these major players, I would also include $70k Magico in this mix. In terms of image holography and sheer transparency I would rate the Personas higher.
The problem comes down to perception too many people think that because a company like Magico uses a heavier cabinet made out of metal it must be a better speaker, or because Wilson use composites it must have lower coloration etc, the fact is none of these other speakers use the exact same material for the midrange and tweeter so none of these players are as coherent, and none of these players use pure Beryilium which is one of the best materials in the world for making loudspeaker drivers add in state of the art bass drivers and active room correction to the 9H.
Paradigm has spent millions of dollars in producing the Persona line and it shows, they are clearly in the uber speaker class yet cost a fraction of their costs.
The 3F at $10k can go toe to toe with most $20k speakers they are that good.
|
To gpgr4blu, you are honestly judging your entire experience with the Personas on one show demo in a way too small hotel room, with crappy acoustics, and in that one room only one or two seats were you able to get the best sound from that system.
In our shop we have the 9H setup much bigger room and they are spectacular, they are one of the most holographic speakers you will ever hear.
In terms of comparison’s to the other players, where do you come off as an expert, we had a $120k pair of Kharmas in the shop and they were impressive but not better than the $35k Personas. My friend has 27 years of experience, and I have 40 and I was a mechanical engineer, as well as a loudspeaker builder, and I have been going to shows and listening for decades.
Now I don’t know what planet you come from but Kharama has a reputation for building some of the most respected loudspeakers on the market, we did a direct comparison same room, same system, same setup.
As per Vandersteen or Magico they are not better speakers, do you honestly think that the Vandersteen 7 is a more technologically advanced speaker than the Paradigms? Paradigm can outspend Vandersteen on development without raising a sweat, Paradigm is one of the largest speaker manufacturers in North America, so they can devote $4 million dollars on this project, which is a far greater development budget than what a boutique speaker company can spend on development.
There are currently no other speaker systems on the market which use pure Beryillium for both the midrange and tweeter drivers, why this is important is due to the fact that Pure Beryillium and Pure Diamond drivers are the most resolute drivers, on the planet and offer the least amount of coloration.
Tale of the tape: Focal Beryillium tweeter and composite fiberglass midrange.
Wilson Silk domes tweeter paper composite midrange.
Magico Diamond coating on Beryillium composite tweeter, Graphene carbon fiber based midrange.
Only Vandersteen on this list uses the same materials for both the midrange and tweeter, and although very fine composite of balsa wood and carbon fiber, still drivers with more mass than pure Beryillium and they cost $70k!
Other than the Polymer MKX-s which are $70k Diamond tweeter and midrange,and the Tidal loudspeakers, Diamond tweeter and midrange,and a $180k pair of Lumin Whites, which use the Acuton pure diamond drivers, there is not another company producing drivers with this level of performance, and especially at these prices!
Throw in that the Paradigms start with a $7k pair of monitors and a $10k floor-stander they are going to be a force to be reckoned with.
As per which of the many sacred cow Audiophile brands are better it is always up to a listener to decide, but as I mentioned earlier we test and we listen, and I have gone to many shows and dealer events, when I said what I said earlier this is based on years of experience as well as hearing the Rockport speakers, hearing Wilsons, hearing Magico, hearing YG, these are all fantastic speakers, what I said is that the Paradigms can compete with any of them and in some ways can match or outperform them that is not hyperbole.
With enough money and dedication any large company can pull together a product that can stand up to or outperform what a small boutique company can produce easily, Paradigm is a huge company with vast resources, the Persona line is proof positive that Paradigm can build a technologically advanced, superior sounding product, and price it realistically.
I would invite you to our shop to hear the Personas setup in a real room rather than a tiny hotel room with crappy acoustics and judge for yourself
|
Thanks Blackfly you summed up my feelings perfectly.
All I can tell you guys is that both myself, long time engineer and hobbyist, and my friend Dave we go about things a bit differently.
I have known Dave since meeting him at one of the early New York shows and I was impressed by how good his systems sound and the man's integrity at finding class leading and emerging products that offer usually superior performance for the money and that did and does include brands such as Usher, Nuforce, Nuprime. Aqua Hifi, Light Harmonic, T+A etc.
Dave is about creating magic in sound and we test everything in the shop. We recently compared the current hottest on the market power conditioner. to our Audio Magic Oracle, and we sent the other power conditioner back, sure that power conditioner got rave reviews it just didn't sound as good as the one we had under the same conditions.
We found T+A after reading an Absolute Sound review where Alan Taffel compared a $19,500.00 T+A integrated to $120k worth of CH Precision and found in direct comparison that the T+A sounded nearly identical. Upon sampling the T+A stuff we agreed that their products are amazing and a great value and again compared with all our other lines the T+A stuff was better sounding.
As per the Persona's I said that they rival much more expensive speakers and in some ways out perform them. How do we know that? When we have a $120k pair of Kharmas, and like the Personas more, I think that gives us credibility of opinion and we also have quite a number of other outstanding loudspeakers to compare with including: Dali, Polymer, Vivid, PSB, KEF, Legacy, and a few others some of these other speakers cost up to $68k a pair that gives us perspective as well as choice.
I wouldn't trade in a pair of $70K speakers for the Personas, I would however put them on my list if I was looking to purchase a pair of Wilsons, or Magicos or B&W or YG or Focals or any major brand of high performance loudspeakers up to $70k or more.
Other than a much larger, ie taller speaker which can sound even physically larger, the Persona really does to offer a very impressive set of performance criteria, they are incredibly holographic, very coherent, smooth with extraordinary transparency, great dynamics and bass. What they are not rolled off, slow, or inaccurate, therefore they will show you the good and bad of what you use with them and really should be used with exceptional pairings of products.
I am willing to bet that many people if they came to our shop and heard our setups with the Personas would come away as Blackfly does that the Personas are a true reference grade loudspeaker and with Persona, Paradigm is offering a line of incredible speakers that start with an affordable book self and floor stander. I have never seen such remarkably advanced drivers at these affordable price points!
.
|
Actually no. Beryllium has almost never been used for a midrange driver.
Usher has one but it is an alloy.
TAD made a Beryllium midrange in their original series.
Beryllium is a highly toxic and very difficult material to work with so very few companies want to spend the money to create drivers out of this material. |
The other thing to note is that many people use Seas or Scan Speak Beryllium tweeters but neither of these companies is making a pure Beryllium midrange driver.
Why is Beryllium so superb it is extremely light, it is stiffer than Titanium, it is also self damping is is one of the most perfect materials to form a driver cone out of.
|
from Stone Studios:
Beryllium. Used only by TAD-Pioneer in its professional drivers, beryllium is the ultimate metal for use in diaphragms. It stiffness to weight ratio is the highest of any known metal. Although its self damping is not inherently superior, its stiffness usually raises its resonances to well over 50 kHz, obviating the requirement for special surface treatments. Beryllium is also one of the most expensive materials from which to fabricate diaphragms.
|
The moving mass of a driver is important, you are missing one of the other major advantages of the material, ie Beryllium is self damping, aluminium is not.
The purity of tone is what makes Beryllium so extraordinary.
Also Ribbon tweeters have other issues ie linear drive when being pushed hard and other than a very few examples where you haver magnets on both sides you can have issues with tweeter being progressively out of the magnets optimum field leading to compression and greater amounts of distortion.
Also you are missing the other advantage of this speaker you also have exactly the same material for the midrange driver.
If you use a Raal tweeter you will have to use another material for the midrange driver now you have one material for the tweeter and another for the midrange frequencies goodbye coherence. |
We have the KEF Blades on display as well, which use KEF's best drivers, the Blades Uni Q driver features a driver of Aluminium with a low mass stiffening ring, and the Personas are even more transparent. It is not just the stiffness and mass of the material.
Each driver material has a coloration, it seems Beryllium just has less of a sound and greater speed then Aluminium. |
No I never said they are a cost no object speaker, I said they compare and can compete with many of the best small boutique companies and can easily compete with with Magico, Rockport, Wilson, B&W, Focals and YG, models that are priced in the $40-$70k price range.
The Persona's were developed to be a practical and affordable line of reference speakers, in some ways they are as good as any of the other reference speakers which is in transparency, speed, coherence, and holographic imaging.
The Personas are a compact speaker and do not have the wave launch of a much physically larger speaker.
I am very familiar with IRS V and the Genesis series I did a service call to replace the tweeter on a pair of Genesis 2 so I actually do know what they sound like.
In terms of transparency and creating a more holographic image, the Paradigms are way better, in terms of sheer amount of air moved and image size the IRS speakers are better |
Okeeteekid
This is a thread on the Personas, not a thread on the older Infinity IRS products and of course a gigantic speaker is going to produce a scale that even a top notch speaker such as the Persona can not equil.
I have heard the older IRS as well as the later Genesis speakers, and the Personas have greater treble clarity and a more holographic albeit smaller soundstage,
The I |
One Ascend may make a nice speaker, but they do not have the engineering prowess or pocket book to make their own drivers from scratch, I mean no offense to the guy from Ascend but lets face facts.
Two: The Beryillium tweeter in the Personas is pure Beryillium many of the Beryillium tweeters out there are not pure Beryillium and aside from just the dome, the entire driver is made by Paradigm, and the speaker also employs some other unique technolgiesm to make a world class tweeter, their is also the lens technology which lowers distortion while improving power output and imaging, the other drivers also employ patened technolgies including a type of suspension for the bass drivers which provides far greater exercusion while lowering distortion.
Although a Ribbon may have lighter mass, their is a reason why all the great loudspeaker manufactures don't use them, aside from Genesis who makes their own circular ribbon which again acts more like a conventional direct radiating driver, and it isn't cost, the standard pure Beryilium seas and scan speak tweeters also cost around $500.00 while other companies such as Tidal and Polymer use drastically more expensive pure Diamond tweeters, again not Ribbons.
Ask yourself why Magico, Focal, Wilson, YG, Vandersteen, Avalon, Tidal, Polymer, Vivid, Kharma etc don't use the superior technology ribbon driver, which you obviously feel is a better driver.
The issue is the greater the surface area required to provide greater dynamics and higher power handling the greater the deffraction which there is no way to engineer around. Also Ribbon tweeters can not play as loudly without creating greater amounts of distortion as the moving diaphram moves further away for the magnets strongest part of the field.
The other issue is again coherency you are handing off your critical midrange frequencies to another entirely different driver made out of an entirely different material.
I have heard speakers with the Raal ribons, Fountek, and Arum Cantus, they all produce stunning highs the issue is always getting them to blend with the midrange driver which invariably isn't a ribbon.
If you remember the Apogee full range ribbons they had issues with dyanmics and usually sounded compressed unless you had gigantic and super expensive amplifiers on them, and unless you got them in the middle of the room they also had issues, also the image wasn't exaclty super pinpoint and holographic.
Long story short none of these speakers are perfect they all have strenghths and weekness. I never said the Personas were the best speakers in the world, nor did I ever said they beat cost no object designs, both myself and Blackfly and Constin, feel that the Personas are superb speakers that do many things remarkably well and they represent a tremendous value for the money, and they can compete with much more expensive speakers.
Both myself and Dave, are still discovering how to make the Personas sing, but allready in some of our demo they are doing things that are absolutely amazing, their transparency and holography is just breath taking.
|
Boy you guys are really nuts and I mean Oakteekid and Grpgru
First we have a gentleman who is turned off by my friend Dave who is known in the industry as a man who knows his stuff and producing great sound, for recommending or extolling the virtues of Usher loudspeakers, a man with 27 years of experience who worked behind the scenes at Innovative Audio and Sound by Singer and discovered and promoted VAC, BAT, Nordost, Rel, and many other well established brands which were new to the market in the early 90s.
For the record, the Usher BE 718 monitor and the later Diamond Version where rated by almost every major publication as being one of the best monitors for $3k including Stereophile, TAS, Enjoy the Music, Six Moons, go and read the reviews. Usher sold a lot of the 718 monitors and everyone just gushed over them. I was at that show the big BE 10 were amazing speakers and they were a great buy for their outstanding performance.
We stopped selling Usher due to the fact that their US distributor closed down and the 718 monitors started losing their edge compared to some of the later monitors including the KEF LS 50, as well as the extreme size and weight of the BE 10 and 20 made delivering them and setting them up difficult.
As per the Scaenas they are still one of the finest speakers ever made, particularly their later version with the improved Ribbons. We stopped working with them due to quality control issues, lack of marketing, website and their lack of producing a line of speakers rather than in reality one model. I would take a pair of Scaenas over any $100-200k Wilson, Magico or Focal.
As per Ribbons both myself and Dave do not have a thing against Ribbons or Diamond Drivers or Beryllium being the best read what I wrote that Beryllium is one of the best materials out there to make a cone out of and this material is generally better than other materials, in terms of speed and lack of distortion, what I keep on hitting on is coherence that having the exact same material for both the tweeter and critical midrange is a huge advantage.
In terms of power handling and dynamics obviously one ribbon tweeter is going to exhibit those properties use 10 of them and you can get the advantages of the low mass of the ribbon.
Lets see again, Dave championed Scaena and Johathan Vallan rated the same setup we had CJ Art and GAT with the Scaenas as one of his best loved reference combinations.
As per the Personas being better than other speakers again I never said that, what both Dave and myself are excited about is what these speakers do for the money compared with some of the much more expensive speakers out there.I said they can challenge and compete with them and in some areas outperform some of these brands that would also mean a similar model and price range, not a $35k Persona vs a $200k Focal or Magico.
We are both sick of the drivel that a company like Paradigm can not make a speaker which can compete with a Magico or a YG or a Wilson or what have you. Compare the product and listen for yourself.
I would still stick to what I am hearing that the Persona drivers are amazing and in terms of resolution and image specificity the speakers are among the very best speakers. Will a $35k pair of Personas outperform a pair of $200k Genesis or IRS no of course they can not, they are not built to compete with this class of product, they may however, over greater clarity and a more precise albeit smaller sound stage.
Maybe instead of this useless back and forth about not liking that we are talking about products we believe and extolling them, because if you haven't noticed a theme, Dave finds products which usually challenge the established brands and these products usually cost less and offer better performance for either, the same money or for less.
I doubt we would want to work with either of you, gentlemen, you are not our clients, we are not looking for people with closed minds who have already decided that they are predisposed to learning and experiencing because you label that "selling."
I don't know about you, but if I was in the market for a camera I would go to B&H and seek out the most experienced salesperson there and ask them which camera and why and then I would still test if myself, I would be open to coaching from someone who may know considerably more about the subject then I do.
Again we don't claim to know more than anyone else but we test and we test, we had a very well respected $30k table here that everyone was raving about and a $7k Merrill Williams table sounded nearly as good for 1/4 the price. How do we know we had them side by side under identical conditions.
For power conditioners we had go through the shop, Shunyata although not the latest, Isotek, Audience, Running Springs, Silver Circle, Audio quest and Audio Magic do you want to know which one we extol over all others or do you just want to follow what the mags say is the best?
For cables we have gone through, Audioquest, Kubala, Nordost, Audience, Sound string, Snake River, Enklein, Wireworld, and Light Harmonic, want to know which cable line really sounds better most of the time and which USB cable sounds the best?
Yet check your threads about turntables you got guys talking about Basis, or VPI, or SME, or Linn or half a dozen other tables yet nobody talks about the Merrill Williams REAL 101 which is one of the truly amazing tables out there and is another product which is a true giant killer. Could it be that George Merrill doesn't advertise and the man doesn't care about selling 10,000 tables a year, the man is a genius and really knows about what is really happening in vinyl playback and has been innovating vinyl playback for 30 years.
How about Dacs, or streamers, want to know which one or ones really shine, do we have all of them no but look at what we have: we have or have had come through our shop: EMM Labs, Meitner, Aqua Hifi, Mytek, NAD, T+A, Lummin, Aurender, Baetis, Light Harmonic, Naim, Auralic, and more. Have you ever heard a Light Harmonic Davinci you should it is amazing.
Want to talk speakers where can you hear: Dali, Legacy, PSB, KEF, Paradigm, Vivid, Polymer, Gradient, Cabasse,Tannoy. ATC?
So please keep away, we don't want to be seen in your eyes as "selling" we have loyal customers who get what Dave and Audio Doctor is about, please go seek out the cadre of the rest of the big New York dealers, who sell most of their products just by what is hot in the mags.
By the way most of the products we sell or recommend aren't the ones that are necessarily hot in the mags at the time we are recommending them, but lo and behold usually after we have them for a while the press usually comes to many of the same conclusions we have. Have you even seen an official Persona review?
We also don't get rid of products for no reason just to jump ship, it is usually due to a vendor losing US importation or finding a new product which is more practical ie smaller or less expensive or finding that the vendor isn't offering the support we like.
|
Oakteekid,
The older Paradigms did not use a pure Beryllium tweeter, they were an alloy design. The new Persona's use a Pure Beryllium foil.
Usher and Paradigm as well as numerous others have used alloys none of these drivers had the same level of clarity.
There is a gigantic difference between the older Signature series which were designed about 10 years ago. Paradigm has stepped up their game considerably.Also the older Signatures were not designed to the same standards in terms of cabinet rigidity, quality of crossover and the drivers were not the same they were using a Beryllium alloy tweeter with an Aluminium/Magnesium midrange, with plastic coned lower bass section.
I would agree with you about the older Paradigms vs a pair of Infinity speakers. |
You are also mistaking the fact that I was a big fan of the Infinitys of that time period. One of my favorite speakers was the Betas,
I would say that by today's standards they are dated, the Persona's uncover way more detail and are built better
|
Thanks you Gpg for calling out our bad behavior. You are the close minded type of person that doesnt understand the nature of the industry.
Nor do you know any of our intent
Very rarely do any of these Audiogon discussions lead to real sales.
Nor do you bother to read what I said about other NY dealers which was not denigrating.
Lets see who is right and what the magazines will say when the formal reviews come out on the Personas.
I will stand by my friend and his long standing record of finding fantastic products which excell sonically and usualy cost less then their competition. |
To the gentleman who heard a pair of the bookshelfs sound dull there is something wrong.
Most metal tweeters sound bright regardless of them being aluminium, titianium, or beyrllium and are prized for their speed and clarity.
Beyrllium is rated as one of the best materials to make a diaphram out of due to the metals lightness and rigidity which pushes audibile distortions way out of the audible region compared to other metals which also does not mean that there are not other metal tweeters which cant sound good either.
The entire Persona line has remarkable clarity and if anything can be a little too detailed for some listeners.
|
No Oakey the difference between Sig & Persona is not just the tweeters both being Beryllium.
The Personas use Truetent Beyrllium which is from Brush Wellman. The color is different than the older Sigs which had a different hue to them so the older tweeters must have used a different source of the metal.
Brush Wellman also supplies Focal.
I dont know about you I never heard a dull set of Focals. |
Why don't you come to our place and hear our set of Personas and judge for yourself
I would say that you are heavily biased into your systems sound and as with everything you hear is open to how a system is setup.
I have heard Focals sound very good and I have heard them sound okay even with some big expensive gear it is always a matter of setup.
|
Tell me what they were playing. There are a number of products that we have tested that were highly recommended lines and the sound was not good. I have seen dealers run $5-10k dacs with little cheappie network streamers rather than an Auralic or Lumin or Aurender.
We did a demo at a clients house of a Mac Mini vs the Aurender and it wasn't close the Aurender was much better so the choice of what you feed your dac is quite telling.
I have seen numerous high end systems wired with inexpensive wire or no power conditioners.
High end speakers put in rooms with no treatments or no furniture with slap echo a plenty.
So again setup and system matching is king. |
I would also ,mention that there are numerous other posters on this thread who raved over the speakers.
One poster commented that the Persona's bested a very expensive Focal.
While several others also posted very favorable comments.
So before you trash them please consider that there are just as many people who may or may not agree with you or your own choices of gear and as I mentioned was the dealer equipped to show the speakers in their best light? |
Okay Dave-B where did you hear them and what were they using for equipment. which model?
I will say this Paradigm, Kef and B&W will pretty much never check on if their dealers can support their upper echelon products.
What I mean by that is does the dealer have the right level of matching equipment for the product?
I have seen Kef Blades driven by certain well respected brands that are good but not the best partnering components for these speakers.
Dave was using $30k Chord Amps and a $20k Chord preamp before moving to T+A which sounds even better,
The stack running the 9H in our shop is a $19k amp, a $16k preamp.
Can you run the Personas with less exotic stuff of course you can
Dave went to another dealer before bringing in the Personas and that dealer was demoing the $35K 9H on a $3,000 integrated with a $400 streamer. All I could say is our conversation wasn't glowing, but Dave did say he heard promise with the design so we went for it.
After having them for a while they really are quite amazing speakers so come on down and hear our setup and see for yourself. |
Based on what you are saying there is something screwed up.
It could be positioning, it could be break in, it could be the quality of the files.
Paradigm would not design and build a bad speaker, they are very transparent but with anything your mileage may vary and you may just not like their presentation or it is one of the above listed issues. |
Yes I am sure that a company with the money and acumen and engineering talent is going to spend millions of dollars to launch a new line of speakers that sound like an AM radio!
I must question your validity Dave-B your Krell Resolution speakers you so love were a complete failure by the mighty Krell, the speakers were hardly loved.by the industry, I heard em as SBS in New York and they were okay at best.
So if that is your reference I can't honestly say you don't know what good sound is all about.
By the way in our sound room we compared the 9H to the $68k Polymers which are also extremely good speakers, Dali Epico 8 at $20k and the $32k Kef Blades. All three of these speakers are excellent and totally different,
As per Dave_B demo results again who was the dealer? What did the dealer say about the setup? and what equipment were they using?
If the Persona's sound like an AM radio to you there is something wrong with the speakers or the setup is not working with the Personas you can come and here them for yourself in our shop and see for yourself.
We have the Persona 3F in a room with direct comparison of KEF Ref1, Dali Rubicon 6, Legacy Focus Se, PSB T3 so we can easily get a handle on the speakers.
|
Dear yyzsantabarbara
We do have both the KEF Blades and the Persona 9H on active display.
I will say they are very different both are excellent and do different things.
We would welcome you to come spend the day and demo to your hearts content.
We were a Devialet dealer, we wanted to like the Devialet stuff and in some ways it was very good it just never sounded magical, it always lacked the midrange liquidity and airy quality of the best conventional solid state designs.
After many years of looking for truly magical yet reasonably priced solid state line, we found T+A after reading the TAS Allan Taffel review where Mr. Taffel compared the $19k T+A PA 3000 HV integrated to his own CH Precision Mono block amps, preamp and power supply which is an over $100k stack of some of the finest Swiss electronics out there, and in a direct A/B comparison Mr. Taffel found that there was almost no real differences between these two stellar companies. So you can imagine how thrilling it is to be able to offer our clients a $19k piece which rivals $100k priced gear!
So you can also imagine how thrilled we were to get in their even better separate amp, and preamp from the HV series, and boy do they deliver.
The T+A gear is extraordinary it is designed using a topology which actually mirrors the smoothness of tubes yet offers the slam and dynamics and low noise floor of the best solid state, their technology is called High Voltage design, which ramps up the voltage to the devices which is why tubes sound so musical, running certain devices on higher voltage rails increases the linearity of those devices, greater linearity equals less distortion and gives you the ease and musicality of tubes!
I would highly recommend you consider the T+A gear it is truly magical.
Your interest in these two speakers says a lot about you.
Our feeling is that both of these remarkable loudspeakers can compare with much more expensive products in the $70 range from many other companies.
Audio Doctor showcased the Blades in the 2012 and 2013 New York audio shows. Our setup in 2012 setup sounded in our opinion as good as the $400k Solution/YG Sonja setup and our setup with the Chord Ref electronics was 1/4 of the price of that setup.
The T+A gear has more of a tube like quality then the Chord electronics and we have found even better digital so our newer setups are even more magical.
So in many ways the Blades are a fantastic speaker that performs much higher then its price point.
As per the Personas they are remarkable and in some ways more so then the Blades.
We have had over the years, the Scaena Line Arrays,$60k,the $70k Polymers, we auditioned the latest Kharama DB 7 and the $120 Kharma Midi Exquistes here, and all of these speakers were superb in some ways, we have chosen the Blades and now the Personas as two somewhat sanely priced reference speakers that can easily challenge the uber expensive $50-70k products on the market.
In holography, transparency, speed and articulation the Personas are very hard to beat at any price.
|
A pair of Avalon Edilions depending on which version were very expensive $30K plus speakers would of course they would sound better than a pair of Paradigm Signatures, in terms of cabinet inertness, and crossover and build quality the Avalons are a much more expensive design.
The Signatures were a very good speaker but not a world class product.
As per the Personas it took us weeks to setup and tweak the speakers before they came alive. They are very transparent and unless you have everything just right they will not sound magical, but if you spend the time to match the correct components with them, the results will be extra ordinary. |
Mr. Dbm you may be jaded to the Treo CT presentation, however, many people are not, to even suggest a pair of Treos plus subs can equal the Personas is just silly.
As per value per money and performance, all the Paradigms have had a reputation for offering terrific performance for the money as well as offering very good sound, for the price point they are hitting.
We had a pair of the Signature S6 V3 and they were excellent speakers, for their price range around $7k, the earlier V2 were not as coherent, do they sound like a pair of Treos no, they don't they have a completely different sound and I would take a pair of Avalons over them as well they are not in the same league.
The Personas are very coherent as the midrange and tweeter are both made out of Beryllium so they sound identical and very blended.
The Vandy sound is just that, some people like them while many others do not, what I find appalling is the how many people here put a particular brand on a pedestal and say that that one brand is above all others and nothing else can sound as real.
My posts about the Personas was they are not better than any other speaker but in some ways may outshine some of those other well respected brands, and to relate that they offer outstanding performance for the money in the price ranges they are hitting, which starts at $7k.
Can you imagine the accolades if Wilson or Magico produced a technologically advanced product that started at $7k for a pair of bookshelves or $10k for a pair of floor standing loudspeakers. Everyone here would be blasting the forums with this exciting news, yet Paradigm is getting flack by people questioning if is is possible for a company which based their reputation for value now all of a sudden building a new and highly competitive flagship line.
Sure we have tested them vs the other reference speakers we had in the shop and are featuring them due to their amazing level of performance for the money as well as for the sound quality which in certain ways, image holography and transparency can be compared to extremely expensive loudspeakers for $70k and above.
Will you or anyone here who is a Vandy fan love the Persona sound, probably not, I would also think that that same person would not like a Magico, a Wilson, Focal, or YG.
Horses for courses,
Lets stop the product basing and brand bashing and have people go to the shops and just listen and then judge for themselves.
Go visit a few shops to see how you like the products setup with different gear to see if your opinion may change on what gear and how the speakers are being setup.
When we were first exposed to the Paradigm Personas we were not impressed due to the particular dealers gear, cabling and source setup, but saw the speakers potential, and thus we ordered a pair.
It was only after weeks of setup and trying different things did the speakers blossom into the demo rig we have now. When ever you have a very transparent speaker you will be forced into working hard to balance the products transparency with enough warmth to make the resulting demo setup to be musically satisfying
You are welcome if you are in our part of the world to come and check out our rig who knows you may like it.
|
I have heard the Treos before, and no they are not even close in any way to the Personas, they do not have the resolution and transparency, nor do they have the dynamics. The only Vandy that can compete with the Persona 9H is the Vandy 7, but not the Treos, and the Carbon Fiber tweeter doesn’t have the resolution that the Beryllium drivers have.
I was in the Brooklyn audio show a few years back and heard a fully blown setup of the 7, and the speakers sounded very good, they were very musical just not a impressive a sound compared to the other $70k speakers that I have heard, very natural though and very musical, I had the same opinion of the 7’s too low a sound stage for a $60k plus speaker.
Also it is also impossible to have a Carbon fiber tweeter to have the same sonic signature of the midrange driver which in the case of the Treo is from an entirely different material, I don’t care how talented a designer Richard is, different materials sound different there is no getting around that simple fact.
I could see the argument made for the Quattro which uses the same driver materials but not for the Treo.
I have also had the Velodyne DD series in our shop and the JLs were way better in every way.
The Treos are also way too short to present a convincing sound stage in terms of image height.
You are morre then welcome to your opinion as I am to mine, I would take our well setup Persona 9H to the twice the price Vandy 7s any day of the week and pocket the $35k difference!
You are also welcome to come to our shop and take a listen to our setup. I would welcome the chance to hear yours and I would eat my hat if proved wrong would you do the same?
|
Dear jrur
We have the 3F in our small theater music room 17 by 14 by 10.
We also have the Avm 60 so please feel free to contact us.
The 3 are a bit more forgiving then their big brothers.
The center is extraordinary.
We feel the Paradigms are a step above the Aerials in trasparency and holography.
Troy
Audio Doctor
877 428 2873 |
Oh and by the way Cupracer, one gentleman did talk with us who is a Wilson Sasha owner and was looking for new electronics, He took our advice and purchased a T+A intergrated amp from I guess his local dealer he is in California and was bowled over with how much better the T+A amp was vs the Pass labs and a few other pieces he was looking at.
We gained nothing, but we did help that gentleman and he was not aware of the T+A gear either and he is very happy with how that piece sounds.
So you never know who we may be assisting. Come over to our shop and talk with me or Dave and then see for your self. The chance of selling you something seems very low, so we won't tempt you.
|
Hey Contuzzi this is a Persona thread isn't it?
We have quite a bit of experience with these speakers, so perhaps others may find my posts informative.
As per matching Beryllium ensuring coherencey it is matching anything, same materials for tweeter and midrange driver, that doesn't ensure coherency, but by having the exact same materials you may get way closer than say a Diamond tweeter and a Kevlar midrange, which are too very disimilar materials with different signatures, so you are hadicaped to begin with.
As per you Cupracer, again this is a Persona thread isn't it. Hardly trolling a Wilson thead now?
I do see that everything I have been saying about these speakers has been vefified in the TAS article hasn't it? Maybe we know a thing or two about what makes great sound and picking great products.
As per motives, lets see perhaps I was trying to save you $20k over the Alexias which would not have worked in your room, the motive was to point out to you an alternative that you were probably not thinking of or aware.
I call that trying to help, and the fact that you were on the East coast just happend to fall that way, you could have been in California which would have meant we would have gained zero by talking with you believe it or not the initial post was to open your eyes to room correction and how you could have accheived perhaps even better sound in your room.
And for the guys who heard the Personas setup at some other dealers, that doesn't mean they sound this way in our shop. The owner almosted passed on them when he head the 9H at another dealers, they didn't sound amazing at that dealers.
We have the matching equipment, dacs, cables, power conditioners and it took us weeks to get them right.
Sorry if these posts come across as selling, if instead we weren't being attacked for our" bad behavior, " maybe some of the points which were raised would have landed.
|
Hello Davidz, congrats, they do need plenty of break in, and careful system matching and tuning.
You should consider the Isoacoustics Ghia footers to replace the spikes they are a mind blowing improvement.
Also we have found they like to be well spread apart and then toed in, the spread may be wider then you are used to.
Employ the grid method of setup like what Wilson used to do.
What is the rest of your system? |
No plutos musifx bought the 2500r which is the baby brother of the PA 3000 HV. The 2500R is $11,500.00 and it is really quite amazing in its price range. He compared it to the $12k Pass integrated check his posts.
The Pass stuff is very good, the T+A gear is an overall cleaner, faster sound with remakable sound staging abilities and it does have a nice hint of midrange warmth.
Take a Naim and mix it with a Solution clean yet warm, punchy but with great resolution but without sterility, Quite amazing stuff. |
D2girls. the 5f are fantastic loudspeakers, honestly don’t look at the measurements that Stereophile does as being any real indicator of how something can and will sound like when you do the work with the product.
For example if you have a loudspeaker which has a slightly forward treble you need to match the speaker with warmer sounding electronics and boom you got great sound, or conversely a wamer sounding set of loduspeakers you need brighter electronics.
Great sound is a matter of matching all of the variables, room size, room's acoustics, treatment, power conditioning, cables, source, and when you get the match correct you have magic.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Ricred1 we have both speakers, the Persona 9H and the Blades, they both are excellent with different personalities.
Even though the 9H has powered bass in our room the Blades still have more of a presence in the bass, which may be the room correction has cleaned up the excess slop while the passive Kef’s conventional bass therefore sounds warmer in the deep bass range as it is coupling with the room.
The Persona’s have great clarity in the high frequencies and a more holographic image, the Blades sound very big with a huge soundstage. The Blades and the Ref series captures a warmth in instrumental tone that is very captivating.
I was just in The San Francisco area as a poster on these forums and I forged a deal to setup his system if he flew me to town. He has Kef Reference 5 and was complaining that the speakers didn’t sound great in his room.
Step one repositoned the speakers much better image focus and greater attack and slightly tighter bass
Step Two: added an Inuous Zenith server to replace a CEC CD spinner.
Step Three: Changed Dac’s from Auralic Vega to Aqua Hifi Lascala MK 2 big difference in tonality, better image, and more realistic image size, timbre started to sound like real instruments.
Step Four: added a high end USB and Ethernet between the server and the dac again greater clarity
Step Five: upgraded the system to appropriate level interconnects again huge improvement in image depth, width focus and oveall clarity.
Step Six: added Isoacoustic footers under speakers big improvement.
Step Seven: added proper power conditioning again improved soundstage width depth and image focus.
Step Eight: added Stein Harmonizer again big difference much more depth and much larger and more focused soundstage;
Step Nine: Enjoy!
Long story short even with older ARC gear and crappy speaker cables this system went from sounding flat and like a stereo to sounding three dimensional, with great and realistic tone it started to really come alive and portrary the sound of a live concert.
After visting three of the best audio stores in that part of the world, none of what I heard including, YG, WIlson, Paradigm sounded like what I get out of the systems in my shop.
After visting a shop in Mass, and hearing the Personas there the real problem that you guys face is really getting a good demo of many of the products that are discussed here.
I saw many instances of poor acoustics, haphazard cabling, improper speaker positioning, and sources not up to the level of the system.
There is definately a problem in how well many of these systems that I heard perform.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Also Dave B Wilson moved to a warmer presentation with their current designs.
If you are getting a dry presentation then you are not matching loudspeaker with the right gear.
Oftentimes change the speakers requires changing other parts of a system.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Dave B that is a ridiculous series of comments about Beryilium. In my shop I have also have had speakerrs with Aluminium, Titantium, ESL designs, Ribbons, Soft domes, Diamond tweeters and midranges, and they have all had their series of strengths and weakness. The issue with Beryillium is that is a highly transparent sounding material, therefore it tends to show you everything both good and bad and therefore is more critical of setup and voicing. You can’t just judge a speaker is good or bad because of its drivers it has to do with the entire design. We for example have the ATC speakers and they sound terrific their soft dome tweeter is wonderful the Beryilium tweeter in the Paradigms, is better especially if you crave detail and airness. As per Beryilium being brittle and dry sounding, the Focal Sopras also use Beryilium, and no one is saying they don’t sound stunning. Beryilium is highly prized for a loudspeaker cone because the metail is inheritantly self damping and offers much less coloration then other materials. However with that being said much of what is prized in audio is musical colorations. We have chronicaled our long setup process with our pair of 9H and they are incredibly sensitive to showing you everything, and quite frankly we would agree with you that the speakers do need some warminng up in the midrange and that is where careful system setup makes all the difference. One tiny example of this was adding two sets of Furtech NCF Boosters to the system. We were incredulous that the NCF booster an accessory developed by Furutech to elevate a power cord would make a difference, and the sound got warmer and fuller in the midrange. We added a set of Isoacoustics to the 9H and they sounded warmer and fuller. https://www.dagogo.com/furutech-ncf-boosters-review/The Personas are tricky to get right but when you do they are absolutely thrilling in how realistic they can sound our demo rig is spooky at how three dimensional an image is created with singer just floating in space. Ricred1 we will agree with you about your comment that not everyone is going to like these speakers or for that matter any particular brand of speakers. The point we keep on trying to hammer home is that the higher the resolution a speaker it is the tricker it is to make that speaker sound good unless all the i’s are dotted and the T’s crossed, the same issues could be found with Raidho loudspeakers, B&W Diamonds and other similar types of designs. This is one reason why some people are still drawn to soft dome tweeters, tubes and vinyl. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ |
Dave B Beryillum is a metal.
I think you mean you prefer a speaker with more coiorations.
Wilson moved to a soft dome because
1. Some people found the Tioxhide Focal tweeter to be peaky.
2. Focal stopped Oem driver sales of particular drivers. |
Benzman a very fIne and correct tale that mirrors our process.
Many people here seem to think swap x and you get nirvanah that is not what usually happens.
Sometimes swapping one component gets you closer to where you want to be but then necessitates making further changes before your system makes magic.
We feel that a properly setup pair of Personas are a bargain for what you get we replaced a $70k pair of Polymer Research MKX s loudspeakers with a set of $35k Personas and never Looked back.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
