I thought starting a new thread would be more appropriate since it would allow for a more focused discussion.
I have Paradigm S8v2s and have owned them, since new, for 8 years. I have lived with them happily and when I bought them I knew they were going to be a long term purchase. Cables, sources etc may come and go but big speakers are harder to find, harder to move and sell (I think). I found a local dealer (the only one in BC so far) that has the entire Persona line; except the 7F. They had the 9H, 5F, 3F and Monitor. I got to hear all of them. The 9H was in a dedicated room set up for home theatre. The others were in a 2 channel only system. Preamp/source was a Cambridge Audio preamp with a media player built in, Wadia Class D amps. System was nice, sounded good and not the "highest end" you would expect, but more real world. I took along a CD of Parijat: Prayer to Love (excellent CD BTW. Highly recommended and wonderfully recorded). I am very familiar with the CD. My system has its own room, Luxman Class A amps, Luxman preamp, Bryston DAC, Nordost and Wirewizard Cables. I think my system has an edge on electronics, but I will leave that out as I think that is splitting hairs.
First speaker I heard was the 5F. The first thing that is immediate is the midrange and treble purity, clarity, integration, smoothness and extension. I definitely say there is no discontinuity between the mid/tweeter. Having a Beryllium tweeter myself I know what to expect, and the 5F did not disappoint. The sound was relaxed, clear, focused with excellent detail. No harshness, grain, etch or sibilance at all. Imaging was also excellent; focused, wide and deep with good height. Note that the 5F, 3F were right beside each other and the Monitors on stands right beside the 3's. They were in an open room not a dedicated room, so I could only suspect the speakers would sound better as the environment would get better. In short, the tweeter/mid was superb. The best I have heard. I would give the edge to the Persona's over my S8's in this regard, but given the mid and tweeter are both Beryllium they are going to have identical resonances on the fact the material is the same; it will be homogenous. The S8 is no slouch, so the differences are small, but I give the Persona the edge here. And I like my S8's. I have not felt wanting.
The description for the mid/tweeter is identical for each model; there was no difference, perhaps a slight difference for the Monitor but its limited lower end might of SEEMED things to be more clear/detailed. Hard to say. Bottom end on the 9H was robust, to be polite, but to be expected too.....4 8 inch cones internally powered...I think a subwoofer here would be redundant in all but the largest rooms to be sure. But the snap, punch and detail were excellent. Moving to the 5 and 3, the bottom end was not as prodigious but still extended and tuneful. Detail was excellent but to be expected the 5 was more pronounced than the 3. I think both (and the Monitor for sure) would benefit from a sub, but I leave that to the reader's personal taste. There was no evidence of port noise or discontinuity of any type. Unfortunately, I have yet to find out (if you would like to bi amp) WHERE the biamp crossover is. I found out the hard way on my S8 it is between the tweeter/mid, not the mid/bass as you would expect. This would allow for a Class A or tube amp on the all important mid/tweeter and a robust amp for the bottom end. I would like Paradigm to be clear on this point as finding out the hard way for me was costly. I let a good Bryston amp go for no reason other than the fact it was not able to work in my system as planned.
I suppose the real question is this: are they worth it? Well, I thought about my own system on the drive home, and since my system's weak point is NOT the speakers, I would, for me, not buy or let my S8 go unless someone gave me a good offer. The logistics of selling speakers that are 4 feet tall, almost 2 feet deep and 100lbs is not a small feat, and shipping (unless local pickup) will be expensive. I bought the S8 knowing it was going to be with me for a long time, and in fact I would rather keep them since they are so good (to me). But I would buy the Personas for sure. The high end purity and midrange clarity, coherence and detail are so good I was floored by how good it was. Bottom end weight and volume is a personal preference, and adding subs obviates the comparison there, as either the 5 or 3 would be a killer system with subs. I had extended time with the 5 and 3 and the jump in price between the two makes sense if the sub is out of the equation. I think the added bottom end on the 5 could easily be made up with the 3 and a good sub, think JL Audio f112, e110 or e112. An outboard crossover as part of the deal would be stating the obvious (in fact the JL Audio CR 1 crossover is what I am eyeing next. With this, should some time down the road come I decide to jump up to the Personas finances permitting, it would greatly affect what Persona I get). But by then I might have a different room so whom knows, but so long as the flexibility is there you have options. I was hoping to see the 7F but the 9H is almost identical in size. Considering the competition they are up against I think they hold very well. Making a matching Beryllium tweeter and mid is no small feat, and costly to boot. Moreover, Paradigm's size and economy of scale is such that you get more than you pay for, this has been a Paradigm hallmark. A smaller company could bring out a matched Beryllium set, perhaps, but at what cost? I can see why the Persona line costs more, but after seeing them and listening to them, I don't feel at all that they are overpriced or outrageous. Obviously the sound is what counts, but there is more to it than that. I honestly think you get what you pay for; the real trick is finding the goods out there that go a step further and really offer the "diamond in the rough". For me personally, the cost and logistics of selling my current speakers is not something I can do right now. But if I could, I would have no issue owning a Performa. The 7F is what I have sought my sights on, but the 5F is no slouch. As a smaller speaker, there is little to fault the 3F and add in a sub (or two)....watch out. Even without subs, the 5 and the 3 are more than pleasant, and in a enclosed room where there is room reinforcement......it would be interesting to know.
Pictures do not do the speakers justice. They are gorgeous. Fit and finish is superb, certainly better than my S8. The lenses are really trick. I don't think there should be any trouble with the WAF but their styling is a bit modern, some might not like it. The room presence is not nearly as strong as you would think; the S8 being so deep and narrow hides in the room well. The Personas do as well, but are so gorgeous you don't want to hide them. You would think the 9H to be imposing, but that is not the case, especially if you are use to bigger speakers anyway.
I am very impressed and happy that the "step up" Paradigm has made has been done well, with thought, focus and obvious results. As to relative to what is out there, especially to what I have heard, they compete favourable with much more expensive speakers, and I have heard Focals (which is another brand I like because, surprise, they have a Beryllium tweeter). I just think the matching tweeter/mid, especially at the price, is hard to beat. And I am sure that the better the gear upstream would only help the sound. The 5Fs or 3Fs in my system with the gear I have would be very interesting.
Who knows what the year brings. I give the Personas the highest recommendation, and this is from someone whom has owned a good pair for years without complaint. If anyone is thinking of trying out a pair I urge you to do so if possible before making any decisions. Paradigm, with the Personas, has truly evolved into a high end brand, and deserves consideration as such.
Really? In my A and B test, speakers side by side, my infinity renaissance 90’s that have only two emit tweeters in them had waaay better treble clarity than the paradigms S2 v3’s, yet 72 emit tweeters in the infinity IRS V don’t have better clarity Lol
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.
I will have to give the personas an audition, I hope the B tweeter in them doesn’t sound like the ones in the S2-v3, I’m use to the speed of ribbon drivers and never heard a dome that didn’t sound slow to me, will see.
Keep on selling here Audiotroy. You may be right to continue though--here you don’t have to pay per line of sales hype and nobody stops you. So please give me more detail on the sales pitch as to why Beryllium is the best material for use in a tweeter and midrange even though many speaker designers disagree. You see--if you say this as a hobbyist who utilizes this site for a friendly exchange of opinions, that position might have more credibility. But as a salesperson for the ever-overreaching Audio Doctor, it just doesn’t work as well. Finally, please when you are done, if you sell a pair here (which would probably sell without your sales pitch) do the right thing and drop Audiogon a portion of your sales commission in the mail. By the way--as I said earlier in the thread--nothing against the fine speakers you are pushing. It’s just the pushing part is bothersome to me.
I just went on youtube and found some audio doctor videos, in this video from 2011 Dave was bragging about their finest speaker they had in their reference room, CES 2011 Best of Show winner—the $66k Scaena 3.2 ribbon/cone line-array loudspeaker, Dave says it is the most remarkable, lifelike 3 dimensional musical experiences imaginable, it sounds real, it’s amazing.
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.
Yet I keep telling you I did an A and B test side by side, paradigm S2-v3, B tweeters, Against the Infinity renaissance 90, High Energy emit tweeters, same tweeters found in the IRS epsilon.
The High Energy emit tweeters have waaaay more detail, speed, accuracy and clarity with a deeper/wider 3d sound stage, honestly no comparison but my test is false and doesn’t matter, you keep saying the B tweeters are better but you don’t have a pair of speakers with the High Energy emit to compare the B tweeter to, so your test/assumption that the B tweeter is better is inconclusive.
You keep saying there is no coherence when you have a planar ribbon tweeter because speaker designers don’t make the mid range drivers out of the same material as the tweeter, WRONG, just click on the link below to se my pair of Infinity IRS epsilons pictured in center, what do you see? drivers made out of the same material as the tweeter down to 100 htz, That’s how you do it, COHERENCE.
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.
For what it is worth, I heard the persona B monitor and I thought the highs were very damped and subdued. Not sure if had to do with electronics or cabling. Nevertheless, the tweeter was suprisingly dull compared to a ribbon or even other beryllium tweeters. However, i thought the speakers overall sounded excellent, with the strengths being dynamics, imaging,and transparency and soundstage. Overall an excellent speaker but nothing that would just blow me away or a speaker I had to buy on the spot after listening. Just an excellent speaker for the money. time will tell how they compare to the other big hitters out there.
I have heard the Electra BE 1008 from focal and owned the Kef 201/2 and I prefer the Paradigm Signatures. With that said I have no doubt if the Persona is a better than the Signature it's a pretty damn good speaker. Also the BE has detail for days comparing from everything else I have heard. Haven't heard a Ribbon yet but would like to. Best I have heard was some 100k+ Focals in a shop in Shanghai and it blew my mind. So BE good ribbon good. Wtf
Audiotroy ok I get it you and hyperbole Dave are guys who know good sound better than all of the other audio dealers in ny who only sell what magazines recommend. I could go on forever about the integrity of some of the well respected and knowledgeable NY dealers. I can go through the history of some (e.g. Lyric hi fi who supported and sold the Marc Levinson brand before the magazines even heard about the brand and sell it to this day ----and where Cat Stevens used to go in the 1970s to listen to his vinyl test pressings mastered at Sterling Sound on their system before he would approve it for distribution). You sir are a disgrace to the retail audio trade by continuing to push and sell your products in the forums here at Audiogon. No other NY dealer I am aware of has ever done this because it is inappropriate here and below their dignity. I commented very favorably about the Paradigm speakers you are pushing here. I have only asked that you stop wasting everybody's time here with your sales job. Instead of heeding that request, you say your critics are nuts and then proceed to attempt to sell Audio Doctor's entire line of products in the post above. You don't have to worry about me patronizing your shop. Dave tried to pull me in with his hyperbole in person at a show years ago and I determined that I would not buy from him under any circumstances. You can continue here with your attempts at salesmanship. The only thing I can do is put the name of Audio Doctor out to the audiophile community and ask if anyone reading this thread wants to deal with people like you who clog up our discussions with your pathetic and desparate attempts to sell products while denigrating all of the other dealers in the NY metro area who work on a more professional level than your shop does. At this point, I am done communicating with you. You can now continue to brazenly push the products you want to sell.
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.
That was what I was referring too. It may have been the front end or cables of the system. I have never heard a dull beryllium tweeter. And I was very surprised to hear the highs being very dull on the persona B. From what you describe, it is likely the Front end of the system and not the speakers. I was playing a well known mapleshade jazz album that I use that has very pronounced highs and the treble was somewhat attenuated. But the persona B did sound excellent.
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.
I went to Audio Doctor in Jersey city the other day to drop of my Manley snappers for repair. . . I had the opportunity to listen to the Paradigm 9h speakers through a T+A system. I was awe struck . I own Wilson watt 8's, audio research sp20 and a pass x250.5 and love my system. But I have to say after reading all the responses here on A-Gon. I should share my experience. I was impressed with the speakers and equipment. I don't care what materials are used, but I use my ears to decide. The sound was smooth, bass was deep and defund and no high end sibulance. If ever I can swing it I would work on a deal. I found the owner David a very specialized representative of high end products. In fact 15.+ years ago I herd the best system of my life at the time. I only remember the speakers and they were Seaena with woofers and tweeter towers. He seems to be a honest guy straight shooter and a train ride from NYC. I hope anyone who likes music will give him a visit an deal with him. He is passionate about audio and music and likes to talk about the products he represents.
Certainly a lot of talk on this thread. I prefer to listen and then respond. I listened to the Persona speakers today. My response? WTF....and not in a good way. The other manufacturers have nothing to worry about!
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.
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?
Macintosh separates and music server (400 watts/ch)! Swapped out with B&W 804 and Focal Sopra 2. No skin in the game....just wanted to hear what the cool looking speakers sounded like (Paradigm Personas). Never heard Macintosh sound so cold and sharp....bass? What bass? Not expressive, not warm, not musical....go back and redesign it. I always thought the other Paradigm speakers were pretty good performers, but this time it was glaringly obvious...NOT MUSICAL.
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.
Yeah, because a company spends five years and millions of dollars developing a speaker that sounds bad. Maybe you guys should clean your ears out? I had opportunity to listen to the Persona bookshelf back in October and was very impressed. The sound stage and imaging was really impressive. Calling them non-musical is a joke really. But hey everyone has an opinion.
Went back to hear the Personas and then swapped out to hear the B&W803D3's....Oh my freaking lord almighty!! The Personas sounded like an AM radio was playing compared to the 803D's. Please stop defending an obviously ill conceived design. Sometimes designers get carried away with certain materials and concepts which in the end produce a decidedly non-Musical result. It happens...move on.
Dave_b I was waiting for someone to compare a different brand speaker in the same room using the same electronics that the personas were driven with, that’s the ultimate test, A against B
Wow I can’t believe they are that bad.
Next you will see posts saying something was wrong, there’s no way B&W803D3’s sound better than the personas, what electronics were they using, the electronics made one speaker sound better than the other, they were set up wrong, everybody hears things differently or we’re competitors trashing the ad Blah Blah Blah.
At least someone was smart enough to compare them side by side using the same electronics.
It's funny how you two keep coming back on here and trashing the Personas. Try a little harder to be discrete if you're in the industry (which you both obviously are, or this is even more pathetic than I thought).
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.
So If you don’t say something nice about a product it’s because you must be in the industry or must be a competitor or you’re pathetic lol
Dave_b did a fair test and shared his thoughts here about his 2nd audition of the personas but because his audition wasn’t to your liking you make fun of him, not everyone is going to like the sound of the personas, members go on this forum to share their experiences with different products, good or bad, take it all with a grain of salt.
By the way.....I’m not in the industry or a competitor, if I was why would I own vintage infinity speakers.
Not in the industry. I do not dislike Paradigm as a company, they have always made good performing products for the dollar. The Personas are simply their first attempt to venture up the food chain and see what happens. Channeling Darwin, I will predict that the Personas will go the way of the Dodo! Now if you want me to highlight the positive aspect of this situation, I can offer you this.... "The Personas could cast a wonderfully detailed and precise soundstage that revealed the intricacies of every recording I listened to. They unveiled everything and exposed things often glossed over by lesser speakers." That is the type of happy horse manure that may be said by a favorable review, if there are any to come. Notice how one can take lemons and turn it into lemonade? Somebody will buy the lemonade, just not the good of hearing!
Thanks for the heads up daveb . I will not bother demoing the Personas due to your dislike . Please let me know what other speakers are not worthy . It will save me lots of my valuable time . Might as well ad preamps and amps you dislike as well . Thanks
Wow. This thread is a train wreck. I personally have not heard the Persona, but would like to. But Audiotroy, I think your posts are doing damage to your reputation, and you're coming off as a schill. It's better that dealers not push their products so aggressively on Audigon thread as you have here. As for your ribbon argument (I'm including both true ribbons and planar magnetic ribbons), you should do some more research before you claim Be dome tweeter is superior. IMO, Raidho makes one of the finest ribbon tweeter on the market (both technically on paper and subjectively) and has been able to seamlessly integrate it with their diamond midrange and bass drivers in their D .1 series. Nevertheless, this is the first Paradigm speaker that has intrigued me.
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