Our setup at the New York audio show was with the superlative T+A gear,
at the shop we have been playing the 3F and B with all sorts of gear, the Naim amps sound wonderful, so does the T+A Dac 8 amp 8 combo, the Unison Research does a great job as well.
They seem to reflect perfectly whatever you put through them.
The image size is quite spooky extremely holographic, the clarity is astonishing the 3f's bass is rather extraordinary especially for the size of the speakers.
In terms of design, yes a good crossover is also crucial, you guys have to remember that Paradigm is one of the world's largest speaker manufacturers their factory is 250,000 sq. feet, the 200 ton press needed to bond the panels of the Persona costs hundred of thousands of dollars and Paradigm has the financial resources to invest several million dollars in developing a very sophisticated line of speakers with completely proprietary in house made drivers.
Very few of the world's top loudspeaker brands have the technical skill or funds to do this, you can pretty much count them on one hand: B&W, Focal, Magico, Rockport, Dynaudio, ATC, YG, KEF, come to mind.
When you then breakdown that list into who can make really high tech drivers with truly exotic construction and materials, you get B&W, Magico, Focal, Rockport.
With Persona Paradigm has clearly arrived with speakers that can be considered the best in the world. |
Thank you for posting your response, I will say the better the setup the better they perform! I am curious what you heard them on?
We are running the 3F on a Naim 272 preamp and 250Dr amp and the sound is glorious!
Both myself and Dave, are blown away by the speakers, to say the 3F is a good value is an understatement.
I would be willing to bet that if you put a $20k price tag on these you could get that much for them, I think these will be the speaker that will put Paradigm on the map in terms of performance to price!
At the Audio Doctor show room we have the 3F floor stander, the B bookshelf and the 9H and all three are impressive in their own right.
I would say that unless someone has to have a bookshelf speaker the 3F is the way to go.
I am sure that the 5 and 7 floor standers are going to be contenders in their price points for those folks with larger rooms and who are craving an even larger sound stage and more bass.
If anyone is in our neck of the woods give us a ring and ask for Dave who is in the shop most of the time, I am there on some weekends and you will be in for a treat.
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Blackfly, you have an interesting take on the 9H but are missing what Paradigm is doing and the reason why they are doing it.
The 9H is employing very good Class D amplifiers with high damping factor to enable the speaker to employ active room correction.
In order to use active room correction you have to be able to use dsp to eq the speakers output to compensate for the irregularities of the room, you can't do this unless you insert some kind of processor into the system and by just adjusting the bass you can put the eq where it needs to be.
Another advantage of this approach is that the heavy lifting is done by the bass amp and you are free to use any kind of amp to now power the easy to drive and 96db efficient top half of the speaker.
The active room correction ensures that you will get very good tight bass in any room.
As per why other companies don't take this approach is simple, they don't have all the parts necessary to do this. Anthem invested heavily in creating their own room correction system and it is one of the best, ARC, and they also did create their own line of high powered amplifiers which were perfect for the bass amplifier for their sister company Paradigm.
However, you are free to explore the line either way the 9h at $35,000.00 has the Active Room Correction and self amplified bass, the 7F at $25,000.00 uses the same drivers without the room correction and amplification.
The 5F is a smaller version of that speaker which is priced at $17,000.00 a pair and the smallest 3F starts at a $10k price point.
We have the 9H and they are indeed awesome, we also have the 3F and they too are awesome and for the price a truly amazing speaker.
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Hey Mtrot, we sell the Legacy's as well, the Aeris is still a considerably better speaker, the Focus XD is an awesome speaker for the price and an amazing amount of performance for the money and you are right that that Focus XD does get you close, the Aeris still have a more open midrange and an overall larger presentation.
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As per the Personas vs the Legacy, nothing beats the clarity of the new Paradigm Beryillium drivers, the Persona's also have absolutely incredible imaging. |
The NS 1000 was one of the first speakers to use vapor deposition so the layer of Beryilium was just a coating, their are very few speakers which employ pure Beryillium drivers, with the Personas being one of them.
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The Legacy speakers are fantastically musical and they represent fantastic value for the money. We have the Persona 3F $10,000.00 and the Legacy Focus Signature, $6,800.00 in the same sound room.
The Persona's have a more extended treble, and a more holographic sense of imaging, the Legacy's have killer deep bass, and are a warmer overall speaker.
So if you crave unbelievable imagery, speed,and very deep bass out of a compact speaker the Persona's are very hard to beat they have one of the most transparent presentations of any speaker at any price, they also present all this detail yet are very smooth.
If you prefer a more laid back, speaker with a big although less defined sound stage, a super smooth midrange and treble in a beautiful wooden design then the Legacy speakers are for you.
The big Focus are just terrific if space isn't an issue and you want even more deep bass and greater spl output then the smaller Signatures.
I will say that since we've become Legacy dealers the Focus Signature is one of my favorite speakers in the shop.
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Please contact us if you need more info on the Paradigms.
They are way better than the Josephs. |
What were they using for gear?
Any speaker with superior resolution may sound that way,
The trick is always to use the right equipment to pair with them that has the right warmth to make the sound balanced.
Try the Personas on Naim, T+A gear, Manley Labs, Conrad Johnson and you will be amazed.
Wrong setup, cabling, dac and yes they will drive you out of the room, they are not laid back, they are extremely revealing.
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I would also add the same applies to Magico, Wilson, Rockport etc
I have heard Radiho speakers sound really good and I have also heard them being bright and harsh.
Any high resolution speakers will show you both the good and bad of the setup.
The Bookshelf, and the 3F are less finicky then the big boys which as i said deserve the best in matching gear.
The 9H are extraordinarily transparent and will show you everything that is both right and wrong in your setup.
So with any true reference speakers the care in setup and system matching is crucial.
I am sure if you ask enough people here you will get the same response about many of the world's best speakers, if the setup wasn't to their liking.
It is just like a high end sports car, put in the wrong gas, put on the wrong tires and the car will drive like crap.
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Again something is not right with the setup the speakers are accurate but hardly bright or non musical. What did the dealer say about the setup? Were they thrilled with it or where they saying we just got these in do you want to check them out and perhaps they were not finished with the setup or the speakers weren't fully broken in?
The other possibility is that this dealer just doesn't know how to setup a good system. I have seen it before in many dealerships. I am not saying that we are necessarily better, but lets face facts just because you can put out an expensive system doesn't mean you have the experience to make a great sounding one.
I have seen dealers with sound rooms without a lick of acoustical treatments, with sound rooms that had slap echo, no power conditioners, stock power cords, wrong or inexpensive cabling, no vibration control etc.
I will also say that your Krell Resolution speakers are a bit dull in the top end, I am not saying the speakers aren't good, I have heard them and many other speakers with the ring radiator tweeter and although the tweeter is rated to go to 20k and above they don't sound that way they sound way more recessed than the current generation of metal tweeters.
So one person's musical is another persons dull.
Anyone who thinks that Paradigm one of North America's biggest and most successful companies can't make a world class speaker is smoking something.
If the sound isn't to your liking I can understand that, however, if I was getting the same results like you were getting in your demo I wouldn't jump to such hasty conclusions, but question what is going on with the setup, and were the speakers broken in? |
Yes and I am sure the same thing can be said about B&W
and KEF.
B&W didn't start with the 801 nor did KEF start with their Reference lines. Both of these companies started with affordable models first.
Look at PSB the T3 which has been universally heralded as a fantastic speaker got the same smirks when they went up market with the T3.
Paradigm has always played it safe and even their last line of high end speakers the Signature line was compared very favorably to speakers from Wilson and B&W whose models cost considerably more.
And yes if you have a lot of money you can hire the best minds and use the best technologies, and Paradigm has very talented staff.
Your logic is fallacious, the larger the company the more resources they can throw at a project, Do you think if Bose wanted to build literally the world's best speakers that they couldn't?
The problem in the industry is that their is inherent snobbery and way too much brand passion that borders on insanity.
There are Wilson guys, Vandersteen guys. Magico guys.etc.
We have tried a lot of very expensive speakers and the Paradigm's are really, really good, and are very competitive with anything out there.
Are we brand loyal not really, as we have moved in and out of a number of speakers before we settled on the Persona's as one of our top picks, we are adventurous and willing to move to new brands and products that we feel offer our customers the best performance possible.
So with that said Oaky have you even heard the new Personas?
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Dear Patsuh,
Thank you for the kind words. Both Dave and Myself love the Persona line, if you set them up carefully and use great electronics, the speakers perform magnificently!
I have a feeling that some of the doubters have heard the speakers with the wrong electronics or the speakers were not broken in.
I was amazed at the quality of sound we were getting out of that way too small room at the show.
In terms of your comments vs the Wilson, and Utopia product, again I feel the same. It is not that the Persona's are so much better, it is that they offer some of the best qualities of those speakers yet cost considerably less.
The Personas have a level of transparency that is just so remarkable and the imaging is just spooky one of the best imaging speakers i have ever heard
If you are in our neck of the woods you should come in for a visit.
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Funny I never heard that ever being said.
Also the Sig were updated to version .3
The .3 update were way better than the older v2 which were compared to Revel Performas not Salons.
Considering Sig 8 v2 were $6500 back in 2009 of course a pair of $20k Salons would be better.
The Personas compete with Salons.
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Personally I find the whole Persona thing really really weird.
People should be flooding the posts with interest about wanting to audition the speakers, yet we keep on hearing the same litenany of brands, Magico, Wilson, Rockport etc.
I know of no other speaker system in recent memory that is offering this level of technology, build quality and sound for this kind of money and in the case of the 9H how many other loudspeakers have built in room correction?
What I don't find suprising is the polarizing nature of speakers with basically 0 coloration. I have seen many of the setups that people are hearing and they are not good, hence the speakers are not blowing away all listeners and some of the comments are the speakers are bright.
We have found that if you spend the time to setup them up carefully the speakers can sound magical.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor
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Wow that is interesteing that you owned three different sets before it dawned on you that you had issues with them.
I am not suprised that the Rogue audio setup wasn't good, it is not a tube thing, it is a complete system matching thing.
When you have a cool speaker, ie one with very low levels of coloration and you want them to sound musical you have to add some warmth and body to the sound somewhere. Just because you use a tube doesn't mean you have solved the problem.
Yzsantabarbera commented that the room was way too small, I wonder what the reset of the chain was, were they using Audioquest or Nordost cabling? Did they have a suitable digital front end? Did they employ any room treatment or was the room ringing with slap echo.
That is one reason why we invite people over to our showrooms, we dial in our display systems and we use all the tuning tools and accessories to make our systems sound musical.
So before you bash the speakers perhaps blaim the setup.
As per hearing individual drivers I find that remarkably strange, the Persona use the exact same material for the tweeter and midrange, what you may be having an issue with in terms of integration can happen if your sitting distance is not correct or your rake angle is wrong.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor |
Vitop we sell both lines so keep this in perspective.
The Personas only start to compete with Legacy in the 5F vs the Focus.
We have the Signature Se the Jr Focus in the same room as the Persona 3F and it is a very interesting comparison.
The 3F sound smaller, which they should they are smaller, their image focus is better and they are more transparent also their bass is tighter although not as much.
The Signature Se have a more prounced bass are warmer thow a bigger soundstage and have a wamer midrange.
I would have to say that the larger 5F is going to be more of a match even though is is more expensive than the Focus or the Signature as the larger version has more bass and an even larger soundstage.
The Aeris vs the Persona 9H will be a more interesting comparison.
We are getting the show pair of Aeris so we will have both speakers in the same room.
There is no denying the Aeris are world class loudspeakers if you prefer their presentation that is a good thing. Personally our store feels that the Legacy speakers are nearly unbeathable for the money.
The Persona 9H are also a bargin for what they do, they have greater transparency than the Legacy’s but also have less of that famous Legacy bass warmth and midbass warmth.
So the Legacy’s would fit in that hyper musical class of loudspeakers in the Vandersteen, Harbeth type of sound with the Pesonas fitting into the Magico, Focal, Rockport, type of sound
I would also say that is does depend on where you hear these speakers.
The Personas have a disadvantage vs the Aeris in that the Aeris comes with a pretty good preamp/dac that means for many setups the amplifier and speaker cables are the only variable.
The Personas are totally at the mercy of everything used with them and considering that the Beryillium drivers have greater resolution then the Heil AMT drivers which are a bit more laid back means the Personas are harder to get right. With greater transarency comes a greater chance of making a system sound too detailed and less musical which is why we tend to demo the Personas with warmer gear such as Naim or T+A with the Light Harmonic Davinci or the Aqua Hifi digital, rather than our older reference the EMM Labs Dac 2xse.
If you are ever in our neck of the woods New York metro, we would invite you in to listen to both sets of these world class loudspeakers.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
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Guys it is refreshing to see people agreeing with us on the performance envelope of the Personas, which we have been extolling for the last year since we got our display pairs and did the New York Audio Show with T+A gear and the Personas.
The entire line is very impressive and when setup correctly they are incredibily life like speakers with very holographic imaging.
The Persona's can easily compete with most of the $60-70k loudspeakers out there.
We have had a number of expensive ultra high performance loudspeakers over the years, from Scaena, Polymer Audio Research, and recently we tested the 9H vs a $120k pair of Kharmas, and these are all $60k plus loudspeakers, and none of these speakers were radically better different yes, but in terms of value for money, room tuning capability, ease of drive, reasonable size and weight it is very hard to beat what you get with the Personas.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
I work part time for Audio Doctor, in Jersey City NJ, which was the first dealer to display Persona to the public, at the New York Audio Show. Our room was consistently mobbed and many show goers thought our room was considerably better than any of the other rooms as the show and that was in direct comparison to YG and Magico speakers.
After spending time with all three models, I can say without a shadow of a doubt Paradigm has built one of the world’s best performing loudspeaker lines that can easily compete with the best high end speakers on the market and in many ways easily outperform speakers two to three times the price of each individual model they are that good!
Persona raises the bar dramatically and offers a level of performance not seen before in affordable speakers, all speakers in the series use the exact same pure Beryilium tweeter and 7 inch pure Beryillium midrange driver.
What makes this so special is not one of the companies many people in this industry consider the best speakers on the market do not use the exact same material for both the tweeter and midrange driver, not Magico, not Rockport, not Wilson, not B&W.
When you have exactly the same material for the tweeter and midrange the speaker sounds 100% coherent, there is no issue in getting the drivers to blend.
Beryillium is one of most exotic and expensive materials to make a driver out of and very few companies have the capacity and pocketbook required to harness Beryillium, Paradigm has the financial capability to invest several million dollars in the Persona project to bring these speakers to market.
Beryillim is twice as stiff as Titanium and 1/2 as light and it is also self damped to it doesn’t ring like other metals do so you get the incredible speed and transparency of the best drivers and you also get a natural midrange and treble without any artificial brightness of other driver technologies.
So what you are getting in Persona is the first time an affordable line of speakers which use driver technology and materials normally seen in $25k speakers.
The flagship 9H is comparable to a $70k pair of loudspeakers, this compact elegant tower employs four 8.5 inch bass drivers with 2 inches of linear throw coupled with 1,400 watts of amplification and active room correction
its bass is thunderous and due to active room correction the speaker can work in room’s way smaller than you can normally fit speakers with true 28 hz bass.
You will be hearing a lot more about the Persona line, as review samples start to flow out of Paradigm. In terms of Signature vs Persona there is no comparison, the Signature line was very competitive compared to many outstanding loudspeakers but fell short in terms of ultimate resolution and performance compared to a Focal or B&W Diamond speaker, with Persona Paradigm has built a line of speakers than can compare with the most expensive speakers from the best marque brands and in many ways will outperform a B&W a Wilson a Magico a YG and that was something they couldn’t do before
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Stitt, BINGO!
You should hear them on way better gear, the Nad T777 is an excellent receiver we sell it but if you add a high performance intergrated amplifier into the mix your B's will really shine.
Many people don't like reality they like a candy colored version of it.
We are frequnetly at odds with other members because we preach the virtues of a system that sound musical but real, which is the sound of the Personas with a bit of softening, The NAD T777 is actually quite musical, if you listen to the same system with a Denon or Onykyo you wouldn't be so happy.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona and NAD dealers |
