How many NICE looking high end floor standing speaker are there at present

I told a violin player I met about the Lawrence Audio Violins. If I played the violin and I was an audiophile, they would be awesome to have in my living room. 

     I really like the looks of my old Snell Type B's. They're unique because they have a rear firing tweeter on the fifth side of the cabinet that is aimed into the center of the soundstage. I'm not aware of any other speakers that do this. This adds significantly to the depth of the sound field.
                      It's already been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To add to that; Once a gorgeous sound is heard emulating from ANY speaker (or person), that speaker takes on new life in terms of visual perception. I'll definitely be checking out a pair of Tektons when time permits. Joe

@cbrents73

Yes, your Personas are 'workable' suggestions.
Any greater improvement on B961?!?...

😎 Indeed - may just be, though front firing 6½" woofers, not quite my favourite, neither are dome tweeters really, and of course, I only read some reviews - and pray, who can trust these those days?
But they have something, I dare say. 👍 

Michélle 

Once you decide on how much you can spend on speakers, the question becomes one of how you want to have that divided between aesthetics and performance.

Vandersteen is probably the king of functionality - spend all the money on performance and when you have your speaker done, stick it in a sock wasting very little of the budget on looks.

Other end? Probably the Italians, but that different weighing of aesthetics over sound is also covered in North America by people like Avalon.

Question is, would you rather have speakers that have the finish of a Stradivarius violin, or one that put more emphasis on sound quality. At any given price level, my preference would always go to performance over beauty.  The only sound room I have that arguably reflects both has Martin Logan CLS which seem to have managed a nice balance of both.

Now, why don't I like front firing smallish woofers? (in 3 way designs...) 

I subscribe (from own experience) to this finding, that woofers still transmit some degree of >= midrange frequencies, - of course also depending on the type of xover/slope. 

Side firing woofers do this of course also, 8", 10" etc. — BUT it is ~ 90° out of your listening line and thereby pretty much out of ear shot.

That's why.
Let the 🔥 begin, eh? 

Michélle 🇿🇦 

Hi Michelle,

We pack a lot of science and technology in our Persona’s, but can’t speak to what the sonic differences would be relative to your current speakers?

Speakers are instruments and much like a piano, what brand it is and who is playing it and how they are playing it can affect everything. Your Electronics are the person playing the instrument. So, the instrument can either reveal how bad a player they have in front of it, or it can create some magical synergy that works really well.   The instrument will not, however, make up for a person who doesn't play well.  I can elaborate on that analogy much further if needed...

We make every part of the Personas in our Factory in Mississauga Canada with the exception of the Beryllium Tweeter diaphragm and Midrange cone which is supplied by the Materion Corporation here in the US. The Beryllium is mined in Utah and processed in Ohio and put into sheets and formed in California, then ultimately sent to us to mate to our motor systems.

The woofers are actually misleading in terms of output because we have a technology referred to as ART (Active Ridge Technology):

• Standard driver surrounds are unreliable rubber, glued or otherwise adhered to the driver and the chassis. Move too far too fast, and you risk a cone-destroying breach.
• Paradigm’s patented† Active Ridge Technology (ART) surrounds are "overmolded" directly onto the driver cones, and made of audiophile-grade injection-molded thermoplastic elastomer.
• This more durable, more tenacious union between driver and chassis allows for much greater excursion with no chance of breach, ensuring a long life of high performance.
• Added benefit: Drivers attached via ART Surrounds achieve an astounding, measurable 3dB gain in output and 50% reduction in distortion.
• † US patents: D654,479S and 8,340,340B2.

+3dB per driver is the equivalent of doubling the amount of drivers per cabinet from an output perspective, and reduces the amount of distortion due to that improved linearity. You can’t see it, but there is also a port that vents out of the bottom of the cabinet in the gap between it and the base plate.

Our PPA (Perforated Phase Alignment) Lenses which cover the Tweeter & Midrange:

• High frequencies tend to congregate, and can sound muddled, obscuring details and shrouding image clarity. A phase plug guides high frequency response to avoid interaction.
• Paradigm engineers improved on the standard phase plug with their distinctive (and patented†) Perforated Phase-Aligning (PPA™) driver lens.
• Situated in front of the tweeter and midrange drivers, the PPA acts like a phase plug, blocking the interaction of out-of-phase frequencies, smoothing output, and increasing the perception of details without coloring the sound.
• The PPA also serves to protect delicate drivers.
• † US patent: 10,003,869.

Having the Lens Covers adds approximately +1.5dB of added output due to the phase cancellations of the tweeter. These speakers have an incredibly wide dispersion as a result and will still sound really pleasant when moving around a room or sitting off axis. Obviously, when they’re dialed in properly from the main listening position, that is when it’s always the best!

Thank you again for your consideration Michelle and please don’t hesitate to direct message me if you need any further help!

Chris