Paradigm Persona series

@frozentunda. I guess I’ve not decided unless and until I decide to buy something else but its obviously not a slam dunk. I hope this speaker purchase is my last before I'm put in my own fitted crate and sunk in the ground.  I’m not sure I’m ready to make any purchase this week, at least not until I hear some other options I know are out there.  But i’m somewhat limited because here in Atlanta despite the fact that its a city of some 7 million there just aren’t alot of high end dealers around. I’ve heard the Vandersteens but the only one’s I can afford that are in production are the Quattros which I like (powered subwoofer like the Paradigms) and although I think they are probably capable of more subtlety than the Paradigms they also seem to me to compress at higher volumes on full orchestral swells. You couldn’t make the Paradigms compress if your life depended on it.  In a way it may be the most accurate of them all if accuracy is what you really want but it just sounds a smidge more electronic to me on classical music whereas the Thiels don't.  I start to wonder if that's what all the time coherent first order cross over stuff is all about. I do have some limited qualms about the upper frequency range emphasis on the Paradigms but that's faded into a kind of minor point.  If you lessen the toe-in on the Paradigms you mitigate the very slightly hot top end. Going back to the Vandersteens, the 5a’s are out of production soon to be replaced by a $40K/pair speaker called something like "Quinto" while the 7’s require another $20K on top of that. The 5a would have been a likely contender but it started out its life as a $10K speaker that magically became a $35K speaker before they decided to discontinue it.  I just totally don’t understand Vandersteen's price increases over the past 5-8 years because while its evolved and been perfected somewhat with the carbon drivers there seemed to me to be no reason why the cost more than tripled.   With the Paradigms, remembering that I listen to mostly classical music, when I switch back my Thiel 2.4s, even though they sound muddy in the lower midrange compared to the Paradigm, individual instruments in quieter portions of the music sound just more natural on the Thiels and a tiny bit electronic on the Paradigms.  But truthfully I’m still trying to make sense of it all.  Clear as mud right?  It may be a case of having listened to and heard certain colorations in the Thiels for so long I can’t appreciate the relative accuracy of the Paradigms. The Paradigms are incredibly highly resolving. But whats the point of total clinical accuracy if it robs you of some of the emotional engagement you would otherwise have with the music on something like the Thiels. Of course some folks have said over the years that the Thiels sound "clinical" to them and there have been times when I thought the Paradigms in some way DID sound a bit like the Thiels. There’s still something that the Thiels (and Vandersteens for that matter) do right on classical music that I fear the Paradigms don't.  So I guess to answer your question I feel I’m pretty lucky to hopefully spend another day or two to get the sound of the Paradigms burned into my memory because I really do believe its a great speaker.  I really admire the speaker and the bass is just great not just because it goes so low but because it is so tuneful and so full of texture and while the midrange and tweeter are extremely revealing there is just some thing there that bothers me a little bit.  If I could play it for you and point it out and then switch in the Thiels I think you would hear it as well. I will get a taste of the character or house sound of the Magico lineup tomorrow via the A3...I would really like to hear the S3s and S5s but this dealer doesn’t have them in stock and truthfully the dealer seems more interested in selling Von Schweikert than Magico. There’s also aways the possibility of picking up a pair of Thiel 3.7s on the used market particularly since new driver replacement and service remain available on Thiels given the kind of cult following Thiels have and the couple of businesses that have popped up to service that following. Another thing the Paradigm has going for it by the way is that I confirmed with the company that virtually all parts of that speaker are field replaceable if service is ever needed...drivers, amplifier module etc. The only Magico that you can say that about is the A3. All the other Magicos have to be shipped via freight all the way back to California. The Thiel 2.4s which I bought new here in Atlanta 10 years ago were only $5K which was alot of cash for me at the time but this decision is going to be alot harder to make and I want it to be right.

pwhinson

an excellent summation on the Paradigm 9H loudspeaker. You possess an educated, trained ear,  to be sure. These current, modern speakers that incorporate Be drivers are lightning fast. In the same vein as a Thiel Audio loudspeaker, it is easy to confuse unnatural accuracy. This particular model tells us why an audition is imperative.
Enjoy your A3 demo this week. Happy Listening!

Pwinson, didn't realize I was talking with you the other day here is our coaching for you. 

You would be silly not to jump on the 9H now during the sale. What you are dealing with is a topic near and dear to our hearts which is product tuning.

 No loudspeaker on the market at any price will be perfect to a listener and trying to duplicate the sonic fingerprint of your Thiel is not possible, as they were unique designs the same as a Rockport or a Wilson of a Focal etc and the Personas are superior speakers to your Thiels not to mention that Thiel is out of business it is a great idea to upgrade to a more modern design from a company that is in business. 

As I mentioned to you, sold Thiels for three years and personally knew Kathy and Jim. 

The people on this forum would have you believe that the "issues" you have with the Personas are due to their frequency abberititions  and you have to be stuck with them. 

The reality is we too have seen the heaven and hell of this design, the heaven is that the speakers are totally tranparent, fast, articulate and sometimes spooky how real they can sound. 

The hell particularly with the 9H is that they can still sound a bit cool and lacking a bit of warmth in the midrange which imparts a slightly sterile quality to the upper midrange, which is what we think you are not liking.

If you contact Fast, or read the threads we participated in in regards to his Kef Ref 5, you will see that we applied a series of fixes to his system which made his Kef Ref 5's come alive. 

These included adding footers to the speakers, a change in interconnects, ethernet cable and usb cabling, a change in music server, adding a power conditioner, changing his dac, adding power cables, and finally a room tuning product, along with reposoitioning his loudspeakers.

The end result of all of this in our opinion his newly tweeked up and augmented setup outperformed a local audio retailors $300k plus setup,

Fast's setup had really old 20+ year old ARC gear, and the speaker cables were not changeable as they were run under the floor,  the result of adding a better dac, $6k, a new server $3.4k cabling $6k for the interconnects, $700 usb, $210 ethernet cabling, footers $1,200.00  $4k room tuning Stein Harmonizers, $5k power conditioning, and $4k power cords

Yes all of those parts when added up would not be cheapie additions the point of this story is that even with all of these parts added and a retunning of the speakers in the room created a sound which bettered a $300k rig that would still be money well spent to create the sound which in Fasts room was magnificent, and he too was having the buyer's remorse conversation that his speakers werent sounding right or the way he wanted to before we started working with him.

Fast did not get all of the parts we demoed, he did change his cables, and added a server, he has not yet upgraded his dac, nor power system,  and has not gotten the footers or Stein products. 

The additions that he did do made a huge difference in transforming his sound, we have left it up to him to go as far as he wants to in the way that he wants to go. 

There are a few items you can do to add a bit more warmth in the midrange with the Personas, without spending a lot of money:

the Furutech NCF boosters believe it or not added a nice touch of additonal warmth, a change in power cords and the right power conditioner can also help, one of our favorite conditioners is $3k,

 Critical Mass footers are amazing a single set applied to the right component can produce some mind blowing improvements, from $1k a set to $2,800.00 

 the Iso Acoustics footers can be had for $210 dollars per component and can be used under the preamp, dac, and amp for some very audible improvements, not quite as amazing as the Critical Mass devices however, they produce some remarkable results for not much money, lastly the new ARC Genesis program will allow you to alter the low freq curve which will add some additional warmth to the speakers.

A product which is as transparent as the Personas will require you to do a bit of work they are not a drop and plop type of speaker, they will require you to make a series of changes to tune them to suit your taste some of the additions are not expensive.

If you heard our display system you would know just how remarkable the speakers can sound. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona dealers

Who wants to buy a speaker and HAVE to buy footers, new cables, dac's, server's, power systems.....this is a joke! Just unbelievable how audiotroy has to self promote. 

Nice review. Unfortunately 4 days are certainly not long enough for proper break in. I am assuming they where new?  The Personas need 300 hrs per Paradigm and I can attest this to be true. 
Beryllium takes a long time to settle. I would like to see measurements 6 mos later.  
The owners are the only folks who know how good these speakers can be.  And yes with their fantastic transparency the addition of tuning footers, the changes in cabling has a tremendous change on the speaker.  Little bit of work but well worth it in the long run.