Paradigm persona vs. Monitor audio Platinum

Experience will weed out the bs, the fact is every ‘affordable hi end’ loudspeaker I’ve tried has been sensitive to every other piece in the chain with the room being the most influential following the amp/pre amp and on, then when the systems finally dialed in your buddy with dissimilar priorities comes in, listens a bit and politely says “ not bad”. Maybe you actually did get lucky and find a pair of plug and play speakers for your room. I’ll bet you the very pair you’re listening to you wouldn’t even recognize them if blindfolded and listened to in another venue. 

Steve59: Absolutely perfect. So true about not even being able to recognize the speaker. Unless you get to sit and play with a speaker in multiple rooms, for a quite some time, no one should really judge any speaker.

Because of this, dealers can sometimes have the upper hand because they get to play with so much. But they have to actually be real enthusiastic audiophiles and not just people trying to sell a product. Then you have to worry about them trying to sell a certain brand that they carry of course — but if anyone finds a dealer that is open and honest and looking out for their best interest, you have a gold mine of info.

Urbie here is our "final" take on this subject.

You can't expect the same gear for the one gentleman who owned Personas and then switched to Monitors to work equally well for both loudspeakers.

This is especially true with Home Theater gear which tends to not sound anywhere as good for Music then Home Theater, which would make the Personas most likely sound way too sharp.

Unless that person was using a really good Home Theater amp, voice for music the sound could be horrible. 

The Personas are a brighter loudspeaker vs the Monitors which are a duller loudspeaker. If you look at both reviews you will see that Monitors AMT is rolled off in the top vs the Personas which has a rise in the top end.

Therefore if you used brighter electronics on the Monitors to help bring out the top end you would sizzle your ears with the Personas.

The same way that the Personas benefit from warmer electronics and cabling, therefore the warmer matching components that would work with the Personas would make the Monitors totally rolled off and uninspiring. 

This is where pronouncements about brand X being better than brand y fall down, you are demoing a system, the same way that a Ferrari engine transplanted into a Toyota doesn't make the Toyota a Ferrari.

Monitor audio makes a fine loudspeaker so does Paradigm, which you prefer is up to you.

There will always be fans of any particular product the smart guy or gal recognizes their own biases but comes at audio with an open mind and as we mentioned previously just because you hear product X at a dealer doesn't mean that it is setup correctly or with the right gear.

Go listen to the product at many different dealers or ask the dealer to swap a component and or components and see what changes.

As we recanted on another post just changing one board on the dac in a $150k Persona setup made that same system sound like an entirely different one, as all parts of the system must work together in unison. 

You can have the best speakers, electronics and cabling and the wrong source can torpedo the entire system.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona dealers

That's the difference between monitor audio and n paradigm and monitor audio isn't dull to say the least but monitor audio works well with most gear unfortunately the paradigm doesn't that's why I believe the monitor on you is a better speaker cuz it will work extremely well with 95% of the gear out there paradigm won't. And as for gear I told you that I have the simaudio pawa which is regarded as one of the top 5 amps and preamps in the world still even though it's been discontinued. So if paradigm doesn't work with that doesn't say much doesn't because the monitors work extremely well and also pass labs which is again extremely good gear and since I heard the monitor platinum's on pass labs and the paradigm on pass labs and the monitor was far superior what can I say and Jworth tried them both on the same gear he put the monitors into his two-channel system where he had the paradigm so on the same gear the monitor was much better so that kind of shoots your theory down doesn't it?and if you think the monitor sounds dull you should get your hearing checked cuz obviously you like bright forward sound and that's not natural. And if you read the review by Robert Deutsch from stereophile he said that the monitor 200 and 300 were the most lifelike speakers he's heard and that's why he chose the 300 as his new reference.

P8 W8