Dear yyzsantabarbara
We do have both the KEF Blades and the Persona 9H on active display.
I will say they are very different both are excellent and do different things.
We would welcome you to come spend the day and demo to your hearts content.
We were a Devialet dealer, we wanted to like the Devialet stuff and in some ways it was very good it just never sounded magical, it always lacked the midrange liquidity and airy quality of the best conventional solid state designs.
After many years of looking for truly magical yet reasonably priced solid state line, we found T+A after reading the TAS Allan Taffel review where Mr. Taffel compared the $19k T+A PA 3000 HV integrated to his own CH Precision Mono block amps, preamp and power supply which is an over $100k stack of some of the finest Swiss electronics out there, and in a direct A/B comparison Mr. Taffel found that there was almost no real differences between these two stellar companies. So you can imagine how thrilling it is to be able to offer our clients a $19k piece which rivals $100k priced gear!
So you can also imagine how thrilled we were to get in their even better separate amp, and preamp from the HV series, and boy do they deliver.
The T+A gear is extraordinary it is designed using a topology which actually mirrors the smoothness of tubes yet offers the slam and dynamics and low noise floor of the best solid state, their technology is called High Voltage design, which ramps up the voltage to the devices which is why tubes sound so musical, running certain devices on higher voltage rails increases the linearity of those devices, greater linearity equals less distortion and gives you the ease and musicality of tubes!
I would highly recommend you consider the T+A gear it is truly magical.
Your interest in these two speakers says a lot about you.
Our feeling is that both of these remarkable loudspeakers can compare with much more expensive products in the $70 range from many other companies.
Audio Doctor showcased the Blades in the 2012 and 2013 New York audio shows. Our setup in 2012 setup sounded in our opinion as good as the $400k Solution/YG Sonja setup and our setup with the Chord Ref electronics was 1/4 of the price of that setup.
The T+A gear has more of a tube like quality then the Chord electronics and we have found even better digital so our newer setups are even more magical.
So in many ways the Blades are a fantastic speaker that performs much higher then its price point.
As per the Personas they are remarkable and in some ways more so then the Blades.
We have had over the years, the Scaena Line Arrays,$60k,the $70k Polymers, we auditioned the latest Kharama DB 7 and the $120 Kharma Midi Exquistes here, and all of these speakers were superb in some ways, we have chosen the Blades and now the Personas as two somewhat sanely priced reference speakers that can easily challenge the uber expensive $50-70k products on the market.
In holography, transparency, speed and articulation the Personas are very hard to beat at any price.
We do have both the KEF Blades and the Persona 9H on active display.
I will say they are very different both are excellent and do different things.
We would welcome you to come spend the day and demo to your hearts content.
We were a Devialet dealer, we wanted to like the Devialet stuff and in some ways it was very good it just never sounded magical, it always lacked the midrange liquidity and airy quality of the best conventional solid state designs.
After many years of looking for truly magical yet reasonably priced solid state line, we found T+A after reading the TAS Allan Taffel review where Mr. Taffel compared the $19k T+A PA 3000 HV integrated to his own CH Precision Mono block amps, preamp and power supply which is an over $100k stack of some of the finest Swiss electronics out there, and in a direct A/B comparison Mr. Taffel found that there was almost no real differences between these two stellar companies. So you can imagine how thrilling it is to be able to offer our clients a $19k piece which rivals $100k priced gear!
So you can also imagine how thrilled we were to get in their even better separate amp, and preamp from the HV series, and boy do they deliver.
The T+A gear is extraordinary it is designed using a topology which actually mirrors the smoothness of tubes yet offers the slam and dynamics and low noise floor of the best solid state, their technology is called High Voltage design, which ramps up the voltage to the devices which is why tubes sound so musical, running certain devices on higher voltage rails increases the linearity of those devices, greater linearity equals less distortion and gives you the ease and musicality of tubes!
I would highly recommend you consider the T+A gear it is truly magical.
Your interest in these two speakers says a lot about you.
Our feeling is that both of these remarkable loudspeakers can compare with much more expensive products in the $70 range from many other companies.
Audio Doctor showcased the Blades in the 2012 and 2013 New York audio shows. Our setup in 2012 setup sounded in our opinion as good as the $400k Solution/YG Sonja setup and our setup with the Chord Ref electronics was 1/4 of the price of that setup.
The T+A gear has more of a tube like quality then the Chord electronics and we have found even better digital so our newer setups are even more magical.
So in many ways the Blades are a fantastic speaker that performs much higher then its price point.
As per the Personas they are remarkable and in some ways more so then the Blades.
We have had over the years, the Scaena Line Arrays,$60k,the $70k Polymers, we auditioned the latest Kharama DB 7 and the $120 Kharma Midi Exquistes here, and all of these speakers were superb in some ways, we have chosen the Blades and now the Personas as two somewhat sanely priced reference speakers that can easily challenge the uber expensive $50-70k products on the market.
In holography, transparency, speed and articulation the Personas are very hard to beat at any price.