Hi Brandon,
My name is Chris and I’m a Regional Sales Manager for Paradigm & Anthem. I thought I would throw out a suggestion as an alternative for your Center Channel predicament. If the Persona Center is too big, you can get a single Persona B Bookshelf Speaker to use as the Center - it works great for that!
I’m sorry we didn’t win you over with our Defiance X Series, Seismic 110, Prestige, or Persona Subwoofers that utilize our Anthem Room Correction Genesis Software and (2 US Patented) ART Surround Woofers that are also in your Persona 3F’s to mate with them, but our MCA Amplifiers are on sale right now through May 31, 2020, and will mate with your Marantz piece.
If I can be of any more help, please let me know.
Thanks for your time!
Chris
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I have demoed the 3F and 5F and loved them both. I decided to get something else but the Persona was one of my favorites. A 9H maybe in the future for another room. I demoed the 3F with a Class D NAD and the 5F Class AB SimAudio 860A. The SimAudio was excellent and the NAD was very good. When I was demoing them I was thinking a warm sounding amp would be the best. When I was thinking of the 3F I was considering the Anthem STR or the Coda #8 after a few conversations with A’gon users who have that combo. I got feedback that those 2 combos were very good. Not sure I would get a center channel given how good the imaging is on the Persona. Especially for a bedroom system. I am pasting the following quote from the Audio Doctor. I would look at the following amps he describes as warm. There are families of sound certain amplifier companies are in the fast, transparent and perhaps a bit lean or just slightly warm: Spectral, Audionet, Ayre, Chord, Sim, Bryston, Solution, T+A, all tend to fall in this area
Then there are the warmer richer amps which may or may not accentuate the the bass with a more polite top end: Dagastino, new Krell XD, Parasound, Anthem STR, Pass Labs, Coda, Darthzeel, Thrax, Ypsilon.
then there are the very neutral punchy amplifiers Hegel, Nuprime, ARC, later CJ, VTL. |
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I have the Anthem Integrated STR I paired with Joseph Audio Perspectives G2 and the sound is incredible. I used to have an Anthem 225i with the Paradigm 85f and in a room the size you're using would blast you out of it at half volume. The ARC room correction and subwoofer integration ability with the STR series integrated or separates would be very useful in that sized room. |
I have a pair of 5f’s. Forget about a center channel. The Personas do great job of a solid image and you will swear you are running a center channel. Much better for your 2 channel listening also. You can always add a center later if it does not work for you. |
Thanks everyone! I am thinking of running them with the coda 8 v2 - 250 watts per channel amplifier over the anthem str, any thoughts with my marantz 7705 receiver that I will be using? I didn’t want to spend a lot on a preamp or another receiver if I didn’t have to for quality sound. Also, any advice on cheap but great speaker cables?
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Given the quality of the speakers and amp, I think the 7705 will be a significant bottleneck to your overall performance, and especially for music. I’d either upgrade to an Anthem AV processor or add a good stereo preamp with a HT bypass so the 7705 is completely out of the loop for music.
In fact, if you decide not to use a center channel, which could very well be a good choice depending on your room setup (as mentioned earlier it might be a great idea to start with just two channel first to see how well that works), you could ditch the processor altogether and just get a good stereo preamp and plug the HDMI directly into the TV. Sometimes simpler is better. Best of luck.
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If I get a good preamp it will have a tuner with it and be able to control my tv, set up my DVD player to it, etc? Which one do you recommend if I get the coda or should I just get the anthem preamp and str? |
