Upgrade path from Wilson WattPuppy 7s? - seeking advice

Have you ever listened to Harbeth? If not you should !
http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/harbeth-monitor-402-loudspeaker/

I just love great music.  I personally don't care what speaker or amps are used to achieve it. Right now I'm into Vandersteen big time as they are the only one's on the market for MY EARS and ROOM that are coherent, tonally on, disappear and throw a huge stage etc...  The bass is turnable in the room, which is so important as I have a brutal room IRT bass as it's an open loft.  I am shocked at the quality I'm able to get now.  Johnny at Audio Connection set them up and he really did a great job. I've had many others in the room, that were set up by dealers or even manufacturers and they just didn't sound as good.  Thats' just me.  I also like the Tidal speakers a lot.  No need to type about other speakers that dont' do it for me as this thread is about the OP and wanting new speakers.  Go out and listen. Dont' listen to teh dealers sales pitches, listen to the music with your ears and go from there.

I love it when dealers post on threads as long as they don't become commercials for their gear.  Troy, I"m sorry, but it doesn't matter what thread you are on, you sound like a commercial and so many are sick of it.  Yes, you change gear often based on following your store and what you have is always the best and the best buy.  I'm happy that you set things up better than others do.  If the Persona's are so difficult to set up, then that could be difficult for many.  To my ear, they are tipped too much at the top like other Paradigm's including ones I've owned in the past.  They have the room correction that, I was told by their US sales VP I believe his title is, makes them the easiest speaker to set up as it fixes everything.  Not sure why dealers who are trying to sell them can't set them up correctly.  I wonder if they can sound decent with Ayre, Jadis, Boulder, Aesthetix, Audio Research or any other top amps? Just sounds like a commercial to me.  

JOhnny has posted in this thread too, but he just mentioned Vandy 7 mk 2 that HE sells.  He doesn't go into much else and he hasn't talked about why the Vandersteen's sound better than the Wilson's.  To many, they won't.  

OP, go listen to a bunch of speakers.  Check out the coherency, tonality, size of the soundstage and if it changes with each album as all are recorded differently.  You know the drill or you wouldn't be looking at the prices you are.  I personally drive 3 hours to purchase my and electronics from Johnny at AC as do many others on the net.  I also guy from Ralph at Take 5 in New Haven.  I have purchased Paradigm's from Bernie at the Audio Store in Newington CT.   Lot's of great dealers out there who are willing to help you out and that even includes Audio Troy folks.  Glad I came across this thread.  I'm sure Troy will come back with something slick to discredit my post, but that's fine to as I'm not selling stuff and they are, so there's that.  Keep letting us know what's up with the search.

I am sorry Yogiboy, Harbeths are not considered in the same league as the Wilson products. Allan Shaw's designs favor articulation and naturalness in the midrange, and lack the dynamic punch, deep bass and overall dynamic range  of the Wilson speakers. They are also much less exciting then the Wilson's. So you have perhaps a more neutral speaker over a more exciting one. 

I would take a pair of WP 7 over the 40.2 I think you will find very few Wilson guys moving into Harbeths.  I read the Paul Seydor review and as a long time Quad owner, that ship has sailed. I went from Quads to WP 3/2 and then to 5 and never looked back, WP sound much more alive and sound much more like live music then Quads. 

The issue is would the OP prefer some of the newer loudspeakers that are on the market and these would include the new Wilson speakers and other market leaders, we like the Rockports which are a bit more midrange centric than the Paradigm Personas which are our favorites. 

As per electronics the Lamms are very fine amplifiers and of course would produce very good sound on a set of Wilsons. Lamm and Wilson have been showing together for years. 

The OP might want to upgrade his electronics over the Mcintosh Mc275 as well. The WP 7 is from 2003, loudspeaker designs and driver technologies  have advanced considerably. 

It really depends on how deep the OP wants to go.

I do find some of his comments to be a bit off kilter

I found some of the higher resolution music files to be reproduced with too much complexity what does this mean? Does this mean that the greater clarity of the newer Wilson speakers appears to separate musical instruments too precisely rather than creating a musically involving more coherent sound?

Our recommendation would be to go visit a bunch of dealers and see if newer systems and newer components would be satisfying while improving on what the OP likes about his current system.

Hope this helps

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Cstooner, i am sure a lot of people feel you are a commercial for Vandersteens.  We sell many great brands including Legacy, as well as the Personas, we also sell PSB, Dali and many others. 

Cstooner, you have never been to our shop and have not heard our Persona setup so you do not know if you would prefer our setup to yours.

What you failed to understand is that Paradigms room correction fixes bass issues only it does not compensate for poorly matched systems nor does it fix any issues with the upper octaves. The Personas use room correction to fix bass boom or bloat which is what happens with room positioning or room sizes which are not ideal. 

The Persona room correction affects bass only, so for example if you still have an echo box for a room, or poorly matched components, or bright cable etc they are not going to magically compensate for any of those issues.  Only Legacy which uses a full range room correction system will have any hope of fixing or ameliorating any of those issues.

We are also not saying that we are the only ones that can make the Personas sound good, they are incredibly transparent and are therefore much more sensitive to what you use with them. 

This is the same issue with any suitable high resolution speaker system but is compounded with a system which uses Beryillium drivers for both the midrange and tweeter, the Persona's don't hold anything back which is both good and bad. 

If you look at both the Tone review and the Absolute Sound review of the Personas both reviewers obviously had great components. 

I am willing to bet dollars to donuts that their are Persona dealers who do not have good matching components, or the right rooms, what might have worked with one brand of loudspeakers may or may not work ideally with another and unless you sell multiple lines of gear you may or may not be able to create a musically satisfying results. 

So the issue is go with easier more forgiving speakers which there are tons or properly setup a superior high resolution set of speakers which enable you to hear everything and spend the time and money to find the right matching gear.

Cstooner if you want to hear one of the most remarkably life like systems on the East Coast, just give us a call, you may end up being very surprised at what you will experience. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ