James,
As usual Grgp4blu takes a discussion where we have come in and given good advice about possible options including products we sell and a recommendation to visit other dealers to hear a wide variety of competiting products into an arena for personal attacks, which require me or my staff to write over and over again the points, he never seems to get.
I shouldn’t have to mention over and over again the Tone Audio or Absolute Sound review for him to get it. He may not like or have experienced the product correctly but to deny the facts that this is an upcomming and excting new market leader or competitor is just ignorent and silly his comments are designed to bait and attack.
To say that Paradigm a company who spent $4 million dollars in research is in the same company as Golden Ear is just stupid, I am not saying that Golden Ears speakers are good bad or anything, Paradigm is one of the largest speaker manufactuers in North America they can build anything at any price they want. It is like comparing the capability of Ford motors to a small independent company.
This isn’t a matter or personal taste or him in reality making any salient or valid points, this is childish behavior.
The point is and should be these products are tools, quite frankly my company does not believe in favoring any brand ad infinitium.
This means if we find something better we move into that and champion that product or brand. The idea that a vendor is always producing the best products leads to stagnation and eliminates the reality of this or any market that their will always be new and innovative new companies popping up to challenge the status quo.
If Toyota comes out with a revolutionary engine design, it causes the other car companies to revaluate their technology which then means many other companies will go back to the drawing board to up their game.
High end audio is one of the few industries where brand relationships, advertising, and marketing can mean more than sound quality or technological supperiority.
Yes there are Porsche guys and Ferrari guys, (the oldest comapanies to make high peformance cars,) but when a newer company such as Konisberg, or Lotus, Lamborgini, Pagonda, comes into the market the car guys acknowledge that this new product may outperform their current cars, but the car guy mentality is to purchase that car and marvel at what it does and how it is different and unique, not a Ferrari is better than a Porsche or a Ferrari is better than a Pagonda.
All exotic cars are usually well made, and are thrilling pieces of technology yet they all have a personality.
If you go back to the discussion at hand I have owned Wilson loudspeakers along Magneplaners, Monitor Audio, Spica, Quads, Sonus Fabers, and more than a zillion others both professionally and privately.
The mentaility here expoused by some of these gentleman is to ignore that the reason for Magico, YG, and Rockports market emmergence to challenge Wilson, is that Wilson has been the most sucessful high end speaker company in their nieche segment of the market and they are the gold standard in how to build a high end audio company.
I am not picking on Wilson as Gpgr4blu thinks, or denegrating their product but the world is changing hence the reason for all of these other companies nipping at their once singular market share.
The entire world of audio has seen landmark changes, first the LP, then the CD, now streaming. Technology allows for companies to offer things that were not possible and over time these technlogical wonders come down in price,
If you think that room correction, self amplified speakers and advanced driver technolgies will not pop up more frequently and in more companies products you are not seeing the future.
Room correction is a gigantic improvement that can dramatically help people accheive the impossible great bass response in almost any room no matter the size.
If you are a smart consumer you will not be wed to one brand but when looking for an improvement, you will seek to listen to all the market leaders in high performance loudspeakers and that includes digital, analog, electronics etc.
You may prefer the sound of Vandersteen, or Magico or Wilson that is not my point, the point I have tried to make time and time again in these posts is that there is a new rival to these storried brands and you are doing yourself a dis-service if you don’t find a well set up pair and take a listen.
I am also not saying we are the only ones in the country to make the Personas sound good, but I am saying that with a company as large as a B&W or a Paradigm you will invariably find dealers that are large dealers that most likely will not have the right rooms, setups, or matching gear to get the best sound out of them. Magnolia sells B&W 802D3 do you think that most of their stores will have them setup with the appropriate wire, power conditioners, lack of other speakers directly next to them, matching components such as ARC, Mark Levinson Conrad Johnson, Naim, Prima Luna, or will you see Mcintosh. Again not picking on Mcintosh but are they the market leaders in affordable digital such as Mytek, or Lumin, or any one of a zillion dedicated dac brands, same with electronics is Mcintosh as good as Arc, Pass Labs, T+A, Sim audio? These systems are usually sold to people that are not audiophiles so they only know what they are introduced to.
I have never seen such hostility directed at a brand such as this. If it was some tiny upstart new company, like an Estelon, or x,y or z, I am willing to bet some of the gasps that how can Paradigm build a product such as this would not be mentioned.
The fact that any suitable company can build anything is driven by corporate reality, your pocket book, intent and market positioning.
When I have mentioned T+A and have said they are in the same ball park at much more expensive productst they are, how do we know, we have done comparisons with them vs Boulder, MBL, Krell and others as well as reading what critics have said about the brand.
We are in fact having the same discussion right now concerning nuclear weapons, and North Korea, the fact that Mutual Assured Destruction has been keeping the world safe for years has been a reality.
North Korea will never give up the weapons they have won at such a high cost, the pragmatic real diplomat, and negotiator would recognize this. The way to keep a bigger opponent at bay is to have a weapon as well and as North Korea is the smaller opponent, they have chosen a path that they will never back down from.
To make a condition for negotion they having to disarm first is ludicrious, both sides have to make concessions for peace to be won.
My point is that you can’t put your head in the sand and utter belicoise statments, Paradigm is now in the uber loudspeaker building business and their acheivments should be lauded.
If I was looking for speakers in the $60k price range and I could save $20 to $30k and find something I liked as much or better, I would think that would be a good thing and not saying by Gpgr4blu you are trolling a Wilson post or a whatever post, the idea is to produce great sound, the brand should be irrelevant, and not a mine is bigger than yours kind of thing.
Many real buyers are open to suggestion. The fact that the Paradigm Personas are a new product, at a new price point and are not as well known for these reasons is why we are talking about them in the first place because many prospective buyers do not know of them.
And if Grgr4blu thinks money is rainning down on our little company because of these posts he is seriously mistaken, we can not sell these products into Canada, or into Europe or Japan, we are not allowed to sell them out of state unless we have a great reason to do so and the grief in that case can be unbelievable.
So to recap, Wilsons aren’t bad and they certaintly are not better or worse than any other speaker company, Paradigm Personas aren’t necessarily better but may be depending on what you value, nor is Magico, Focal, Kharma, YG better or worse products, these are all valid choices. So are Kharma, Vandersteen, Vivid etc.
In my opinion I would take the Persona 9H over many of todays other reference speakers, because I have gotten amazing sound in my showroom with my equipment in a carefully matched setup.
Everyone reading these posts can come and take a listen to our setups and see for themselves.
Dave owner
Audio Doctor NJ
