Vermeer we are a dealer for many speakers that you mentioned in your post including the Paradigm, KEF, ATC, as well as Dali, Gradient, Cabasse. We don;’t sell the Focals but lets see if this give you some guidance.
If by what you mean accuracy is clarity then the KEF, or Persona’s are really your best choice out of what you mentioned.
We have the KEF Blades, and the Persona 9H in the same room, so we are pretty knowledgable about both brands.
The KEF Reference 3 are very clean, dynamic speakers which throw a big soundstage and have tight clean bass, their drivers are world class and the speaker sounds very coherent.
The Personas have an edge over the KEF’s in their Beryilium drivers are even clearer, and faster with more air then the KEFs.
Another area where the Personas are truly amazing, is image holography.
The Personas throw one of the most realistic images you will ever hear they are spooky. in terms of how much depth and width you can get from them.
ATC’s drivers are world class and they do have a natural midrange, a super tight midbass and great dynamics, and a wide soundstage, however, the Paradigm Personas just offer more resolution and gradiations in low level detail that if you use great components will reward you with some remarkable sound.
As per Quads I owned them, not even close in terms of accuracy, and with all planers you get diapole cancillation effect meaning the front wave is out of phase with the back wave. This creates truncated dynamics and compression when played at realistic volume levels.
Harbeths are way more colored than ATC, if you look at the two companies their philsophies are totally different, ATC uses an inert cabinet, Harbeths are tuned to ring musically to the sonic input, this makes the Harbeths appear very musical but if you look at most of the studios that use ATC you will find that most of the top rock and pop recodings over the last 40 years were all mastered or mixed on ATC.
I am not trying to denegrate Harbeth, they have a lovely sound, but that sound is not as accurate as an ATC.
Some people complain ATC is bright they are hardly bright, extremely neutral and very engaging.
So if you are looking for speed, articulation, 3d imaging, very tight bass, and the ability to play loud, the Personas will be hard to beat.
Now to the Focals, the new Sopras are way better than most of the Focal speakers The new wave guided tweeter is better integrated with the Focal composite midrange, the speakers for the first time throw a much more focused sound stage.
Where they differ is the magical 7 inch pure Beryilium midrange, and the pure Beryilium tweeter, this means the speaker sounds very coherent, in the case of the Focal’s the composite midrange driver has a warmer more colored sound, with less of that 100% seemless quality of the Personas.
Their blend of clarity and punchiness makes them very fun to listen to speakers and are a bit more forgiving then the Paradigms.
The Paradigms are in our opinion one of the most remarkable speakers to be introduced in the last 10 years, with that being said you must be careful with system matching as the speakers have literally no coloration, and for many listeners that can be too much of a good thing.
I would need to know more about your system to guide you.
Please feel free to PM our store and we will be happy to offer you some additional guidance. I will say honestly you could not go wrong with any of these choices, they are all terrific.
The Personas in our opinion are the most life like but also the trickiest to get right.
Dave onwer,
Audio Doctor NJ
