Paradigm Personas anyone heard them

mofojo, I went into more detail here in a previous Persona thread and was immediately schooled by the Audiogon's resident Paradigm retailer who has at least thirteen responses in this thread alone. I should applaud him/them on his sales persistence and wish him success within our little industry.  

I feel Paradigm has a terrific business plan and has the potential to offer sensible quality at an affordable price which is why I owned three different Paradigm products and auditioned their S8s in home. 

In MY opinion the Persona's sound way better than any other previous Paradigm offering and their technology is interesting but they're plagued by what I now consider to be the Paradigm house sound. They go high and they go low and I'm sure they'll measure perfectly. Along with the brightness or harshness others have mentioned I was still able to hear every driver discreetly as with my previous Paradigms consequently they didn't make music for me.

This is my personal opinion and opinions vary.

Wow that is interesteing that you owned three different sets before it dawned on you that you had issues with them.

I am not suprised that the Rogue audio setup wasn't good, it is not a tube thing, it is a complete system matching thing.

When you have a cool speaker, ie one with very low levels of coloration and you want them to sound musical you have to add some warmth and body to the sound somewhere. Just because you use a tube doesn't mean you have solved the problem.

Yzsantabarbera commented that the room was way too small, I wonder what the reset of the chain was, were they using Audioquest or Nordost cabling? Did they have a suitable digital front end? Did they employ any room treatment or was the room ringing with slap echo.

That is one reason why we invite people over to our showrooms, we dial in our display systems and we use all the tuning tools and accessories to make our systems sound musical. 

So before you bash the speakers perhaps blaim the setup.

As per hearing individual drivers I find that remarkably strange, the Persona use the exact same material for the tweeter and midrange, what you may be having an issue with in terms of integration can happen if your sitting distance is not correct or your rake angle is wrong.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor

I heard the Aeris after I heard the Persona speakers. I really think a lot of the Persona, but I liked the Aeris better. They just sounded better to me. Nothing like them. Not sure if it is the hybrid open baffle design or the wavelet processor, or the combination but wondering if anyone else made the comparison between these two. 

Although the price of the 3f and Focus are closer, I think the 3f beats it  in terms of clarity, but I do think the 3f is brighter than the Focus.

Vitop we sell both lines so keep this in perspective.

The Personas only start to compete with Legacy in the 5F vs the Focus.

We have the Signature Se the Jr Focus in the same room as the Persona 3F and it is a very interesting comparison.

The 3F sound smaller, which they should they are smaller, their image focus is better and they are more transparent also their bass is tighter although not as much.

The Signature Se have a more prounced bass are warmer thow a bigger soundstage and have a wamer midrange.

I would have to say that the larger 5F is going to be more of a match even though is is more expensive than the Focus or the Signature as the larger version has more bass and an even larger soundstage.

The Aeris vs the Persona 9H will be a more interesting comparison.

We are getting the show pair of Aeris so we will have both speakers in the same room.

There is no denying the Aeris are world class loudspeakers if you prefer their presentation that is a good thing. Personally our store feels that the Legacy speakers are nearly unbeathable for the money.

The Persona 9H are also a bargin for what they do, they have greater transparency than the Legacy’s but also have less of that famous Legacy bass warmth and midbass warmth.

So the Legacy’s would fit in that hyper musical class of loudspeakers in the Vandersteen, Harbeth type of sound with the Pesonas fitting into the Magico, Focal, Rockport, type of sound

I would also say that is does depend on where you hear these speakers.

The Personas have a disadvantage vs the Aeris in that the Aeris comes with a pretty good preamp/dac that means for many setups the amplifier and speaker cables are the only variable.

The Personas are totally at the mercy of everything used with them and considering that the Beryillium drivers have greater resolution then the Heil AMT drivers which are a bit more laid back means the Personas are harder to get right. With greater transarency comes a greater chance of making a system sound too detailed and less musical which is why we tend to demo the Personas with warmer gear such as Naim or T+A with the Light Harmonic Davinci or the Aqua Hifi digital, rather than our older reference the EMM Labs Dac 2xse. 

If you are ever in our neck of the woods New York metro, we would invite you in to listen to both sets of these world class loudspeakers.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

I have heard both the Signature and the 3f but I didn't feel it was really a fair comparison... but that's just me

My use is home theater primarily.

The most accurate (and best price performance) I have heard were the Tekton speakers but at this point in time they don't have the HT lineup that I would like. I don't think they are warm, bright or anything but accurate IMO. They do not have the openess of the Aeris though. The Aeris is magical there. But again, that's just me.