Well, since this is one of the few threads featuring talk of the Paradigms that hasn’t gone to sh#t, I figure I’ll post this here:
As I mentioned on the Thiel owner’s thread (I have Thiel 3.7s and 2.7s), I auditioned the Paradigm Persona 3F recently. (Love the Thiels, but if I hear a speaker like better I’ll buy them). Here’s my report, to be taken with the same grain ’o salt any in store audition requires:
They were in a sizable room. Should have been a bit further out from the back wall (they were probably about 2 1/2 to 3 feet from the back wall, and I like to pull speakers out further than that). But still performed very well. Amp was a big assed Anthem amp as I remember. The speakers were fairly wide apart - I’d guess 7 to 8 feet, and I sat at an equilateral triangle from them much of the time. The speakers were very slightly toed in toward the listening position.
I istened to a bit of vinyl, but then mostly my CD demo disks which span from pop, to electronic, classical, soundtrack, world, jazz, prog, folk, etc.
My main impression was that the Persona’s sounded pretty much like I expected: Really open, super clean and clear. The "air" extended like there was no cap on the frequencies hence they could sound very "there" and realistic, especially with higher frequency bells, cymbals etc.
There was also a real sense of balance to the sound from top to bottom - reminded me of the Revel speakers (and my Thiels). The sound was full and in control from bottom to top. Bass, in this set up, started hinting at being over-warm, or "port-like" but in most tracks it was really beautifully controlled. The bass in Mile’s "So What" was presented in as balanced and effective way as I’ve heard it: properly holographic in the back ground, quiet, yet each bass note having good heft and subtle drive.
Generally there was excellent pitch control for bass guitar, with good differentiation of tone and timbre. Sometimes maybe a bit fatter on the bottom than I’m used to, but still stopping and starting well. The Persona’s grip on mid-bass/bass pitch, combined with the super smooth open, crystalline sound gave one of the most believable and fun reproductions of Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon that I’ve ever heard.
The see-through transparency and rich mid/bass tonal grip gave Herbie’s synth’s really wonderful character, and the close mic’d drum sounded "in the room."
On some tracks I felt I heard a more accurate, real version of some instruments, like some snare drums, that I’m really familiar with.
I’d say the dynamics - which I’d check with drum solos and other similar fare - were average: certainly quite good, but not stand out in any way. The realism came more from the tonal clarity and life-like high end, vs dynamics.
Soundstaging was excellent - they did a great job of disappearing as sound sources. I checked some tracks that show me whether a speaker "disappears" well or not - tracks with some hard panned instruments that "get stuck" in the speaker on lesser speakers. The Paradigms floated behind, to the back of, or even outside of the speaker - the sign of a great imaging design (my Thiels do that incredibly well).
I played music from Everything But The Girl, some songs with layers of acoustic guitar (and stand up bass, intimate vocals), and the Paradigms layered them beautifully, not just in the sense of imaging, but bringing out the particular clarity and sparkle of each different guitar.
I am crazy about soundtracks, especially those by Bernhard Hermann, so one of the discs I play is the Jason And The Argonauts soundtrack - which is a fantastic recording, fairly close-miced like many of Hermann’s soundtracks are, for maximum tonal color and dynamic impact. The Paradigms played this brilliantly, the famous Hermann woodwinds having rich body, super clarity, every "buzz" of reed intact and easily audible, nice bass weight and growl, and a good separation of metal from reed instruments - Hermann’s music is great for this because he so often pairs horns and woodwinds playing the same descending patterns, so a system that can let me discern which part of the note is which instrument earns high marks. The close-mic’d percussion, wood blocks, bells, castanets, had a starting "thereness" and realism.
Finally, I found the general "size" if the sound, in soundstaging, image sizes of singers and instruments, and impact, to be very satisfying. The 3F hits that nice sweet spot; a nice looking speaker, not obnoxiously big, but just big enough to get that full range picture you can’t get from stand mounted monitors.
It was indeed high-end sound with a bang!
So all that said, did I find myself compelled to possibly purchase? No.
They were intriguing, promising, better than most speakers I’ve auditioned recently. But in the end did not fully grab me.
I did in the end find them a bit relentless to listen to; to fall back to the old audiophile cliche, a bit on the "hi-fi" side; a classic case of transparency and highs and detail being almost "too much of a good thing." On many tracks, especially pop, or Van Halen, my ears really scrunched down because of the cutting quality of the highs. The artificial, electronic nature of most recordings was shoved more in my face - hard vocal sibilance etc. It reminded me a little of my experiences with older (and some newer) Focal speakers, a bit of "look at me" performance from an expensive tweeter. It’s not that I heard the beryllium tweeters sounding detached from the beryllium mids, just that
hi-fish aspects of the sound seemed prominent - the breath of a singer being more pronounced, hence vocals often had a bit more whitish, breathy quality vs the fleshier in-throat tone of the actual note. So while vocals could sound startlingly clear and present, I didn’t get the sense of listening to a real, organic person nearly as often as I do at home.
Overall, at least from the equilateral position, speakers very lightly toed in, the Persona’s had a tonal/timbral quality that veered to the "bright, whiter, silvery." So trumpets, cymbals etc, more constantly evoked "silver" in my mind, rather than "burnished brass" that I get at home.
Whether one likes that is a taste thing.
As I always do, I experimented with various listening positions including much closer to "take the room out of the equation" a bit more. Closer up, as with most speakers, the tonal balance mellowed and darkened a bit and to my ears because less hi-fi, more natural. It was there that they sounded more promising in terms of how I would position them if I owned these speakers.
When I got home I spun the same tracks on my home system (at the moment I have the smaller Thiel 2.7s set up, but know this stuff like the back of my hand on the big Thiels). It made me want to hug my Thiels :-) Admittedly the Thiels benefit, for my tastes, paired with my Conrad Johnson Premier 12 tube monoblocks. But the sound in comparison is a bit darker, lush, warm, amazingly believable vocals, dynamic, open, clear...almost ideal. I’d say the Persona’s are more impressive in the area of frequency extension, clarity. The big Thiel 3.7s are less colored than the 2.7s, with an even more open and boxless sound - still the most even, uncolored and boxless presentation I’ve heard from a dynamic speaker. The Persona’s were excellent, but I did not hear that top to bottom "there is no speaker there" sensation I get from the Thiels.
But the Persona’s are very promising. I’d really enjoy a chance to hear them in my home, but at this point I think it would be more for curiosity and I would never ask a dealer for a home audition if I weren’t sure enough from the store audition that I may purchase the speaker.
Over ’n out.
Prof
