Personas....7F vs 9H

The bass performance of the 7F is of course SIGNIFICANTLY better than the 5f.  Just think — the 7f has dramatically more cabinet volume, and two 8.5” woofers that are not only much bigger, but much more intense in design than the 6.5” woofers in the 3F/5F.


As as far as 7F vs 9H...  the value of the two extra woofers, tons of built in power, and anthem room correction almost makes it a steal of an upgrade.  However, $25k is not chump change in any respect.

The main advantage of the 9H besides what you mentioned, are the ability to fine tune the bass response.  Not just flatten it (you need PROPER room treatment, bass traps especially BEFORE room correction for best performance).  Room correction does not correct the room, it just attempts to flatten the bass response.  The beauty of it, however, is that you can really tune it to your liking via Room Gain settings etc. 

In theory, if the 7F sounds too lean in your room, the 9H could be set up to compensate for that very easily.  Especially once you are able to flatten the response with ARC.  In almost all scenarios I would recommend utilizing ARC only up until around 200hz max.  Once you do that, you are able to raise (or lower, but unlikely) the room gain of your new flatter bass response to get the sound just how you like it.  Not to mention the fact that the 9H requires virtually no power to run, considering the sensitivity and no need to power any bass.  It’s a pretty incredible setup and I’ll be amazed if we don’t see similar designs by Focal (utopia with Naim power on woofers?) and other manufacturers soon.

Lots of fun, but don’t think for a second that the 7F isn’t worth every penny.  It’s just that the 9H is truly an amazing value in comparison, as weird as that sounds.

I have a small listening room - only 13’ x 22’ with 9’ ceilings ...but open on two sides. I sit almost nearfield, and my current DIY voxativ speakers are less than a foot from the front wall. I am going to get the 9H’s after auditioning the 3F,5F,9H. Reasons? Because i) I know paradigm does not BS their specifications and 2dB flat to 19Hz is intoxicating, ii) Their front/rear woofer design just envelopes you in low freq energy in a way that I cant describe, iii) their honest 96dB is on par with my Voxativs and means I can use lower cost amps or even DAC-Amps like the 2W Chord DAVE, iv) the ARC correction sizes 19Hz-400Hz to my room, speaker placement and seating position. I’ve heard the 9H’s native and corrected and it is amazing.
Yes, they are big, expensive and all that ...but end-game and I can just get back to listening to music.
(New colors coming out in April, BTW).

dmance,
Do you have any info as to what the new colors are? I'm leaning heavily towards this as well, but not completely thrilled with the current colors.
The wait might be worth it!!

Hello guys, 

Here is how we as a Persona dealer would talk about the two speakers.

On paper there is really very little difference between the two models. 

In reality there is a very  large difference in what makes the 9H so special.

The factor is the speaker's adaptablity, we have three different ancedotes on the 9H.

First experience 2016 New York Audio show where we had the 9H in a small hotel room.

Second experience: 9H at a clients home in a very ordinary not large living room.

Third experience: 9H in our shwroom a 26 by 20 room open to several other rooms.

The prevailing factor is the 9H room correction gave us great bass in all three rooms. 

The shocker was the hotel room which was 18 by 14 and with the  active room correction giving us shocking tight bass which didn't over load the room with excellent pitch.

So the take away is that the room correction of the 9H enables you to have a speaker system which can work in almost any room with fantastic results.

So if one were to purchase a set of 9H they can take the speakers with them even in case of having to move rooms or homes. 

The 7's really don't sound any different it is the ability to have superb bass without the hastle of having to result to bass traps or hemholtz resonators which makes the 9H so appealing.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ