Paradigm Persona series

First off some speakers are designed to be used with grills.  

Secondly, I agree that flat response can be boring in a real life room.  My favorite speakers are all voiced in real rooms and not in chambers. This is why I'm not a fan of so many of the Canadian brands (totally personal choice).

Any component needs to be part of a system.  I don't like some components and never will regardless of what they are paired with.  

If you have to 'tune' with cables, then there is a problem with the system IMHO.  Give me neutral cables and get a system that sounds great to your ears.

I don’t think half of the dealers Persona’s are broke in. Paradigm will tell you 300 hours. 
All I can say that with proper cabling and with tubes somewhere in the chain the Persona’s ( I have the 5f’s) are a great speaker. Absolutely kill my previous Magico S3. 
Without a doubt out of the box with my previous cabling ( Audience AU 24 SX ) they sounded just as a lot of people describe, bright and uninvolving. With a more meaty cable loom of Cerious Technolgies graphene Matrix and a couple of months of break in this is a fantastic speaker. My friends have  Martin Logan’s CLX, Wilson’s, Merlin’s, Revel Salons and the all love the Personas.   Just have to have the right synergy.   Probably some of the finest midrange you will hear in any speaker  in its price range. I added Harmonix RF 909 spike bases and took them to another level.  This really is a great speaker. Just needs a little time and effort to get there

Ditto Benzman, we just demoed a pair of the Persona 3F at a clients house, and the results were very interesting.

We came to his house and he had a Classe Cap 2100 a very good and respected 2010? integrated amp with a Bluesound Node2 Monster Cables and a set of Dali Helicon 1. 

Decent sound but no real image width  or depth and the sound was very cloudy.

We then added a great dac T+A Dac 8 DSD and a set of real cables to the mix, bigger soundstage, greater detail.

Then we added in power conditoner and power cables and the sound of the Dali's was very good finally got a good image floating in space

Now we chaged to the Persona 3F clarity better soundstage beter but the bass on the Dali was better. 

Swapped out the crappy $300 Monster Cable with a set of Wireworld Silver Eclipse and boom sounded like a totally different system, huge soundstage, good image float, everything was improved.

Then we swapped in the Personas and the transparency was breathtaking but we all missed some of the Dali richness.

Took our a $13k Naim stack of amp/preamp and boom Personas now had deeper bass and everything was radically improved things floated in space and the midrange was richer and now they sounded like a $20k speaker not ones that sell for $10k.

Go hear the Personas with Naim it is a fantastic combo.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona and Naim dealers

@audiotroy

If you’re going to keep addressing me and implying I have some hidden agenda, the least you could do is spell my username correctly.

I don’t have an agenda. I simply shared my experiences with the Persona 3F speakers as compared to a number of others I listened to, in the same room, in the same location on the floor, on the same day, on my amp, with the same music, with no other variables.

You stated above: "[A] speaker with . . . a high frequency peak will sound brighter." Correct. That’s exactly what I said. This speaker has a peak at 10 kHz, and a depression in the mids, which makes it sound brighter. People should know that going in. It doesn’t mean that some won’t like that response, but I and many others in this thread certainly did not. I did not say anything about flat responses generally, nor do I believe that measurements are the only thing to consider. But measurements do tell an important part of the story.

What is YOUR agenda?

According to your last post, the Persona 3F are amazing speakers, but only after one has spent $4,000 on a new T+A DAC, thousands of dollars on a new power conditioner and power cables, and thousands of dollars on new Wireworld Silver Eclipse speaker cables and interconnects. Oh, and let’s not forget $13,000 on new Naim electronics to drive them.

What I find interesting in your post about the customer’s in-home setup is the complete lack of discussion about speaker and listening positioning, the room itself, and acoustic treatments / furniture therein, all of which affect perceived sound quality much more than ~$25,000 worth of electronics and cables.

One must only look in your signature line to see your agenda: "Audio Doctor NJ Persona [did you mean Paradigm?] and Naim dealers." Nice sales pitch. I (and I assume many others) will continue to treat your posts with the huge grain of salt they deserve. All the best.

What I find interesting in your post about the customer's in-home setup is the complete lack of discussion about speaker and listening positioning, the room itself, and acoustic treatments / furniture therein, all of which affect perceived sound quality much more than ~$25,000 worth of electronics and cables.

+1
The high end audio salesmen seem to rarely mention the most obvious, critical factors in a set up, especially if someone has a sonic issue.  Rather conveniently, instead they are happy to sell you a new cable, DAC, amp etc to "fix" the problem.   "Sound too bright?  We have an expensive cable for that!"