Yea, I was commenting on your finishing with aeriel 6 being all that. If a speakers bright but clean, not sibilant or spitty and the repercussion is added detail and imaging i'll put some treatments on the wall at the first reflection point and enjoy the show, but if it isn't clean the deals off. I found the personas tweeter to be clean and extended.
Paradigm Persona series
I'm beginning to poke around and gather opinions and information about a "super speaker" to replace my aging Thiel 2.4s. I like the idea of bass dsp room correction and I am a bit of a point source type imaging nut (thus the Thiels). So among other choices I've been looking at the Paradigm Persona series specifically the powered 9H with room correction for the bass. However I'm skeptical of the "lenses" i.e. pierced metal covers on the midrange and tweeter specifically because of Paradigm's claim that such screens "screen out" "out of phase" musical information. The technology in the design seems superlative but I just can't get past the claim re out of phase information and the midrange and tweeter covers. What could possibly be the science behind this claim? It just seems like its putting a halloween moustache on the mona lisa given the fact that the company is generally a technology driven company.
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What I find so facinating is the villification of the Personas from certain posters here, because they have a bump in the high end vs the scores of other high end loudspeakers which have a pronounced dip in the top end. So therefore a speaker which is bright is bad but a loudspeaker that has a rolled off top end is not villified or pronunced being bad for sounding dull? Lets remember that a high hat or cymbol crashes, if you reproduce those instruments without having the realisim of what those instruments actually sound like and make them sound unnaturally smooth is that better reproduction? In terms of what benzman and a few others have said, you can add asorpative material, or use components which are warmer to tone down a speaker which is perceived as bright but how can you add detail to a speaker which is rolled off? The sound of the Personas when setup correctly is pretty special are they for everyone don't think so, but when played with the right gear they sound more like a $20k speaker for the $10k 3F and the $35k 9H can easily compete with a $58k pair of Wilsons. We would also question Rivondale's testing methodology who says that is Schitt amplifier is good enough to drive the Personas, what cables were used, what source? There is so much more to setting up a world class sound system then arbittarily trying amp A with speaker B, maybe with his Schitt amplifier a dac or source change might have been required. We would welcome anyone in the area to visit our shop and hear our setups with the Personas. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ |
maplegrovemusic, "Going on a forum that is discussing a speaker I don't like is a waste of time and a disservice to that company products .", but then you post, "The vandersteens sound like a blanket is covering the tweeters." I don't own Vandersteens, but this is the hypocrisy that I'm talking about. Everyone has preferences and it's as simple as that. The Personaa are good speakers, but there are a lot of good speakers. |
I have a pair of Persona 9H’s in my listening room for evaluation having received them Thursday. I have to say I’m really impressed with them, and on just about everything I listen to except classical they sound very very good. The not so slight problem is that 95% of the music I listen to is classical. Re the brightness issue, I’ve attached below a link to the way they measure in room in my space after ARC’ing the built in powered subs. You can see two things here: (1) the slight rise beginning at 4K and continuing up to 10K, and (2) a small suppressed "smile" shape centered at 2K. This is somewhat consistent (although not as pronounced) with Stereophile’s measured response of the 7F the version of this speaker without the powered subs. You will notice in my room however that the tilt up is very slow and is not particularly pronounced. I would be more inclined to say that tilt up is inconsequential in my room IF your goal is flat response in this region. The slight dip centered at 2K is "almost" inconsequential as well. However I think MOST people (me included) are used to listening 3db or more DOWN at 10K, more than 6db down when compared to the Persona 9H. This is easily corrected with a couple of filters in Roon but when I do some very minor corrections in Roon I lose a good bit of the air/coherence/not sure what to call it, presence maybe? So I’m on the fence about whether or not to keep these at the moment and will be auditioning some Magico’s Tuesday to get an idea of the Magico "house" sound as well. The speakers these are replacing are Thiel 2.4’s which are simply awesome but compress at high volumes on large scale orchestral music. The Persona’s DON’T compress at high volumes that’s for sure. I’ve only had them one full day at this point so I’ll be doing some more critical listening over the next few days. The power they bring to orchestral peaks in the low end is astonishing. You’ll also notice the sharp dropoff in response at begins at about 13K. Initially that might look problematic but I don’t think it really is listening-wise...according to this its about 7-8 db down at 20K...again my room is pretty well damped with alot of thick wall to wall carpeting and upholstered furnishings. Here’s the link to the measurement, and a couple of photos of them being moved into my home. https://www.dropbox.com/s/yaphaka7vzc2bmv/inroomParadigm9H.jpeg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/4t9h6pfk4mf7v8m/IMG_2593.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/d00i6maudbymwv8/IMG_1952.JPG?dl=0 |
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