Paradigm Persona series

So I decided to give up on the Persona 9Hs and they're going back.  I do think alot of technology went into this speaker and I think part of the problem might be my room.  They certainly do alot of things right but I just found myself having to do too much to accommodate what I felt were flaws in the speaker and it never sounded quite right on large orchestral music which is the vast bulk of what I listen to.  I'm going with Magnepan 20.7s.

Pwinson, the Maggies have an entirely different set of issues.

The Personas do require the right matching equipment and some care in setup, it is entirely possible that your room and matching gear wasn't right.

We had some trade in Maggie's here and they suffer from a number of different issues:

1: The soundstage is big but very diffusive
2: Image size if too large for smaller ensemble groups and singers the Maggies make the people appear too large
2: Dynamics aren't very good
3: Bass response isn't that tight and deep and matching with subwoofers doesnt eleviate the dynamics issues unless you roll off the bass to the panel.
4: They don't play that loud
5: They are very inefficient.

Get a pair of Kef Blades they are less bright then the Personas and a bit more forgiving, the midrange is spot on for classical, they have fanastic punchy bass, and they play loud.

Ask Brownsf and his threads we tuned for him a set of Ref 5 and he is 99% classical and his system sounds spot on like you are in front of a large orchestra.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Kef, Paradigm Persona dealers

Thanks for the advice but I've had Magnepans before so I'm aware that you give up a little in pin-point imaging and get slightly more diffuse images of individual instruments.  I think the 20.7 and 30.7s are different animals when it comes to bass though.  Its tight and deep.  And I'm surprised that the image localization is frankly very very good.  So the 20.7s and 30.7s are in a different ballpark I believe than previous Magnepans.  They also will play sustained 95 db peaks/brief peaks to 105db, which is as loud as I will ever want them to play, and thats with a Pass 150.8.  I thought I would need to go to the 250.8 but Kent at Pass said he thought the 150.8 would be fine.  On the loudest peaks occasionally I get a needle on the front panel at 12 o'clock on the 150.8 but as Kent explained the amp even them is pretty much loafing along and the amp won't clip until it hits the hard right stop at about 4 o'clock.  I think the Pass is helping with image localization on these speakers and is a good match.  I haven't yet tried the other amp I have on them (the Aesthetix Atlas).  So I'm a happy camper.  

We can understand why you like the Maggies, they are much softer in the midrange, and present a much bigger overall size of image. 

Personally we have been through the panel world with Quads, and Maggies and they never sounded as realistic as the best dynamic loudspeakers to us. 

Do love the Maggie ribbon tweeter. You would have loved the Kef Blades which are very realistic sounding without the upper octave issues that require careful matching with the Personas.

The good thing is the big Maggies do sound wonderful for big orchesteral works. 

Best speakers ever for this kind of music Scaena Line arrays, except they cost $60k.

Good luck with the Maggies Pwinson. 

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ 

I heard the Kef Reference 5s at Dave’s with the tracks above, and I agree they give a very solid large orchestra presentation, and a lovely chamber music image as well.

Partly for reasons of size, they aren’t going in my LR. The Harbeths don’t quite do the scale of the Kefs, but I felt they were a bit more revealing of instrument timbre. I also thought they were better at low volume. And I will have some placement options in my apartment.

I had Maggies years ago. The image unsteadiness frustrated me, not to mention the obvious degradation problems with cats and sunshine.