Paradigm 3f, KEF reference 3, Monitor Audio PL300II

It is ultimately a matter of taste and neither speaker is bad.  But, the Paradigms tend to be a bit more forward compared to the MA,s.  Audiotroy has discussed this extensively in another thread.  

The Personas are great but will pair well with warmer amps like Pass or Conrad Johnson.  Audiotroy has a relevant POV on matching.  The MAs are going to be less forward.  A friend has amazingly good results with Parasound JC-1s.  

if you were to pair the JC-1s with the Paradigms it will lead to a fatiguing system.  CJs with the MA Platinums will be warm, maybe a hair dark.  

the difference is driven by the tweeters and the way the crossovers are designed.  Also, historically my POV is that Paradigm has a forward house sound.  This really shows up in the frequency response curves.  Look at the measurements of the Person3F vs. the MA Platinums.  Sound and Vision and Stereophile respectively.  It is obvious above 10khz the difference in sound profile.  

I am far from obsessed with measurements but in this case what you see is what you get.  Neither is inherently good or bad.  You just need to be aware.  If you are building a system from scratch, no biggie.  If you want to use existing equipment, one speaker may work much better than another.  

  

I agree the monitor audio platinum's are great for long listening sessions and the reason for that is is because they're not harsh bright and in your face and they make everything sound natural like it is in real life which isn't harsh grating or bright.

verdantaudio,

The Audiogon community would benefit greatly if more of us responded with the knowledge and responsibility that you display with your posts. You answered the question by describing differences without degrading either speaker or anyone. I really believe that some members make comments about components that haven't listened to or haven't listened to under the right conditions. High-end speakers are chameleon like and can sound drastically different depending on the room and other components associated with the system. 

ricred1 - Thank you for the kind words.  I am far from perfect in my posts but I do try.  

I also agree with you ricred,but I can only make my opinion from what I hear at the time in the room it was in. The paradigm sound very bright forward and hard sounding.I like a speaker that has a wide deep soundstage very layered sound so you can hear the air between the instruments and very natural sounding which I don't think the paradigm is.