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Paradigm Persona the right source matters!


As one of the top Paradigm Personas dealers, we have been following with some hilarity a particular poster who is going on all the Paradigm Personas threads and wiillfully lambasting the speakers in the pursuit of making his speaker choice the superior performer.

After reading his posts a few points we would like to point out:

Every loudspeaker in this industry is not perfect.

Although speaker X may do certain things like much more expensive loudspeakers it all comes down to personal taste and what you value over other qualites, imaging, tonality, bass response, etc.

Just because a "dealer" or rep has setup a system doesn’t mean that that is a good setup.

Many dealers don’t have the right matching gear, correctly sized sound room or experience with the product to make a great sounding setup.


Some background, Audio Doctor our compnay was founded by me, a man with over 30 years of professional audio sales and design experience. In the trenches for 30 years you get to hear a lot of different gear and play with many combinations of prodoucts you learn a lot about system matching, your also learn a lot by working at two ot the largest and most prolific high end dealers in NYC.

Our approach is to start with the loudspeakers, then find matching electronics, and cabing and then use the choice of digital or analog components flavor the sound to create the overall result.

Our reference Persona setup is one of the best in the country, a blending of T+A electronics, Enkelin Cables, Audio Magic power conditioning, room tunning and system tunning, Critical Mass rack and footers, NCF boosters, etc.

With the right source this system has been magical and with the wrong source good but not inspiring or when thing s were really off just plain bad.

We have had a love hate relationship with Aqua Hifi, we love the overall sound, and the 100% modularity, except that the Formula XHD had a lot going for it, huge soundstage, good depth, good overall resolution but had a bit of an opaque quality to it in the upper midrange that precluded the dac from being to our ears the right match to this lofty system.

Then we heard about the new analog board that is supposed to transform the Aqua. We ordered the board which looked identical to the previous board, so we were initially concerned. Then after firing up the dac, wow that sounds different the new Formula now went from being recesssed to being much more forward, after a few days of playing the dac now sounded spectacular and digital started really giving analog a run for its money.

The point of this story is many times audiophiles throw the baby out with the bath water. sometimes, just changing your dac, transport, cables, adding power conditioning, repositioning, footers etc can totally transform a system.

We went from a really expensive system that wasn’t making magic to one that was just by chaning a board in the dac and again just by looking at the board there was no apparent differences, so many people might have been skeptical

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona and Aqua dealers

audiotroy

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ricwa
23 posts
 
I have the Persona B speakers and with the right equipment, they’re magic.  The Pass XA-25 is sublime with the Personas, as is the Dennis Had 2A3 (7 watts with JJ2a3-40) and VT-80SE.  As far as preamps, the LTA MZ3 is my favorite, followed closely by the Don Sachs. Clarity approaches that of Lowthers but without any harshness or fatigue.
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trudat
60 posts
 
So bright speakers need a smooth source and electronics.  Got it.

You are on of the best alchemists of magical source and speaker matching in the country.  Got it.

You find it more important to be right than sell, got it.

Thank you for clarifying.  As for the other threads started by that individual. Regardless of my feelings about those speakers, I would hope no one is taking his threads seriously.  
kenjit
1,771 posts
 
Our approach is to start with the loudspeakers, then find matching electronics, and cabing and then use the choice of digital or analog components flavor the sound to create the overall result.
Which is the wrong approach. Your approach is no different than every other dealers approach and thats why most audiophiles and dealers have no clue what good sound is. If you look at professioal mastering or recording studios, where good sound is really important you will find that a large amount of effort goes into the design of the room rather than the cables or electronics. Whereas audiophiles will shove their systems in a spare room and think they are hearing high end sound.

yyzsantabarbara
4,829 posts
 
@trudat I am actually taking these Persona threads seriously since I am looking to get a DAC to pair well with the 3F or 9H.  My local dealers are not well versed in the Persona compared to other speakers they carry. So these discussions by a Persona dealer and the educated feedback from Persona owners world-wide is one of the most valuable audio resources for me.

BTW - 25 years ago when I was not aware of the sonic characteristics of various gear (not an audiophile) I paired my first speaker, a NHT 2.5i with a Bryston amp. Not a good combo and if I had done some edumacation on A'gon I would have saved the $$$ and listener fatigue.

@ricwa I am going with the Luxman m900u amp, Benchmark LA4 preamp (a little concerned about this choice but will do a 30 day home trial), DAC (not sure) with the Persona. Are you using a DAC?

The Pass 250 integrated was one I was considering before the Luxman. Never got to test with Pass even though the store had both Luxman and Pass. The amp store did not carry Persona so I demoed with TAD.
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