Paradigm persona vs. Monitor audio Platinum

Urbie here is our "final" take on this subject.

You can't expect the same gear for the one gentleman who owned Personas and then switched to Monitors to work equally well for both loudspeakers.

This is especially true with Home Theater gear which tends to not sound anywhere as good for Music then Home Theater, which would make the Personas most likely sound way too sharp.

Unless that person was using a really good Home Theater amp, voice for music the sound could be horrible. 

The Personas are a brighter loudspeaker vs the Monitors which are a duller loudspeaker. If you look at both reviews you will see that Monitors AMT is rolled off in the top vs the Personas which has a rise in the top end.

Therefore if you used brighter electronics on the Monitors to help bring out the top end you would sizzle your ears with the Personas.

The same way that the Personas benefit from warmer electronics and cabling, therefore the warmer matching components that would work with the Personas would make the Monitors totally rolled off and uninspiring. 

This is where pronouncements about brand X being better than brand y fall down, you are demoing a system, the same way that a Ferrari engine transplanted into a Toyota doesn't make the Toyota a Ferrari.

Monitor audio makes a fine loudspeaker so does Paradigm, which you prefer is up to you.

There will always be fans of any particular product the smart guy or gal recognizes their own biases but comes at audio with an open mind and as we mentioned previously just because you hear product X at a dealer doesn't mean that it is setup correctly or with the right gear.

Go listen to the product at many different dealers or ask the dealer to swap a component and or components and see what changes.

As we recanted on another post just changing one board on the dac in a $150k Persona setup made that same system sound like an entirely different one, as all parts of the system must work together in unison. 

You can have the best speakers, electronics and cabling and the wrong source can torpedo the entire system.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona dealers

That's the difference between monitor audio and n paradigm and monitor audio isn't dull to say the least but monitor audio works well with most gear unfortunately the paradigm doesn't that's why I believe the monitor on you is a better speaker cuz it will work extremely well with 95% of the gear out there paradigm won't. And as for gear I told you that I have the simaudio pawa which is regarded as one of the top 5 amps and preamps in the world still even though it's been discontinued. So if paradigm doesn't work with that doesn't say much doesn't because the monitors work extremely well and also pass labs which is again extremely good gear and since I heard the monitor platinum's on pass labs and the paradigm on pass labs and the monitor was far superior what can I say and Jworth tried them both on the same gear he put the monitors into his two-channel system where he had the paradigm so on the same gear the monitor was much better so that kind of shoots your theory down doesn't it?and if you think the monitor sounds dull you should get your hearing checked cuz obviously you like bright forward sound and that's not natural. And if you read the review by Robert Deutsch from stereophile he said that the monitor 200 and 300 were the most lifelike speakers he's heard and that's why he chose the 300 as his new reference.

P8 W8

Urbie,

Another point, just because a reviewer selects a loudspeaker doesn't mean that that loudspeaker is better or worse than anything else.

There a number of factors which determine why a reviewer selects a set of loudspeakers.

The first is of course sound, the second is looks, the third is how compatible is his gear and the synergy which may have favored the Monitors 

The last part is the sneaky one, many companies give reviewers ridiculous deals to purchase gear rather than having to send it back.

We have heard the Monitors at Axpona and do believe CAP and came away less than thrilled at each demo of the Monitors.  Where they bad no they were not,  they sounded decent just not amazing, we also heard Magico and didn't like them either. 

We could easily get the line, the point is you have to first be interested enough to want to bring in a line, and again after hearing them on several occasions they never sounded good enough to warrant bringing in a pair to test.

Again at a show you can''t always get the best demo, however, you can get a good idea of how a product may perform. 

At the last Axpona show the winners that we thought  best sound were Wilson, Golden Ear, Vimberg, we thought the Persona 3F demo was good but disagreed with the choice of cabling and server which would have made them sound even better, the demo with the Persona 3F on a $4,500.00 Anthem integrated amp was not perfect the Persona 3F sounded absolutely amazing for a $10k speaker. gigantic soundstage, the speakers totally disappeared, and the bass was very deep and tight and the improvement with a $6,500.00 sub was somewhat anti-climatic as the 3F has such impressive bass in that demo.

Again a tad bright, which is why we recommend an Innuous sever over the Aurender server, we play them with PCM transcoded to DSD and use warmer cables which add some tone color as the Anthem STR integrated isn't' a particularly warm amplifier.

Urbie you don't sound like a regular consumer you seem to have an axe to grind with Paradigm and an agenda to promote Monitor Audio.

We would be more than happy to bring in the line just have not found a reason to do so.

Dave and Troy
Audio  Doctor NJ 

Actually audio Troy I don't have any axe to grind at all I just go by what I hear. And here's a more telling response. I just talked to a dealer here in Vancouver ayreborne audio video who sells both the paradigm persona and the monitor audio Platinum and I asked him point-blank monitor audio platinum or paradigm persona and he said without even hesitation monitor audio Platinum and then I asked him do you find the paradigm persona bright and forward in the top-end and he said yes and he also said that the monitor are more natural sounding. So there you go that's from a dealer of both. So anybody that has any ears that are tuned to the way instrument sound in real life and the voice sounds in real life will never pick paradigm because they are bright and forward and edgy sounding and anybody that can't hear that I guess their hearing is not so good.