Paradigm Persona 5F

I struggle with a previous Kef owner liking the persona's. Being infatuated sure, even awestruck for a couple hours, but there's no comparison in how the speakers are voiced and i'm not saying one is better than the other, just different design goals.

Boy are your observations on target!  Then there’s the electronics, the cables, the room, the furniture, carpet or lack thereof, and so many other variables.  Finally, there’s our individual perceptions.  Ah to have a large room filled with many choices at home!  I guess the Paradigms, fine speakers, are just not for me.  That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to have them in my listening room for 2 weeks!

Unlike you I had the ability to try them with several different components and I bought my pair.

Do you owm the Personas now?  They’re definitely a fine speaker and good looking too. For me, my room and electronics, they just seemed a on the harsh side in the upper end. I finally settled on DALI Epicon 8s. I find them very musical and have been enjoying them for over a year. No regrets!!  But wouldn’t it be awesome to own them all!!!

Dali Epicon 8 speakers look sweet, I've always been interested in Dali. I had the Kef R105/3 with kube and bi amped they could push 114 db, freaking amazing, but I never got used to the missing mid bass hump we hear in most box speakers, also the tweeter lacked contrast compared to some speakers. I have a pair of persona 7f I demoed with 5 different amps over a year before deciding, talk about patience. Now they split time with my DSP8000se in the basement. What I think surprised me most about the persona 7f is how tight and articulate the bass is, They get all the accolades for the Be mid and tweeter I expected after some time to  be let down by the bass, but they still impress. 

There are speaker/amp combinations that fail to impress. I bought a pair of salon 2's after being smitten and after 6 months at home I'd had enough. The gent that bought them off me loved em connected to a pair of mac 601's.