Paradigm 3f vs 120h

@yyzsantabarbara ,

You have some great source and amp gear that should allow the Personas  to shine.  But given your amplification and smaller room size, with the much more efficient Personas, you may end up playing at lower volume settings than usual.  Not a problem if Krell sounds good at lower vols, but something to be aware of.  

In a 16 x 24 ft room (more similar to OP's room) and an Ayre Acoustics AX-5 TWENTY,  the Persona 3F's have space to open up and yet still can provide plenty of compression. I can get  to a max reasonable volume with the Ayre set at only about 25%.  

Another factor is the Persona's rather wide dispersion profiles for midrange and highs.  Its's uncanny, but my  " sweetspot" ended up being broad and pronounced.

Hope it works out for you and @average_joe .

Blade and persona with my Hegel h360 driving them are quite different in presentation with the soundstage and imaging being much larger thru the blades, but the appeal of the persona's was that pinpoint imaging so both excellent in the way they get it done. The dual 8 1/4 woofers of the persona are maybe the best in the business tho' and now that I've upgraded my hegel to the h590 the blades might be as tight, but I don't have them to compare anymore. The best results with the persona is with them along the long wall and your Krell should be great. If I could undo the deal that got me the blades I wouldn't but that's not a knock on the persona 7f, more like I had the kef R105/3 for 25 years making the blades tone familiar. TBH both speakers probably sound better than i'll ever get out of them.

Thanks for the feedback, very useful.

The Persona 3F will be more detailed than my Thiel CS3.7, which also needs space to breath. I have demoed the 3F, 5F, and the 9H. The 9H was the worst since the dealer had the bass cranked up to 11 on the speaker and the sound was so disjointed. A shame that I never heard the 9H setup properly. The 3F and 5F sounded great in 2 large rooms. However, the gear that was used was not ideally suited for them.

The KRELL does sound great at low volumes. I have been listening at low volume lately late at night since my headphone amp has not arrived yet. I was using the Benchmark LA4 preamp with the KRELL and that may have something to do with the quality since it is also great at low volume.

we sell both the blades and the personna 9hs 

the 3fs plus the paradigm sw 200 sub is a killer combo

the blades throw a bigger soundstage the personnas are cleaner and more holographic the prrsonnas are trickier  to get right as the Beryillium drivers tend to be a biit more forward

both of these are killer reference loudspeakers

Dave and Troy

Audio intellect nj

kef and paradigm dealers

I'm interested in this comparison also, specifically which of the two models would throw a larger soundstage