I also owned the salon 2 and several other speakers in their price group. The persona 7f and usher be20dmd at the same time and being able to rotate speakers at will and listen as long as wanted I was able to hear specifically to what they did different from each other. I didn't have the same luxury with components and used a Hegel H360 with all 3 speakers. The salon 2 with an 82 db sensitivity was significantly harder to drive so possibly why they sounded so lifeless compared with the other two, Yes matching with a db meter the salon 2 was still dynamically restricted compared to the others, but a more powerful amp might have helped. The Persona 7f are excellent, but have to be 3-5' away from any reflective surfaces, they can change their stripes like no speaker i've ever heard. They can soundstage like a pair of mini monitors or large floorstanders just by changing placement. The 2x8" woofers are actually 8.25 inside the basket and can really push some air. Ushers had my favorite presentation regarding soundstage, imaging and tonal balance, but bass was too fat for my room and the speakers were to physically large to get away from boundary reinforcement.
I found that all 3 speakers while different still had comparable quality with similar resolution ability and after owning all 3 at the same time I can't say 1 is better than the other. All 3 meet the bar of diminishing returns with excellent resolution and the deciding points after taste are room acoustics and components.
I landed on a different speaker entirely, but still couldn't help but add my .02.