Paradigm Persona series

Chain was Luxman DA-250 DAC into my Schiit Audio Ragnarok integrated amp. Ragnarok is neutral and resolving, so what you’re saying makes sense. What I thought was strange is that I hated the Persona sound, yet use Focal Utopia headphones on the same amp (also a very resolving beryllium design) without the same issues.

The Persona was also my least favorite speaker out of the handful I demoed at a local dealer a few weeks ago: Spendor D7, KEF R11, Klipsch Forte III, KEF LS50, and my favorite by a mile the Aerial Acoustics 6T. Paradigm were detailed, but so uninvolving and bright that I just wanted to keep turning the volume down. Maybe one could live with them if all they listen to is audiophile garbage music that is recorded well.

I agree with the audition advice. But these speakers measure with a large peak at 10 kHz and another one even higher. See: https://www.stereophile.com/images/918ParaP5Ffig4.jpg.

Buyer beware. :)

@audiotroy

If you’re going to keep addressing me and implying I have some hidden agenda, the least you could do is spell my username correctly.

I don’t have an agenda. I simply shared my experiences with the Persona 3F speakers as compared to a number of others I listened to, in the same room, in the same location on the floor, on the same day, on my amp, with the same music, with no other variables.

You stated above: "[A] speaker with . . . a high frequency peak will sound brighter." Correct. That’s exactly what I said. This speaker has a peak at 10 kHz, and a depression in the mids, which makes it sound brighter. People should know that going in. It doesn’t mean that some won’t like that response, but I and many others in this thread certainly did not. I did not say anything about flat responses generally, nor do I believe that measurements are the only thing to consider. But measurements do tell an important part of the story.

What is YOUR agenda?

According to your last post, the Persona 3F are amazing speakers, but only after one has spent $4,000 on a new T+A DAC, thousands of dollars on a new power conditioner and power cables, and thousands of dollars on new Wireworld Silver Eclipse speaker cables and interconnects. Oh, and let’s not forget $13,000 on new Naim electronics to drive them.

What I find interesting in your post about the customer’s in-home setup is the complete lack of discussion about speaker and listening positioning, the room itself, and acoustic treatments / furniture therein, all of which affect perceived sound quality much more than ~$25,000 worth of electronics and cables.

One must only look in your signature line to see your agenda: "Audio Doctor NJ Persona [did you mean Paradigm?] and Naim dealers." Nice sales pitch. I (and I assume many others) will continue to treat your posts with the huge grain of salt they deserve. All the best.

Also our main demo room is 26 by 20 with 10 foot ceiling, don’t think your dealer has a single room of that size.

They do. Don’t make assumptions and take underhanded jabs at other dealers. Everyone that works there is also a much less annoying human being.

Our demo room with the 9H uses echo buster panels on the walls behind the speakers, shakti hollographs, acoustic system resonators, stein harmonizers, a critical mass rack and center stage footers, Furutech NCF boosters, Audio magic power conditioning, Enklekin cabling and T+A electronics with a Light Harmonic Davinci Dac being fed by a $15k Baetis server.

Our approach is to use room tuning products, cabling, power conditioners and source components to bring out the qualities we want and amelerorate the qualties we don’t. There is an art to tunning.

Another garbage post. So now to achieve true reference levels with the Persona series one must use a series of complex resonators, footers, room harmonizers and other nonsense.

Some of us prefer to buy speakers that sound good-to-great in regular rooms with decent electronics and setup, with the potential to sound great-to-amazing in a proper room with better electronics and setup. Every one of your posts about the Persona series is always qualified with the "tweaks" required to make them sound even decent, much less amazing. That is not inconsistent with what those of us that don’t like them are saying: that the speaker is inherently flawed and there are better options available. One should not have to go through such great lengths with a pair of speakers that costs $10,000+. But because you have skin in the game, you’re willing to take these ridiculous lengths to defend them on the internet. We get it.

I’m tired of the arrogance in your posts. No matter the topic or thread you post in, there is always the sense that you think (1) you know more than everyone else and/or (2) that others do not hear the things that they hear. If your goal by posting on these forums is to generate sales, in my opinion you have failed miserably. You’ll never see a cent of my money, even I loved Paradigm speakers.

If moderators are going to delete posts, it would be helpful to know why. 

@yyzsantabarbara Yes. Nothing I said above is inconsistent with that statement, which I agree with.

All I’m saying is that one may subjectively like or even love the speaker or want to buy it to fill their need to tune and tweak, but it still measures objectively bright (see Stereophile measurements for one) and sounds subjectively bright (as confirmed by a multitude of Audiogon users) as well. That brightness is not recording-specific, but rather applies to all recordings because it is inherent in the speaker. It is a disservice to those that haven’t heard the speaker to imply otherwise.

Now that’s not my personal taste, hence I also expressed my opinions above.

That’s a cop out. The speaker is bright. Demoing Paradigm Persona 3F and Focal Kanta No. 2, at different shops, with the same recordings, they both sound bright/harsh and uninvolving, despite the great resolution. The Paradigms were on my amp (Schiit Ragnarok). The Focals were on both McIntosh and Naim electronics (tried them two different days).

Both speakers made good recordings sound bright/OK. They both made average recordings sound horrible, and bad recordings make me want to gouge my ears out. Unfortunately, most good music isn’t recorded super well. Both speakers were also unlistenable at higher or even moderate volumes. 80 dB on my Decibel iPhone app was painful and down went the volume again.

Contrast that with the Revel F228be at the same dealer as the Focal, and they were at least listenable. None of the above speakers conveyed the emotion of the music.

Contrasting all of those with Aerial Acoustics 6T, it was no contest. Much more bass (despite the smaller bass woofer size). Made great recordings sound awesome and poor recordings sound great. You could crank them up without wincing. I was listening at 85 dB (measured with my same app mentioned above) without even realizing it. And most of all, the Aerials conveyed the emotion of the music and brought tears to my eyes. On the same songs I had been demoing with all speakers and was very sick of at the time.

One should not HAVE to tweak footers, cables and electronics in order to make a speaker listenable. One should be rewarded with additional marginal gains if they do so. The Paradigm fall in the former camp. They are inherently flawed, and folks should know that going in.

If you were referring to me, I should clarify that I do not own any of the speakers I listed above. Those were just some demoed over a couple weeks. I mentioned the ones above because they all use beryllium, and I wonder if that is one of the reasons why impressions were pretty consistent for me across Paradigm Persona 3F and Focal Kanta. In addition to the above, I demoed Spendor D7, KEF LS50 / R11, Klipsch Forte III, and Focal Aria 948.

I was very interested in the Personas before I actually heard them. But they turned out to be one of my least favorite.

We would also question Rivondale's testing methodology who says that is Schitt amplifier is good enough to drive the Personas, what cables were used, what source? There is so much more to setting up a world class sound system then arbittarily trying amp A with speaker B, maybe with his Schitt amplifier a dac or source change might have been required.

@audiotroy 

Source: Bluesound Node 2 streaming Tidal CD quality into Luxman DA-06, via optical cable.

Cables: Audioquest "Storm" series copper power cables, Audioquest biwire beefy copper speaker cables (newer line, maybe Oak? didn't see) and Audioquest XLR interconnects. The XLR were red and newer line, so maybe Fire.

The speakers I listed were placed in the same position on the floor (tape on the carpet), and played on the exact same system outlined above, roughly volume matched using my iPhone dB measurement app. The ONLY variable was the speakers. So yes, while the setup itself may not have been optimized for the Persona 3F, that is irrelevant because I was comparing all the speakers I listened to with each other, with all else being equal. In other words, a controlled experiment.

Rivondale sounds like one of those guys who have never played with power cables or footers or tuning accessories which can alter the sound in ways that can be very beneficial in bringing out the things you are trying to accheive.

Again, incorrect. Stop making assumptions. I've tested multiple brands and materials of interconnects, speaker cables and power cables on my home system. Even this weekend I went back to the same dealer to listen to Aerial Acoustics speakers, which I adored the previous visit (described above), and found them much less to my liking. I assume this is because the Bluesound Node was plugged directly into my integrated amp this time via Nordost Heimdall 2 RCAs (no outboard DAC) and the speaker cables were smaller gauge silver cables instead of the beefy copper biwire speaker cables I used last time.

I've never said that one should not or cannot optimize their system around a particular component. I simply said that the Paradigm speakers are inherently flawed because of their tilted frequency response up top and they subjectively bright compared to other speakers on the exact same system. 

Could you please compare the sound of the Paradigm Persona 3/5F to the Legacy Audio Focus SE on the same equipment? The latter is a speaker I'm very interested in and would be curious to hear your thoughts as I've only heard the former. Know you've mentioned the brand elsewhere in the thread.