Paradigm speakers

JSL you can’t be more wrong, "the fact that they have focused their marketing and product development efforts on mass market and mid-fi and ht products."

Paradigm has for years been getting rave reviews on both the Signature series and the Studio series.

We had the Signature S6 as well as the Studio 100, and both were good speakers. the Signatures actually sounded extremely good in their price range especially when driven by real high end electronics.

I would have to agree with you that they were good but were not amazing, they were competitive with the KEF and B&W and other similar products.

Paradigm realized that this series was getting long in the tooth and replaced both the Signature series and the Studios. The Studios were replaced by the Prestige series and the Signatures were replaced by the Persona series.

The Persona series are a dramatic step up from the Signatures, and in fact are the first time Paradigm has moved into the uber speaker class in a direct bid to challange the big players, the WIlsons, Magicos, YG etc

The Persona are full of remarkable technology: The line starts at a $7,000.00 set of bookshelf speakers, a $10,000.00 set of small floorstanders, a $17,000.00 set of larger floorstanders, and a $25,000.00 set of large floorstanders, going up to a $35,000.00 set of flagship floor standing loudspeakers with active bass drivers and on board room correction.

http://persona.paradigm.com/persona/

Paradigm spent $4 million dollars to develop this line, and it shows, from a state of the art custom painting facility, state of the art pure Beryilum drivers for both the tweeter and the midrange, unique long throw bass drivers, a phase aligning lens system.

(This is the only pure 7 inch Beryilum driver currently on the market. )

The top of the line floorstander the 9H uses four, long throw woofers, two which face out, and two which are internal which vent out through a real grill.

The bass drivers are powered by 2 sets of amplifiers, each being 700 watt digital amplifiers, the real kicker is that the speakers utilize the Anthem Room Correction system to flaten bass humps and eliminate valleys with the idea being to create a totally flat in room bass response.

The 9H have alot of really wonderful advantages:

1: They are reasonably sized
2: They play loud
3: They are 96db efficient
4: They have bass down to 19HZ
5: They have self amplified bass with room correction
6: They have pure Beryilum drivers for the midrange and tweeter

This is a fantastic line of speakers and the press is acknowledging it:

http://www.tonepublications.com/

as well as receiving a similar accolade in the Absolute Sound.

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2017-golden-ear-awards-anthony-h-cordesman/

When driven by great electronics these are some of the most transparent and holographic sounding speakers you will ever hear.

We have the 9H, the 3F and the B or bookself models on display in Audio Doctor showroom in NJ.

Dave owner
Audio Doctor NJ

What you should be doing when listening to a set of speakers is to identify what is the sound of the speaker vs what is the sound of the components.

Ideally you will find a set of speakers which work for you and then build around them.

Our philsophy is always start with the speakers, then match the electronics to the speakers, and then match the analog and digital front ends to those components.

You use the cables that will complement all of the components. 

Sometimes you have to experiment by changing to a tube preamp, or changing a digital front end etc.

Dave owner
Audio Doctor

m-db where did you hear the Personas and what were they setup with?

I have sold Avalons in the past, and do find them to sound excellent. I have always had tremendous respect for Avalons, but boy have they gotten pricey for what you are getting these days. 

I am not going to disagree with you that the Personas can sound a bit bright if you don't have them with the right gear. They are definatly tuned to sound neutral, but are definately not recessed, I would say they remind me a tad like the B&W Diamonds but with a more intergrated midrange, and a bit less agreesive top end then the new B&Ws. 

Again, we have one of the best Personas setups in the country and are using some of the best possible gear with them in an acoutically neutral room. 

Your opinion of them might be radically different if you heard our setup.

As I mentioned in some of the previous posts it has taken us years to come up with this system.  The funny thing is what worked with the remarkably high resolution Polymers pure Diamond tweete and midrange, worked splendily with the Personas.

For the record: T+A electronics, Aqua Hif, T+A PDP 3000 or Light Harmonic Davinci MK II, Enklekin cables with Audio Magico power conditioning. 

Dave owner
Audio Doctor NJ

Grpgr4blu,

The Prestige series is a bit bright, so are Rahido, Monitor Audio Platinum Series I, B&W, and many others high performance and high resolution speakers. 

As usual, speakers don't have a sound unto themselves, the sound you get has to do with the entire system, unless you are talking about fully active speakders with built in amps and dac, this is what is called the art of system matching, which is something I am particularly good at.

I am not saying there isn't a house sound, there is, and you can't make a bright speaker sound dull nor can you make a dull speaker sound bright, but you can find matching components that will compliment the things that you like about speaker x and minimize the things that you don't.

Grpgr4blu obviously doesn't know a damm thing about  this, or he wouldn't make sure ridiculous comments, he would know this as a fact.

If you have a speaker system which tends to favor upper octaves over more of a midrange centric system with a downward shelved treble such as a Vandersteen, then you need to add a warmer digital front end or a tube preamp or both along with neutral to wamer sounding cables, have you wondered why so many people talk about the Vandersteen/Ayre combo?

Vandersteens tend to sound warm and a bit rolled off in the top end, Ayre is neutral to a bit dry sounding, therfore, the match elevates both,

Same thing with the current Wilsons and ARC for example. ARC has always been neutral to a tad more forward compared to such tube brands like CJ, and the current Wilsons are less forward then past years with the Focal tweeter, get my point, it is finding a synergistic match of components.

The Personas have superb driver integration more so than the last series where you had a Beryilium tweeter coupled with an aluminum hybrid woofer. 

Dave owner
Audio Doctor NJ

Grgr4blu, we don't push the Prestiges they are very good speakers, actually for $3,000k the 75F and 85F  are very nice speakers, so are the Kef R 700 and 900 in that price range. If you like to rock out these are great speakers. 

The Prestiges are voiced for clean, dynamic sound with tight deep punchy bass, they are not laid back they can sound fanatastic if you match them correctly. 

We actually prefer the Dali Rubicon at $6k and the Legacy Focus Sig at $7,000.00 over the Prestige series. If you like Movies the Prestiges are fantastic. 

The Prestige series is a good value for dollar system which does somethings very well, big soundstage, deep tight bass, and a lot of clarity.

The Personas are a different animal they are a remarkable acchievements and compete with much more expensive market leaders, the Prestiges are not  in that same vain. As good as most of the speakers in that price range, but they have their strengths as well as their weaknesses.

Again you speak without having ever been to my store, and actually working with me. Your observations are based on not liking my salesmenship, if you had ever worked with me you would see how I craft my systems. 

We tend to focus on hybrid systems, great cables, power conditioning, warmer sounding digital, and carefully matching the client's sonic flavors and preferences  to our products hence our large selection in each price range. 

As per break in, play any speakers at moderate volume for 2-4 days, and then play bass heavy music at a big greater volume and the speakers will sound optimum. They will get a bit more refinded and the bass will get even better. 

Dave owner
Audio Doctor NJ