Paradigm Persona series

I still don't understand how you can use a cable to take something away from any speaker and not lose information.  Honest question and it goes for anything.  I am very surprised that if that specific cable needs to be used with the Paradigm in order to tame their high end.  I've never seen them offered at any of their stores I've been to and that's many.  

I listened to the Persona 7F yesterday for about half an hour in a room set up by the company rep. I was extremely disappointed with them. It's hard for me to imagine how a room or pairing of electronics could make a speaker sound that uninteresting, but they were the most uninteresting speakers I've heard in a very long time. I listened to a familiar album. The imaging was there. The bass was there. The details were there. And that's pretty much where they stopped doing their job. The dynamics were completely uninvolving. The tone and timbre, things I generally leave broader leeway for, didn't reflect the reality at all. When I attempted to harmonize with the singer, the difference between my voice and the reproduced voice was stark and very unconvincing. I'd like to think that something was wrong; the electronics or speakers not set up right somehow, a particularly lousy room....  The salesman asked me what I thought of them when I came out. I shook my head. "They're reproducing the music. The details are there, big and small. The soundstage was respectable. But they were thoroughly uninvolving. They had no slam or physicality." He tried to suggest that they were designed much different than the Klipsch LaScala I'd just listened to, and there's no doubt about that! I told him that my Focal at home sounded a LOT more like what I'd heard in that room (pointing to the Klipsch room) than what I just heard in there. I said I realize the tastes of listeners probably vary more than speaker designs do, but those certainly didn't represent excellent listening value to me, next to the Klipsch, or even my modest Focal. 
I tried them loud and soft, and they were commendably free of loss of details at lower volumes which made me think it wasn't so much the room. The shop is selling a brand new pair of 7F's for half off just to get them gone. It's Jamieson's Sound and Vision in Toledo, Ohio if anybody really likes them. They're really nice guys. I walked in and told them I had no intention of actually buying something, but I'd like to listen while my car was getting fixed and they set me up listening to everything I wanted to hear. 

Kost 

It all depends on setup. Just because the "factory rep" set them up doesn't mean a lot.  

The rep may or may not know the store's gear, and may have setup a system that may or may not have worked for the speakers or for your tastes for any number of reasons. 

Then you have the other variables which is the room's  acoustics and the collection of gear that they have to work with. 

The Persona are incredible speakers if you set them up correctly, one of the most important issues is system tuning. The Personas have a very neutral tonal balance, therefore, they tend to need warmer electronics to not sound sterile.

So perhaps the Personas you heard you might have really liked setup totally differently or perhaps not. 

We have found that the Personas  respond very favorably with Isoacoustics Gaia footers, add some of the Furutech NCF boosters to your system and  just by adding those two items your tonal balance will be a bit on the fuller side.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Dude... Ain't no footers in the universe that could fix what I heard. Unless the amp was malfunctioning to the extreme, it wasn't that either. It was a big SS amp that they also powered their big B&W's with. It was their biggest, best treated room, the same room other speakers I've heard sound great in. My listening spaces tend to he far less than ideal but I've never heard a room make speakers sound that lifeless and uninteresting. I've never heard an amp make speakers sound that bad unless somebody was deliberately trying to horribly mismatch them. And the fact the shop was ready to shove them out the door for half price and there still not gone makes me think they can't be made to sound good. Why would anybody slash half off the price before they moved some gear around? That just doesn't make sense. This place has stacks of Mc everywhere you turn. 

Many of us are in the Most camp.  You can't fix broken, but many chase their tails trying. I'm making a point and not saying that the speakers are broken.  Not by any means. Many folks value what they do.  Many of us have the same issues of coherency and being too bright.  This is why they are successful.  

I've heard the same speaker(9H) in multiple sets ups, with top gear of different companies of both SS and tube and come away with the same issues for my ears.  I'm blessed that I have friends I can go to stores with or I'd never physically be able to, but I do when I feel up to it.  

If you need such specific details to make something listenable, then the basic concept it broken IMHO.  I've heard Rockport Lyra's in a few systems over the last year.  totally different size rooms. One was a poor set up and another had way too many things going on.  The cabling was inexpensive to uber expensive.  One had a great reel set up (oh man....just oh man) and one was vinyl.  One had vinyl, digital and a rebuilt Studer Revox.  That was a holy cow system.   

The bottom line is that the speakers had the exact same basic sound.  The base sound was outstanding in so many ways and the differences went from there.  I agree that most dealers show rooms are not the best sounding.  many reasons for this and some dedicated rooms have too much dampening as they are trying to sell the stuff, lol.  I have a local high end dealer who has a terrible 50hz vibration and it hurts the sound terribly, but his Wilson Alexa mk2's sound like any other Alexa I've heard in other's homes or stores.  

Many folks love the Paradigm's, but honestly, they are one of the most polarizing speakers on the market.  The threads on any board point that out and I even own a pair of older Paradigm's, lol.