Cmsgolf your loss, we have plenty of clients who love us.
As per another dealer, lets face the reality, many of the stores that sell high end loudspeakers have poor setups either they don’t have a good sound room or they lack the kinds of gear that would be used with this level of loudspeaker for whatever reason they are not investing in the rest of the gear to really demonstrate these speakers correctly up to their full potential.
How do we know, we visit other dealers a lot of them, we heard the Personas in a two Massachusettes dealers, one was a decent high end shop who was playing on his best amp at the time which was a $3k Musical Fidelity integrated with $500 worth of cabling, this dealer sells mostly midfi systems.
The other dealer is a major on line dealer who has one cramped high end sound room with the speakers all crammed in the back wall of a way too small room their setup was a $2k Parasound amplifier on a NAD Masters preamp dac a $4k preamp, not exactly what you would expect fronting $35k loudspeakers.
There are some really good Paradigm dealers and many not so good ones we have seen the same issues with B&W, and KEF dealerships as well, they postion there products with dealers that can move a lot of product not necessarily the ones that have the commitment to really showcasing expensive loudspeakers correctly.
Again we went to this dealers website the setup was not up to snuff for a $35k loudspeaker, that is not our fault that is the dealers.
Unless their current setup is very different from their website photos you have the 9H and the 5F parked right aside each other in a room with a large cabinet in the middle, no room treatment is visible.
Were they using power conditoning, what was the quality of their cables? etc.
We play the Personas with all the right kinds of gear and setup methodology, we do not have another set of speakers right next to the Pesonas, we do have a single narrow audio rack it is from Critical Mass so it is designed to absorb energy from the components and it is open on all surfaces, we use high end cabling, we use high end power conditioning, we use very high end electronics which are even better than the Anthem electronics, from Krell, and T+A, Electrcompaniet, Conrad Johnson, we use suitable high end digital a Baetis reference server with an Aqua Hifi dac or a Lumin streamer. etc.
Our open invitation has been taken up by people from Maryland as well as a gentleman from the Midwest who wanted to auditon the Kef Blades, Kef Rerence 5s, the Personas and the Legacys.
If the OP was to visit us and visit all the New York dealers he could in one trip could hear almost every major electronics and speaker manufacuturers in a weekend that is what being in a major metropolitian area gets you.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
