Paradigm Persona series

@nitewulf I need to go with the 3F because my room is small. The 3F is boarding on being a little too big itself but acoustic treatments and ANTHEM STR preamp with ARC3 should save the day. However, most of my listening is at moderate to low levels so I maybe worrying about nothing.

@benzman Interesting take on the Audience cables. I have that for my current system. Maybe I need to move the cables to the bedroom with the current office speakers. Thanks for the heads up, I am going to look into compatible wires later.

Benzeman, great to hear, it is nice to have pro Persona guys on these posts rather than the naysayers who have never heard a set of the Paradigm's setup correctly with the right gear.

As we keep on saying, you have to inject some warmth into the system to get the speakers to sound more enjoyable, they are very clean loudspeakers so a bit of euphonic coloration somewhere in the chain makes them work really well.

Hence our prefered electronics T+A, Krell, Naim all tend to sound rich, the Aqua Digital is rich, and the Light Harmonic Davinci is lush but with good detail. 

When paired with the right gear the little 3F sound more like a $20k set of speakers then a $10k one, put some isoacoustics footers on em and watch em fly!

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Paradigm dealers

Dave, you honestly need to stop with saying folks aren't listening to these in systems not set up properly etc...  That's just a false statement. I have heard these in numerous systems with excellent electronics etc... and that includes YOUR house/store!  They are a bright speaker, but as I've said, many love that.  

There's plenty of room for all, but please stop it already.  They are not easy to match up at all.  Reality and not a knock on them.

ctsooner,
I agree with your post. I’ve listened to Paradigm 7Fs and didn’t care for them, but I can understand why some may love them. I just think it’s silly for Dave to keep repeating how Paradigm’s benefit from the "right" components being connected to them. All speakers benefit from the "right" components being connected to them.

(this is part of a larger post from another thread, but relevant to Paradigm 3F)

I found the resolution and soundstage of the Paradigms to be extraordinary. You can hear the wood of the solo viola, and the movement of cymbals when struck, the voices and locations of individual string instruments (even low strings) in ensemble, clear as a bell. I don't think it's a speaker for big bass, but that's not a huge priority for me. I like the impression of the ensemble or orchestra laid out in front of me, life-size as possible.

My only reservations were a) I don't find them terribly attractive visually, and more importantly, b)possible longer-term listening fatigue.  Doubting my aging ears, I looked up test bench measurements last night. Multiple measured (on-axis) frequency responses of both the 3F (and 5F) are certainly consistent with what I heard, showing a substantial bump from 5-12khz:

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/paradigm-persona-3f-speaker-system-review-test-bench

I listened to them toed in a bit, and if you look around you'll read a bunch of reviewers/users are setting them up facing straight ahead to avoid an overly bright presentation.  Apart from the brightness, I think the Paradigms are *very* stiff competition for the much more expensive Wilson Sabrina.