KEF and Paradigm

fast, No I haven't . About the only thing I won't buy from China are speakers. The Canadian Totems do very well on the classical music
I listen to .

I haven't heard the KEFs, but the Paradigm Persona Bs are hands down the best speakers I've ever heard, I imagine the bigger ones are even better.  

For anyone in the Boston area interested in Paradigm,   Q Audio in Cambridge has them on display.... they are impressive and beautifully finished.    I was checking them out last week.  I was auditioning headphones but those Personas caught my eye..... Didnt audition them per se, but they sounded nice and the fit and finish is incredible.

I bought the Kef Reference 1 and am thoroughly enjoying them - using Rotel RAP 1850 AVR.  Almost went with the Paradigm Persona (likely 3).  Now I'm researching which additional power amp to add.  A Kef rep who used to sell B&W (& very familiar with Rotel) mentioned stick with the Rotel power amp.  Millennium System Design (Orlando Kef Authorized dealer), recommended a Parasound A21. MSD also has a Blade 2 to demo and added power is from Parasound JC1 - Sounded so beautiful!!

As in all things I begin....IMHO, KEF was superb before they were bought and manufacturing 
moved to China.....UNI-Q was in my opinion a marketing ploy to to introduce an old new concept...a tweeter upper-mid combo that failed in its attempt to be a two in one thing.
The $5,000.00 ELACs also used the consultation of Andrew Jones who used to be with KEF and incorporated the UNI-Q in its speaker designs.  I have a pair of KEFs 105.3 that also uses a UNI-Q but with two supporting 4" mid-range speakers....the 105.3s were much superior to the ELACs....that was in large part due to the two mid-range speakers supporting the UNI-Q .....the ELACs lacked the supporting mid-range speakers as did later KEFs....sadly.
The UNI-Q simply lacked the very important mid-range presence...
I have for sale on eBay my KEF 105.3s.....
The surprise speaker that sounded better than the 105.3 were POLKs LSi-M5.....my living room is 22'x24'x14'-22'. The POLKs are bi-amped by two Carver's M500t that were totally re-capped and modified to provide a very clean 275 wpc.
I compared the Carver amps to my previous 300 wpc amp and I immediately noticed a
"blackness" in the background  during quieter passages...I have tried to describe what I did
not hear with other adjectives other than "blackness" but in vain.  I have described this to other similarly involved listeners....they seemed to understand the term "blackness of the 
background" so I will stay with that description.....buy a pair LSi-M5 and live with them for 6-7
weeks...Crutchfield allows full credit returns up to 60 days....I have had my POLKs for about
7 months.....my curiosity will eventually emerge and I may look at speakers well above 7k..