Paradigm Persona series

Thanks for all the feedback everyone. I have heard enough about the overall tilted up balance on the Personas to discern that particular problem might be something that has to be dealt with by Paradigm. Those references are literally everywhere. I think I’ve now removed them from consideration for various reasons...that might change if I get an opportunity to hear them but I’m not going to seek out that opportunity. Rockports are particularly interesting to me, as are the Revel Salon 2 and Studio 2, the revels as possibly a good shot at the best compromises made with regard to design and technology. I love the technology and care that goes into the manufacturing of the Rockports. Again, I’m pretty early in this game ... just trying to zero in on speakers I want to seek out for opportunities to audition. One thing that appeals to me about the Revels is that they are everywhere used at reasonable prices...I don’t think that necessarily means people trade out of Revels but rather that they are simply made and purchased in greater volumes than many others. Open to other comments re Rockport and Revels (and anything else you might want to add). The one thing I perhaps didn't make clear is that I still LOVE the micro (and macro) detail the Thiels provide but I moved into a larger house and a larger listening room 2 years ago and I'd like something that can be driven a bit louder than the Thiel 2.4s.  Pass on the power amp side and an Aesthetix Janus for the preamp.  Thanks to all.

By way of an update, I had an opportunity to audition the Paradigm Persona 9H at some length at an Atlanta dealer recently. They did not sound bright to me in that audition driven by an Anthem SR series power amp and pre amp. I have to say I was impressed with them in listening to a a shortlist of tracks that I take with me on a thumb drive. I need to go back after they really have them dialed into the room properly and take another long listen and to take some in room measurements using REW. I did not listen to speakers further down the food chain in this series although they did have the 5F on display. If its the 9H or nothing the problem is the price of a pair, not a problem per se but if I decide to spend that much that means there are other things in the running which I’ll have to travel to another city (perhaps Chicago) to audition. AND Vandersteen is coming out with a new model to replace the 5A sometime this year which could also be a contender.  I'm in no hurry to make a decision.  The Atlanta dealer offered me a discount on his demo pair of 9H's but it was only 10% so there was no real incentive to deal on those.  I've come to expect 10-15% off when I place an order on a new item so a demo unit should be much more deeply discounted than 10%.  And at these prices, Magico (S3, S5) and Rockport Technologies are two lines I'm anxious to hear.

The Persona 9H demo pair is being offered at a significant discount now.  I'll be going back and auditioning it again after they tweek that setup and run ARC on the low-end.  I wish I could bring my electronics to the store but frankly the Pass power amp is a monstrous thing to move.  The Pass brings some real magic to my existing Thiel 2.4's and I imagine would work quite well with the Personas.  I believe the dealer will continue to use the Anthem STR preamp and poweramp.  I'll report my impressions of the second listening session later in the week.

Look what arrived at my house today.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4t9h6pfk4mf7v8m/IMG_2593.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d00i6maudbymwv8/IMG_1952.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/qed8aizmaynlz69/IMG_4006.JPG?dl=0

I have a pair of Persona 9H’s in my listening room for evaluation having received them Thursday. I have to say I’m really impressed with them, and on just about everything I listen to except classical they sound very very good. The not so slight problem is that 95% of the music I listen to is classical. Re the brightness issue, I’ve attached below a link to the way they measure in room in my space after ARC’ing the built in powered subs. You can see two things here: (1) the slight rise beginning at 4K and continuing up to 10K, and (2) a small suppressed "smile" shape centered at 2K. This is somewhat consistent (although not as pronounced) with Stereophile’s measured response of the 7F the version of this speaker without the powered subs. You will notice in my room however that the tilt up is very slow and is not particularly pronounced. I would be more inclined to say that tilt up is inconsequential in my room IF your goal is flat response in this region. The slight dip centered at 2K is "almost" inconsequential as well. However I think MOST people (me included) are used to listening 3db or more DOWN at 10K, more than 6db down when compared to the Persona 9H. This is easily corrected with a couple of filters in Roon but when I do some very minor corrections in Roon I lose a good bit of the air/coherence/not sure what to call it, presence maybe?  So I’m on the fence about whether or not to keep these at the moment and will be auditioning some Magico’s Tuesday to get an idea of the Magico "house" sound as well. The speakers these are replacing are Thiel 2.4’s which are simply awesome but compress at high volumes on large scale orchestral music. The Persona’s DON’T compress at high volumes that’s for sure. I’ve only had them one full day at this point so I’ll be doing some more critical listening over the next few days. The power they bring to orchestral peaks in the low end is astonishing.  You’ll also notice the sharp dropoff in response at begins at about 13K. Initially that might look problematic but I don’t think it really is listening-wise...according to this its about 7-8 db down at 20K...again my room is pretty well damped with alot of thick wall to wall carpeting and upholstered furnishings. Here’s the link to the measurement, and a couple of photos of them being moved into my home.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yaphaka7vzc2bmv/inroomParadigm9H.jpeg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4t9h6pfk4mf7v8m/IMG_2593.JPG?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/d00i6maudbymwv8/IMG_1952.JPG?dl=0

Thanks @yyzsantabarbara.  I have a friend who also liked the Blade 2 but I don't have a dealer locally who can demo it.  Have you listened to the Magico's?  They also I think meet our preferences as well as far as being very incisive, quick and detailed.  There is a dealer here in Atlanta but he only has the S1's (nonstarter...no bottom end whatsoever) and as of last Friday the A3s.  I'll be hearing the A3's once they have them properly setup hopefully Tuesday.  I'd really like to hear the S3 and S5 but I may have to go out of town to do that.  There is some urgency right now as to whether the Paradigm will be the one or be ruled out (they have a 20% off manufacturer's sale going on right now and that plus the dealer discount is significant).

@yyzsantabarbara  Thanks again for all this info.  I would love to audition the Vivid line but alas again I have to travel from Atlanta to another major city to find those.  I heard the A3 a few days ago but it was in a tiny room, poorly setup.  They're moving those speakers into a large room.  They do have good electronics on everything they sell, primarily VAC tube gear.  After listening this morning I've played with placement a little bit but I'm finding the Persona's produce a more diffuse sound field, less localization and large images of individual instruments than the Thiels.  Part of that may be my room...I'm convinced that a very large rectangular room, placement of large floor standers on the long side, well well away from side walls and 3-4 feet from the back wall is the ideal positioning for imaging/soundstaging.  The most incredible depth and image localization I've heard anywhere -- don't laugh -- is on a system using JBL M2 monitors powered by huge Crown industrial digital amps which are kept in another room.  I rolled my eyes when I first saw this system but the imaging and depth of individual instruments in the soundfield and the localization of properly sized (small) images of individual instruments just blows everything else out of the water that I've heard.  Not sure how much of this friend's success is due to his large rectangular room with high ceilings but its really astonishing.  I don't have the desire to go that route, but it is what it is.  It was amazing.  And over the 30 some odd years I've been in this hobby I've had my own assortment of high end electronics and speakers (Sound Labs(!), Martin Logans, Thiels, Magnepans, Audio Research power, preamps, dacs, etc.  Of course we're talking about several decades there.  It may sound like I change speakers every minute but I don't really.  Just looking for that last "best" speaker I can find.

I know what the dealer cost is.  Nobody is going to go to $20K.

OK, I’ve now tried to put into words my reaction to this speaker having lived with it in my own space for four days. Its a bit lengthy. I’ve measured the speaker in-room from here to kingdom come numerous different ways with pink noise and frequency sweeps and think I now have a good idea of how it sounds in MY ROOM. Your mileage may vary. I’ve put all my remarks in a pdf here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7j9fg6ladl2ttjw/Paradigm9hReview.pdf?dl=0

@frozentunda. I guess I’ve not decided unless and until I decide to buy something else but its obviously not a slam dunk. I hope this speaker purchase is my last before I'm put in my own fitted crate and sunk in the ground.  I’m not sure I’m ready to make any purchase this week, at least not until I hear some other options I know are out there.  But i’m somewhat limited because here in Atlanta despite the fact that its a city of some 7 million there just aren’t alot of high end dealers around. I’ve heard the Vandersteens but the only one’s I can afford that are in production are the Quattros which I like (powered subwoofer like the Paradigms) and although I think they are probably capable of more subtlety than the Paradigms they also seem to me to compress at higher volumes on full orchestral swells. You couldn’t make the Paradigms compress if your life depended on it.  In a way it may be the most accurate of them all if accuracy is what you really want but it just sounds a smidge more electronic to me on classical music whereas the Thiels don't.  I start to wonder if that's what all the time coherent first order cross over stuff is all about. I do have some limited qualms about the upper frequency range emphasis on the Paradigms but that's faded into a kind of minor point.  If you lessen the toe-in on the Paradigms you mitigate the very slightly hot top end. Going back to the Vandersteens, the 5a’s are out of production soon to be replaced by a $40K/pair speaker called something like "Quinto" while the 7’s require another $20K on top of that. The 5a would have been a likely contender but it started out its life as a $10K speaker that magically became a $35K speaker before they decided to discontinue it.  I just totally don’t understand Vandersteen's price increases over the past 5-8 years because while its evolved and been perfected somewhat with the carbon drivers there seemed to me to be no reason why the cost more than tripled.   With the Paradigms, remembering that I listen to mostly classical music, when I switch back my Thiel 2.4s, even though they sound muddy in the lower midrange compared to the Paradigm, individual instruments in quieter portions of the music sound just more natural on the Thiels and a tiny bit electronic on the Paradigms.  But truthfully I’m still trying to make sense of it all.  Clear as mud right?  It may be a case of having listened to and heard certain colorations in the Thiels for so long I can’t appreciate the relative accuracy of the Paradigms. The Paradigms are incredibly highly resolving. But whats the point of total clinical accuracy if it robs you of some of the emotional engagement you would otherwise have with the music on something like the Thiels. Of course some folks have said over the years that the Thiels sound "clinical" to them and there have been times when I thought the Paradigms in some way DID sound a bit like the Thiels. There’s still something that the Thiels (and Vandersteens for that matter) do right on classical music that I fear the Paradigms don't.  So I guess to answer your question I feel I’m pretty lucky to hopefully spend another day or two to get the sound of the Paradigms burned into my memory because I really do believe its a great speaker.  I really admire the speaker and the bass is just great not just because it goes so low but because it is so tuneful and so full of texture and while the midrange and tweeter are extremely revealing there is just some thing there that bothers me a little bit.  If I could play it for you and point it out and then switch in the Thiels I think you would hear it as well. I will get a taste of the character or house sound of the Magico lineup tomorrow via the A3...I would really like to hear the S3s and S5s but this dealer doesn’t have them in stock and truthfully the dealer seems more interested in selling Von Schweikert than Magico. There’s also aways the possibility of picking up a pair of Thiel 3.7s on the used market particularly since new driver replacement and service remain available on Thiels given the kind of cult following Thiels have and the couple of businesses that have popped up to service that following. Another thing the Paradigm has going for it by the way is that I confirmed with the company that virtually all parts of that speaker are field replaceable if service is ever needed...drivers, amplifier module etc. The only Magico that you can say that about is the A3. All the other Magicos have to be shipped via freight all the way back to California. The Thiel 2.4s which I bought new here in Atlanta 10 years ago were only $5K which was alot of cash for me at the time but this decision is going to be alot harder to make and I want it to be right.

@yyzsantabarbara What kind of music do you listen to?  Classical, jazz? pop?

Those of you who have paired SET electronics with the 9H, is tube rush an issue for you?  The reason I'm asking is that oddly there was NO audible tube rush when running my Aesthetix Janus or my Aesthetix Calypso (yes I have both) yet with the 9H, there is very audible tube rush at about 3 feet away from the speaker or closer.  To be frank it doesn't really bother me but its is very curious to me that when I switch in the Thiel 2.4's theres NO audible tube rush.  Any thoughts?

With regard to the idea of an isolation platform I would also just point out that I'm not sure it would be desirable to raise the height of the speaker.  At my seated position my ears about 3'6" from the floor whereas the Paradigm tweeter is already significantly higher than that at about 4"1" above floor level.  That's not a problem due to the tweeter's dispersion characteristics but I'm not sure you really want to raise the level of those drivers any higher.

I agree on the high resolution at lower volumes in addition to moderate volume levels and the holographic sound stage but I did find that the latter was a little problematic to achieve.  My experience was that only a very small of toe in provides the necessary separation but when you get it right you do get very good image localization but its tricky.  I have my own theory about it but I imagine it involves the dispersion characteristics of the speaker and I'm also wondering if that's what's troubling me a tiny bit.  I also think it would be less of a problem the farther you can get these speakers away from side wall reflections.  They might sound best along a long wall in a LARGE rectangular room, with only slight toe-in....my suspicion is that's what would make them really sing.  I do have a wierd room, not that it's small but its got an elevator shaft coming up into the room offset from the side wall (with a stairwell between the elevator and that side of the house).  You guys that have them that love them, whats your experience in dialing them in...distance ratios between speakers and then speaker to listening position, how much toe-in, etc?  What did you find works for you?

@contuzzi, Classical music has alot of metallic shrill sustained high frequency information particularly during loud complex orchestral crescendos that I don’t find present to the same degree in the tiny bit of jazz I listen to. Those are the only two "types" of music I listen to. Those instruments in classical music actually should sound shrill normally but when the speakers overemphasize that part of the frequency spectrum it becomes a problem with that music. I don’t notice it that much with other music I listen to, i.e. various types of jazz but jazz makes maybe 10% of what listen to, and classical 90%. With regard to my "positioning ability" I did and do find them a bit tricky and requiring nowhere near Paradigm's recommended toe-in in my room to get good focus on individual instruments and voices. I would guess less toe-in also helps mitigate the brightness.  When I run the ARC room correction on these speakers I also set the high pass filter at the 350 hz setting and increase the overall level of the bass 1.5db and that helps warm them up a little bit. There’s no question that the speakers in my space are incredibly holographic. Still there’s an aspect of the sound on classical that I would say is more clinical than romantic/involving. And can we give ad hominem criticism a rest folks and just talk about our experience with the speakers? Your experience may be different than mine...that’s not only fine, it’s why I started the thread.

Can anyone expound a bit on what the "vibration-cancelling" rear bass drivers are doing beside working for an inert cabinet which doesn't resonate and color the sound?  Is that all they're doing?

@audiotroy Thanks.  Since that rear wave is out of phase with forward facing wave (am I correct on that?), I did wonder whether that rear wave is cancelling out bass waves that make their way to the rear of the cabinet creating a cardioid dispersion characteristic which you see some manufacturer's attempting.  Could that be at work also?  Paradigm oddly doesn't say much about it other than describing the rear drivers as "vibration cancelling."

@contuzzi  Really just about any large scale orchestral music recorded on BIS with large amount of brass.  The brass should be shrill but not so shrill that they no longer sound natural....since I'm in a concert hall at least twice a month with a real symphony orchestra playing standard repertoire I know what live performance sounds like (to me anyway YMMV), and although there's a definite shrill sheen to brass that borders on a speaker that pumps up that level by 4-5 db is going to make those peaks sound TOO metallic and too etched.  I DO believe the Personas do that because its what I hear but using only about 5-10 degrees of toe in does help mitigate it somewhat.  Still when it happens it doesn't sound "right" to me because it doesn't sound like the brass sound live in a concert hall.

Enjoying the 9Hs today doing some experimenting with different amps. Specifically the Prima Luna Duologue Integrated which I find too muddy in the midrange as an integrated, however when I feed the HT passthrough on that amplifier with a different tubed preamp, its a different story, opening up the midrange nicely. Tubes may be the answer here. I had been running my beloved Aesthetix preamps, feeding that to the Pass, and still just getting too much clinical detail on classical music. Running the PL as the poweramp and setting it for either triode mode or ultralinear...both sound extremely good and both I think are rolling off the highs a bit which with these speakers may be a good thing. I also have a Woo Audio W2 lying around usually doing headphone duty for my Beyerdynamic Tesla headphones but that little puppy can also be used as a simply little OTL preamp (there’s a switch on the back for converting it from headphone use to preamp use). So for the past hour I’ve been listening to the WA2 feeding the power amp portion of the Prima Luna preamp and getting good results. Next I’ll try using the WA2 as a preamp feed the Pass X150.8. I have found that even subtle changes in the system (and these are not subtle) have very observable results one way or the other once again pointing to the fact that these are very highly resolving speakers.  Another 9H user has been posting he's had good luck with SET amps (fairly powerful for SET) driving the 9H's really well, such as the Line Magnetic integrated.

@jafant, there is a sense with regard to the "digital" sound I was experiencing that sounded like I was getting more of the reflected sound the microphones were picking up than the direct sound on orchestral works during quiet portions.  I don't know if that's part of the frequency response aberrations of this speaker (all speakers have them) or if its simply higher resolving than my Thiels which are quite (as you know) highly resolving themselves.  Right now I'm listening using a Woo Audio WA2 as a preamp and it really gets us 80% there in terms of bringing that midrange forward a bit and getting rid of that glare/excess of reflected sound (I'm not sure how else to describe it).  Its a great sound.  Unfortunately its not really practical for me to use the WA2 as a preamp because it has no remote and I'm also having to use single ended interconnects and I'm getting a tiny bit of hum...not sure if its a ground loop or not...I may trip to lift the ground on one or more components as an experiment.  I really think the system deserves a better preamp.  I could try rolling in a couple of NOS 12AX7s into the Aesthetix preamps to see if that would warm the Aesthetix gear up a bit (that would only cost me a couple hundred dollars).  The Aesthetix uses solid state rectification I believe, probably a high quality HEXFRED type circuit.  I'm also going to switch in a Prima Luna preamp and see if that equals or betters the WA2 (it should)...the Prima Luna has tube rectification and generally speaking I think tube rectification on a tube preamp sounds better than SS rectification based on what I'm experiencing now and in the past.

So I decided to give up on the Persona 9Hs and they're going back.  I do think alot of technology went into this speaker and I think part of the problem might be my room.  They certainly do alot of things right but I just found myself having to do too much to accommodate what I felt were flaws in the speaker and it never sounded quite right on large orchestral music which is the vast bulk of what I listen to.  I'm going with Magnepan 20.7s.

Thanks for the advice but I've had Magnepans before so I'm aware that you give up a little in pin-point imaging and get slightly more diffuse images of individual instruments.  I think the 20.7 and 30.7s are different animals when it comes to bass though.  Its tight and deep.  And I'm surprised that the image localization is frankly very very good.  So the 20.7s and 30.7s are in a different ballpark I believe than previous Magnepans.  They also will play sustained 95 db peaks/brief peaks to 105db, which is as loud as I will ever want them to play, and thats with a Pass 150.8.  I thought I would need to go to the 250.8 but Kent at Pass said he thought the 150.8 would be fine.  On the loudest peaks occasionally I get a needle on the front panel at 12 o'clock on the 150.8 but as Kent explained the amp even them is pretty much loafing along and the amp won't clip until it hits the hard right stop at about 4 o'clock.  I think the Pass is helping with image localization on these speakers and is a good match.  I haven't yet tried the other amp I have on them (the Aesthetix Atlas).  So I'm a happy camper.  

The digital artifact is gone. I also retubed the Aesthetix Janus tube preamp with NOS RCAs from Vintage Tube Services (high recommended) which helped alot. I still believe that the Personas were simply passing along whatever was in the signal...they are that revealing and neutral. I could never make those work in my room....because I’m easily able to pull the Maggies 5 feet into the room and still put my listening position at 12 feet I’m getting a really good smooth response from the Maggies. They measure in room slightly lumpy without dsp but I would only add some very light dsp bringing down the peaks, not punching anything up but to be honest with you they sound so good without EQ that I’m likely not to do any DSP on them. I think their dispersion pattern being more a line source (figure 8 dispersion pattern) keeps the room effects down. I have alot of depth in the room but only about 2’ on either side of the Maggies. I really do think part of problem with the Personas was their wide dispersion characteristics but problem may go deeper than that. I really respected the engineering and the build quality of the Personas. With the Maggies there is a sense of tremendous coherency across the range...the drivers blend absolutely beautifully.

@trudat: I think you mean the Parasound Halo line which many don’t believe is mid-fi at all. Anyway I do see your point and this is perhaps one of the more frustrating aspects of the high end, i.e. dealers that believe just because you can stretch/reach for a $25,000 speaker means oh sure, just lets just spend another $25,000 on a new power amp, and another $25,000 on a new pre-amp and on, hey, how about those $1500 power cords, they will really bring it all together...I mean it does seem like it never ends. But of course they ARE in business to make money. I assume you work somewhere in a business that umm, exists to, umm, make money too. So I also try to keep in mind that dealers often DO have alot of experience with different lines...so often I guess my job is to separate out what I value about the advice I receive from dealers and what I can toss aside.  And again of course they're just ultimately trying to stay in business trying to make a buck, and I can remind myself I'm in charge of wallet, not the dealer.  And the only person I have to please is myself.