Paradigm Persona series

@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.

Pwinson it has nothing to do with cost. The Persona 3F sound very good on a Naim Uniti Atom which is a $3k intergrated, they sound way better on a Naim Uniti Nova a $7.5k intregrated amp, and they sound so much better on the Naim NAC 272 preamp/dac and the Nap 250 a $13k combo.

Does that mean that the Naim Atom didn't sound great for the money it sounded terrific, however, the sound took on much more bass, greater dynamic impact and greater clarity with the more expensive gear.

Part of the equation is matching gear, think of it this way a $90k Porsche can be rendered nearly undriveable with low octane fuel and the wrong quality and grade of tires. Buy a Porsch be prepared to feed it right.

We have put together some very good sounding Persona systems that were not crazy expensive but with a set of speakers this resolving you can easily hear everything good and bad in the setup. 

As per cost yes there are really good $5k amps however, most of the time they still leave some sonic signature that is not seen with the better gear.

We love the T+A gear and the $12,5k 2500R sounds amazing with the Personas, however, the $23k T+A PA 3100HV really takes the speakers to levels they just couldn't get to with the lower gear.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Pesona dealers

@audiotroy 

Ah yes, my "naivity" shows... of course, if that was a real word we could debate that.  I believe the word you meant to use was naivete (with an accent over the final e) or heck even naivety... or heck in plain spoken english... "my lack of experience".

Frankly, something you should hope your customers have when pushing cables, acoustic isolation systems etc... that cost damn near what the components and speakers cost.  

Sure, I don't own a store but you know 35 or so years of building audio systems, components etc. Should count for something.  But maybe I'm just a dolt.

Bottom line, a 25k speaker should not need a 25k amp to sound outstanding.  You more or less double talk in your later post regarding the 3f, amazing enough all the Naim gear sounds great with it.

Want to see a dealer adding value to the board?  Head on over to the digital board.  Jimclarkstereo offering an exciting new piece and making it real easy to try.

Sure it's not a paid add, but its better than constant shilling and twisting about how everything he sells somehow outperforms the original posters question.  Putting his money where his "post" is.  

Trudat you totally miss the point. It is not that you have to use uber expensive or every tweek in the book to make the Personas sound good, the issue is that there is way more than just good you can get out of a speaker with this kind of resolving power.

Yes the 3F can sound "good" wih much less expensive electronics like we mentioned, there is a difference between passing good and excelling.

Perhaps our standards are different from yours, we walk most shows and hear all the rooms and most room barely resigister as sounding what they can sound.

Tweeks are tools used to make a system come alive, power cords, vibration isolation, room tuning are tools we use to sculpt sound until a system sounds as close as possible to live.

It can take years to tune one system until it sounds magnificent. 

In the case of the Personas we went through many brand of electronics, tried a few different cable variations, tried different dacs, different servers different vibration isolation and added newer tuning tweeks like the Furutech NCF products until the system sounded as close as possible to real music. 

We have the T+A gear and the Krell, the T+A noticably outperforms the Krell gear, the Krell gear is less expensive and sounds great for the money, the T+A gear just sounds far better but costs way more. 

IF you hear this sytem with the Krell gear you might think what a great sounding system, when you heard it with the T+A you might think wow that sounds so much better. 

It are these kinds of testing data that proves that the quest for really amazing sound is a process of trying different components until the sound becomes as realistic as possible.

We are willing to bet that you may be one of the zillion audiophiles who doesn't believe in tweeks, or cabling or whatever that these are expensive foolish toys for the gulible with out the experience of actually trying some of these devices, then again you might not.

The Critical Mass Centerstage footers are transformational devices, that makes a system sound way better it it one of the best vibration isolation devices out there.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ 

So what have been the most cost effective speakers to extract their best out of? The better the speaker the higher the ceiling right. If that’s true then active speakers would be the safe bet for someone on a budget. Is the ls50 active better sounding than the passive model, I don’t think it’s wrong to expect a $35k pair of speakers to be exceptional driven by any competent front end.