djverne, interesesting, every speaker you mentioned as liking are Two way speakers, vs a three way loudspeaker.
Could it be that you don't like a three way loudspeaker?
Also almost every loudspeaker has a soft dome tweeter that you mentioned.
You are also assuming that the speakers are set up correctly at this person's house?
The reality is that ANY high resolution loudspeaker will be totally dependent on the equipment your are driving it with, the quality of the playback gear, and the cabling, then factor in the room's acoustics as well as postioning and you are going to hear glorious sound or horrible sound.
Yes you might not like the speakers but your findings are hard to extrapolate as to what was the issue with the setup.
We would welcome you to hear the Pesona series setup with the right gear in the right room at our shop, they are marvelous loudspeakers when setup correctly, they are however, very picky about what you use with them, they will show you everything both good and bad with the setup. Unlike other high performance loudspeakers they have both a Beryillium tweeter and midrange and therefore are going to show you everything in that stream, if the dac was sup par you are going to instantly hear it.
Also with a three way loudspeaker you are going to be much more aware of coherence issues with placement and sitting distances, if you are too close you might not find the drivers blending correctly, other issues can be toe in as well.
We are not saying that the Personas are for everyone, there are people that are not going to be in love with their remarkable clarity if comming from certain much warmer voiced loudspeakers if that is their predilection, but it certantly sounds that you did not hear them at anywhere near their best.
It is like a panel guy who loves panels most direct radiating loudspeakers are going to "sound" wrong to that listener.
Sometimes it is a case of listener bias and or preference while others are going to be down to setup.
You mention a whole host of speakers you like however, you did not compare a single one in the same enviornment to the Paradigms, so your logic and testing methodology is not exactly the same.
You may want to relisten to the speakers at a Pardigm dealer and you might think differently about them or not.
When we judge loudspeakers, amplifiers, or dacs, we don't just use one sampling before we get a picture of the line, we often will hear said product at multiple shows before we get a real impression or better yet at our shop and testing under known circumstances.
Good luck.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Persona dealers
