A couple of years ago, when I was in the market to upgrade from Paradigm Monitor 11 V5, for new loudspeakers, I wanted to audition the Persona’s but couldn’t find a dealer near me who had them for demo.
I was able to find a dealer that had the Focal Sopra No. 2 speakers, which is the alternate speaker that I was considering. I was able to audition the focal’s and ended up liking them, so I purchased those instead.
Seems like you really like them. Congratulations and best of luck with them.
Exact same experience with the Persona demo and I lived 30 miles west of DC near 3 Paradigm dealers at the time. Had to drive 300 miles round trip to Delaware. Overture Audio made it worth my while and no sales tax.
Focal / JM Labs speakers are amazing as well!
We have a dealer here that sells both so I was able to audition both in the same room with same equipment. Been going to the same dealer for over 30 years so I know the space intimately.
The Focals and Personas are both excellent.
Go you! Paradigm finally got most dealers to sign on to Peraona. Back when they came out in late 2016 they asked dealers to carry the wholel line according to one local dealer. That was $108,500 retail or a $54,250 dealer cost investment. Initially some dealers were skeptical of high-endParadigm speakers.
First time I see Tannoy Westminsters with Classe amps,guess that tells it all 
I think @JeffofArabica has those speakers ,so he might have some firsthand ideas for amps?
I have heard many times smaller Tannoys with many different amplification and they pretty much always sounded great. But sadly I never heard Westminsters. Still my idea for suitable amp would say definitely word tube in it.
Hey Michael,
I have run a few different amp makes/models and settled on Canary Audio. I use the Grand Reference mono blocks (successor to the Reference Two monos). They are 100 WPC 300B tubes amps with plenty of juice to run these speakers. They are highly efficient, at 99dB and yes, they will play loud with a flea watt amp, but they will not sound nearly as good as an amp with lots of power. I have powered them with as little as 2 watts, but the HF and LF crossover networks are resistive so I would not come at them with less than 100 tube watts or 250 solid state watts. They truly are magical speakers if powered properly and I am sure there are countless amps that can sound fantastic with these speakers.
My buddy also has Westminsters and he just sold his Audio Research 210 mono blocks and bought Canary Audio monos like mine, but the KT88 version which delivers 250 WPC. There is a high probability I will not replace these speakers or amps, ever.
Here is a good read he settled on McIntosh vintage amps. https://jeffsplace.positive-feedback.com/review-system-1/
Even without the KEF (good speaker for the money indeed) I could enjoy the view all day long.
Hello Chops, I see you have experience with the DBX - I am eyeing up a DBX PA2 to use as a crossover & EQ between a SGCD and M1200s / powered sub. I considered a JL Audio CR-1 (but really want EQ capability for some poorly recorded sources) or a DEQX but just as a x-over / EQ the PA2 should suffice & leave funds for other stuffs… The Venue has slightly better specs - looking for a 2nd opinion if the PA2 should do the trick…? It will replace a Soundtech X234 crossover. Thoughts?
Thanks,
Jeff
@pikpen you might also want to check out the dBx Venu-360 a very powerful crossover, EQ, room correction, driver time alignment, etc. for about $700.
Copy that - the Venue 360 is in the comparison chart that I linked to; that model is $1200 up here in Igloo land. 
About twice the price of the PA2. I’m trying to deduce if the Venue 360 version is worth the extra $$ vs the PA2…
The Venu 360 is definitely worth the extra $$$, hence why I purchased one myself a while back. I only used it for about 6 months before changing up my system again.
It now sits in the spare room waiting for either a future project or to sell, whichever comes first. Have the dbx mic for it (and case) as well as the box. It’s still it totally mint shape as is all of my gear.
How many Pesos to tempt you? 
Listening to a couple more tracks on the M700’s before hooking back into the M1200’s for comparisons.
I’ll send you a PM in a sec…
Hi Steven,
Not that Denon Marantz is a bad deal, they are a good deal indeed, I heard the PM20 with a pair of Burmester speakers at a dealer in Switzerland and that combo sounded really good.
But regarding your remark that Marantz drives are about the only ones available as OEM:
There is an Austrian company Stream Unlimited that is an offspring of the Philips engineering branch located in Austria that was responsible for the design amd engineering of Philips Pro drives.
OEM is what they do only. But they make available to the global market:.CD, SACD, top loaders (blistering fast access times), drawers you name it.
They have just recently finished the development for upgrading their mechanisms to utilize most modern techniques and materials to improve both SQ and life time. These drives are also top of the bill and available to anybody.
Expensive? You have to pay for quality like anywhere, but Pro-Ject’s RS2 top of the line Red-Book CD transport in super elegant rigid aluminum enclosure with large display and a plethora of digital outputs even I2S HDMI, AES-EBU, Toslink and Coax outputs comes for EUR 2500.
I trust GoldNote (drawer model), Pro-Ject (CD top loader) Ayon (CD and SACD top loaders) and other very high regarded brands utilize these high end sounding and reliable units.
TEAC sells OEM again as well, only I think the slot CD/DVD drives.
The Marantz mechanisme is certainly not a bad choice either, but its not the only one available.
Hi Rudolf. Thanks for that. I cannot see that they do SACD readers. I only looked into the SACD thing out of curiosity, never having owned one. I owned a Marantz from about 1989 and then a Primare that apparently used a Sony transport. Primare D30.2 CD player | Stereophile.com. That was almost 20 years ago.
I bought a Tascam CD-200 about 10 years ago. I chose it because it is TEAC and they are the largest manufacturer of drives with the reputation of being the most reliable. The irony is that I had started streaming and only used it about twice, and have just given it away.
The new Marantz 30n SACD player and matching integrated amplifier has just got a fantastic review in the UK magazine HiFi News (the same issue as the M1200 amplifiers review). They say it is better than the SA-12 and the praise is as much for the streaming and multi-room functionality.
If I decide to replace my current CD/DVD player (a Yamaha “Natural Sound” bitsed together from two old broken ones). Sounds very good and has the (required for me) optical output, but a TEAC/TASCAM replacement player seems like an excellent idea - studio TASCAM stuff has always seemed pretty solid to me back in the day 
You have to dig into the detailed specs of the mechanics of streaming unlimited to find the SACD options.
I have a Yamaha Blue Ray/DVD/CD player in my living room, connected via HDMI to my AV receiver. That is the best sounding CD player I ever owned. Even better than my favorite Technics, which has recently decided that about 30 years of loyal service was enough. Well it survived plenty of student parties more than 10 relocations (of which 2 included weeklong container transport in the heat of Texas and exposed hammering waves of the Atlantic) and storage in non climatized attics. So I am can accept that fact.
