In the past it's always been, "Go build a
great speaker for us."
"Let's create something new."
The challenge to our engineers this time was,
"Let's look at all the key technologies, let's
look at all the science behind the brand,
let's look at 34 years of our history, and
let's create something that takes away the
sonic imprints, that takes away all the coloration,
all of the distortion, so when somebody has
one of those magical moments in front of a
pair of speakers, they just totally disappear."
At the top of our flagship range in the Persona
Series, we have our hybrid model, the 9H,
followed by the rest of our passive models,
the 7F, the 5F, the 3F, the Persona C center
channel, Persona B, which is the bookshelf.
Persona really emphasizes the technology front
that Paradigm has built up over three decades,
and it brings all of those technologies into
one speaker.
One of the main technologies allowing us to
get the results that were achieved
was using beryllium.
We are one of the very few in the industry
to utilize pure beryllium.
The 7-inch beryllium midrange is actually
used in all the Persona floorstanders.
Beryllium of course is very rigid so it gives
you a very clean output.
The beauty of beryllium for the diaphragm material
is that only the sound of the recording is
reproduced, none of the harmonics or any other
sounds
that other diaphragm materials can introduce.
With beryllium, because it has that combination
of light weight and stiffness, we can expect
the highest performance out of beryllium for
the tweeters and the midrange.
It became obvious that the sound quality was
superior to anything we've ever heard before.
Persona 9H has a vibration canceling configuration,
meaning two woofers in front,
and two in the back.
Woofers use differential drive technology,
which is really spectacular to look at, but
even more amazing what it can do to improve
performance of the speaker.
These large drivers are dual voice coil differential
drive units, so there's actually two separate
voice coils inside, and two motors as well.
One of the things that sets us apart from
other audio manufacturers is that this would
be a typical capacitor that would be used
in a crossover network, and these are the
polypropylene caps that are used in the Persona.
Persona 9H allowed us to introduce Anthem
Room Correction technology built into it.
The most difficult part of setting up speakers
in a room, is making sure that the bass performance
stays true to the design goal.
Because every room is different, and the size
of the room greatly affects
the distribution of bass.
With Anthem Room Correction, the process is
easy and the results are
effortless sound reproduction.
Sound is natural, it's coming out of the air.
The first thing you'll see when you look at
the Persona are the grilles that cover the
midrange and tweeter.
We knew we wanted perforated metal.
We ended up with a pattern looking less industrial
and a little bit more organic.
It gives us the feeling of a flow of the motion.
It is an important piece of jewelry really
adding great value to our speakers.
But these aren't just grilles, these are Perforated
Phase Alignment lenses.
And what these grilles actually do is improve
the performance of the drivers.
Perforated Phase Alignment, or PPA, cancels
out out-of-phase sounds that are radiated
by different areas of the cone.
PPA allows us to smooth it out and widen out
the dispersion of the sound.
So one of the things that we had to work with
this design was having a big speaker, with
not necessarily making it appear as though
it's a big speaker.
We decided to go with curved cabinets, which
are based on elliptical geometry.
We use these beautifully curved cabinets that
sort of disappear as you turn them away.
The shell of the cabinet is built of seven
pressed layers, which creates a very strong
composite material.
It is impossible to make those mating surfaces
by hand, we had to use 5-axis CNC machining
to cut the parts that need to be combined
into a single cabinet.
We had four bass drivers and two big amplifiers,
plus electronic components and controls.
So that was very challenging, how to fit all
the components into a curved cabinet.
What's really cool about Persona is that we
refined the entire manufacturing process,
areas like our paint shop and a lot of the
manufacturing capabilities to create this
incredible product.
One of the great things about having a world-class
paint facility and world-class cabinet manufacturing
facility, is it means that you get to make
the best cabinets, and it means you have the
world of choice when it comes to painting
finishes.
Each speaker goes through end of line inspection,
qualified people inspect their finish and
fit of all the elements, and of course we
check and measure the sound of each and every
Persona speaker.
The first thing I think of when I think of
luxury, I think of hand-crafted.
You look at what goes into making Persona,
and every aspect of that speaker is designed,
engineered, and built by hands here in Canada.
Bringing a North American product of this
caliber is exciting, and I think critical
at this point, for the stature of our brand.
This is our halo product and I think really
exciting to our customers as well.
Over the years we developed a number of technologies
allowing us to take the sound quality to the
next level.
With Persona Series we just decided to put
them all in play, and make the best speaker
we ever made.
People appreciate beauty, people appreciate
when something look extraordinary.
You are happy when you hear from people saying
"Wow" when they see some elements on the speaker
which drives their attention.
The level of clarity, the level of openness,
the detail, the bass response, and the size
of the speaker in this platform, this is the
new flagship for Paradigm.
This is something that Paradigm has been building
towards for almost the last 40-years.
