Just wanted to revisit this months later after running the Persona 3F + C in my 5.2.4 setup.
First off, I find the 3Fs fantastic, but they did take a bit of work to get them to sound right - most of it was amp matching, but in the end was happy with either the Krell XD or the Anthem STR (with Parasound JC5 a close 3rd). I couldn't justify the Krell cost for it's sonic improvements so opted for the Anthem STR + MCA525 + MCA225 setup. Just so solid, smooth and powerful - pure power.
However, the one thing I've never been able to get right is the Persona C. In HT, as it carries most of the dialog, I hear this grittiness (I guess?) you could say or kind of almost like a different sound in the mids like a kind of wispy reverberation and it varies by content.
DTS movie tracks bring it out, and so do low male voices especially if doing commentary (sports, etc.) I can hear it in the mids and while I'm not running my center channel through my 3Fs of course, I have never really heard it on my 3Fs.
Maybe best I can describe it is in this narrow freq range where it comes up, it sounds like the dialog is being spoken through an intercom...but it's very subtle, but still there - like a metallic reverb.
Maybe another way to describe it is a bit nasally sounding on certain mid-range voices, again, like they're speaking through an intercom.
The JC5 plugged into my C seemed to diminish it a bit compared to the Anthem or the Krell.
Again, not sure if I'm just rationalizing it but it's like I envision the Be mid driver's metallic like sound, but like I said I don't really hear that on the 3Fs, only the C.
Side story: within a few days after buying the 3 speakers I was measuring the them with REW and noticed a big drop in SPL output on the C in the mid/tweeter xover range, while also measuring distortion in that range.
Paradigm took it into their lab and determined the xover was in fact faulty and swapped out the entire tweeter/midrange xover assembly.
I still wonder if what I'm hearing is some side-effect of that, but I don't really want to send it back to Paradigm just to have a look.
Anyone else with a Persona C notice something like this?