Description
Technology
As for the technology of the 5F and its brethren, the magic word is beryllium. The Persona tweeter is a 1″ beryllium dome whose voice-coil fits a magnetic pole-piece designed using finite-element analysis, and the motor assembly is damped and cooled with ferrofluid. To optimize the dome’s dispersion, it sits behind a phase-aligning perforated grille or acoustic lens.
While beryllium tweeters are used in many high-end speakers, beryllium midrange diaphragms are far more rare. The 5F’s 7″ beryllium midrange has a 1.5″ voice-coil and is crossed over to the tweeter at 2.4kHz. With most drivers, in considering the relationship between the frequencies being propagated and the possibility of audible break-up modes, such a large size might be a problem. However, the 5F’s diaphragm of pure beryllium is rigid and light enough that cone breakup should be sufficiently high in frequency not to be a problem. Also, the phase-aligning perforated lens, similar to the one covering the tweeter, should control any problems of dispersion/beaming due to the driver’s size. To those considerations one might add another: the 5F’s 7″ midrange driver, with its large magnetic motor and shock mounting, should increase midrange power handling with no negative consequences due to its size. Despite beryllium in the finished solid form being robust, it is brittle—the acoustic lenses Paradigm installs over its beryllium drivers also serve to prevent anyone from directly touching and breaking the element.
The Persona 5F has three 7″ woofers, each affixed to the inner surface of the heavy cast-aluminum baffle, which conceals their frames and suspensions. Like the midrange driver, the woofers are shocked-mounted (isolated) from the front panel and have 1.5″ voice coils. They handle only frequencies below 450Hz, but at relatively higher power levels, and instead of beryllium they’re made of Paradigm’s denser X-PAL (for “pure aluminum”) material; a new Active Ridge suspension for better-controlled compliance and a massive magnetic assembly are also featured. They’re loaded by a bass-reflex enclosure formed from seven layers of HDF, bonded to one another, and shaped under high pressure, with RF waves used to accelerate the curing process. The cabinet is vented through a down-firing port in the speaker’s bottom panel, into a space created by the metal pedestal on which the speaker sits.
- DESIGN: 5-driver, 3 way floor standing bass reflex
- CROSSOVER: 3rd order electro-acoustic at 2.4 kHz (tweeter/mid), 3rd order @ 450 Hz
- FREQUENCY RESPONSE ON-AXIS+/- : 2dB from 45Hz – 45kHz
- LOW FREQUENCY EXTENSION: 23Hz
- SENSITIVITY ROOM / ANECHOIC: 93 dB / 90 dB
- FREQUENCY RESPONSE 30° OFF-AXIS+/-: 2dB from 45Hz – 20kHz
- SUITABLE AMPLIFIER POWER RANGE: 15 – 500 watts
- MAXIMUM INPUT POWER: 300 Watts
- IMPEDANCE: Compatible with 8 ohms
- DIMENSIONS: HXWXD46.5″ × 9.5″ × 16.875″ (118.5cm × 24.1cm × 42.7cm)
- WEIGHT: 95 lbs. (43 kg)
