Lamm did several shows with Wilsons and the rooms were well received.
Focal tweeter Wilson's I've heard with D'Agostino Momentum amps (such as Still-one has) and other D'Ago gear did not sound bright or harsh in private rooms at shows.
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Lamm did several shows with Wilsons and the rooms were well received.
Focal tweeter Wilson's I've heard with D'Agostino Momentum amps (such as Still-one has) and other D'Ago gear did not sound bright or harsh in private rooms at shows.
Mike, Thank you for sharing your experience.
I agree you when the bass is ok then we get better mid/high dynamics. I used wilson sub for this test.
This experience is very important, thank you again
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I rarely say component x is bright or dark.
What I think is most of the time brightness or any type of awful sound comes from mismatch problems.
I had a friend with this playback :
dCS transport dac clock
Vitus integrated amplifier
Kharma midi exquisite
The sound was bright and I checked the spec and realized the output voltage of DAC is 6volts and maximum input voltage of pre was 4 volts.
The signal over 4 volts clipped and the sound was hard and bright.
What I think is most of the time brightness or any type of awful sound comes from mismatch problems.
I had a friend with this playback :
dCS transport dac clock
Vitus integrated amplifier
Kharma midi exquisite
The sound was bright and I checked the spec and realized the output voltage of DAC is 6volts and maximum input voltage of pre was 4 volts.
The signal over 4 volts clipped and the sound was hard and bright.
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I had a friend who had this system:
dCS Transport DAC
conrad johnson pre power
Wilson watt puppy 7
we changed The speaker position and find a good place with great soundstage, the sound was metalic and forward, we changed the speaker position again and find a good place with great dynamics, very easy to ear and musical.
I do not listen to tweeter or … I listen to music when I want check the system .
dCS Transport DAC
conrad johnson pre power
Wilson watt puppy 7
we changed The speaker position and find a good place with great soundstage, the sound was metalic and forward, we changed the speaker position again and find a good place with great dynamics, very easy to ear and musical.
I do not listen to tweeter or … I listen to music when I want check the system .
Generally see where you are coming from. Having owned the original Wilson X1s and now the XLF which was the first iteration to inspire me to upgrade...for a consecutive 14+ years now, I would say:
- David Wilson's original design goal was to enable his speaker to be adjusted in-room all across the world in different rooms and systems to accommodate room, system and taste
- Each of his upper modules move back and forth, tilt up and down, and have changeable resistors
- So set up becomes either a complete mess, a mediocre experience...or quite an exceptional one
- The key is exceptional is not necessarily about an internalized, fully consistent sound in an of itself...but rather a speaker that is designed to flex around other variables outside of the speaker designer's control
- And so I would generally agree that Wilson speakers are not in and of themselves necessarily the absolute pinnacle in a particular frequency category or characteristic category
- Where I find them really good is that [in the right hands...where here in the UK, Pedro is not only exceptionally well regarded, but where he is flown all over the world to do setups as probably a 'top 5 in the world' according to Wilson] the Wilsons create a great balance of music making:
- excellent level of detail as reflected in how often you can hear minute upstream changes
- excellent macro dynamic scale
- good micro dynamics
- balanced overall presentation which I have been able to settle into over time...where even if, in comparison to a given other system, I notice differences or betterments with that other system...when I come back, I can easily settle back in because the overall presentation does not have any issues which stand out as awkward from the rest
- On bass, I would say that the Wilsons CAN benefit from properly set up subs and in our case, has worked very well in our room with a single Velodyne DD18+ operating below 38hz.
- To your point, I absolutely believe more can be done within the sub-40hz range, and that is probably my next major move...increasing the surface area of sub-40hz cones in the room by several times to create a more effortless, low distortion and ideally more detailed/nuanced sense of venue, and as you say, possibly also creating a better side effect in the mids/treble
On a separate note, I would add that for me, the reason I was inspired to upgrade from the original Wilson X1/Grand SLAMM was not the tweeter and not because it was more transparent or for its adjustable bass port. It was because I felt that it was more solidly built and less prone to losing signal through internal vibration. It just felt like a more robustly designed/built version of the original X1...I came away with the impression that this represented a nicely evolved generation of DW's original design and intentions.
The sound signal felt more solid and more dense to me...like more signal was actually making it all the way thru...and over time I realized I had spent quite a lot of time and effort with the original X1s damping down areas where I knew signal was 'wavering' through the vibrations of the structure.
Even on the XLFs we have discovered that the back of the shelves and main cabinet benefit from nearly 75lbs (35kg) per speaker channel of Artesania mass damping in very very specific areas. But it has responded dramatically more and better than the X1 was capable of with such externalized 'adjustments'.
I would also add that the adjustable bass port (front or back-facing)...turned out to be quite a good thing, as we originally had the X1 bass port (facing back since that is the only way it can), and found the XLF adjusted to port open to front was much more powerful and also far more articulate at the same time.
...but enough...I remind myself this is a DCS thread!
The sound signal felt more solid and more dense to me...like more signal was actually making it all the way thru...and over time I realized I had spent quite a lot of time and effort with the original X1s damping down areas where I knew signal was 'wavering' through the vibrations of the structure.
Even on the XLFs we have discovered that the back of the shelves and main cabinet benefit from nearly 75lbs (35kg) per speaker channel of Artesania mass damping in very very specific areas. But it has responded dramatically more and better than the X1 was capable of with such externalized 'adjustments'.
I would also add that the adjustable bass port (front or back-facing)...turned out to be quite a good thing, as we originally had the X1 bass port (facing back since that is the only way it can), and found the XLF adjusted to port open to front was much more powerful and also far more articulate at the same time.
...but enough...I remind myself this is a DCS thread!
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I don't think there is a need to qualify every statement with IMO. Of course everything that hits our ears is subjective and we base our opinions depending on what each of us is looking for in our set-ups.
Because I am in the minority that doesn't mean I am wrong.
I listened to the WPs 7 & 8 a number of times at a dealer who also sold Mark Levinson electronics, which were always paired with Wilsons at their store. I thought an excellent match and a big improvement over earlier WPs. Wilson's inverted titanium dome tweeters were good and not offensive in these pairings. I am an older but probably more discerning listener now, but I sometimes wonder how I'd react today to pairings I really liked back in the day.
Ok, some may find Wilson titanium tweeter bright. I don’t agree but let me ask, do you believe recent silk tweeter is not dull? Doesn’t it have a wide shallow sound, which fails to reproduce transients and never resembles the sound of drum stick hitting cymbals?
IMHO the problem with Wilson speakers has always been the bass, especially double bass drivers not the tweeter.
IMHO the problem with Wilson speakers has always been the bass, especially double bass drivers not the tweeter.
This has not been my experience with the Alexia V tweeter. In fact, I texted a friend shortly after receiving the Waltz for Debby UHQR this weekend about how excellent the brush work was. The Vs create a very natural rendition.
I have not had any issues with the bass on the Vs either. With or without the Loke subwoofers.
The dCS Vivaldi DAC output voltage level is user selected. That setup can use the 2V output level, which would not overdrive the preamp.
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So one of my demo LPs for visitors is the Ludwig pressing of Led Zeppelin II. The Alexias have a very realistic portrayal of Bonham's sticks hitting the cymbals.
I believe the reference quality capacitors on the Alexias play a role in the sublime transient performance.
Sure, you may be right. Do you have any numbers? But again, why haven't the top dealers picked them up, instead of being relegated to the fringe? Surely that would validate their "greatness".
I think Wilson doesn't do justice to dCS (same for audio research, who also get judged by the wilson sound).
dCS may not be everyone's first choice, myself included, but it sounds fine in very musical systems.
And sometimes, it's a "synergy thing": North American avantgarde distributor, who is also a wadax distributor, shows off avantgarde with dcs, not wadax