Have you heard the new WAMM? Any good?

[caesar]

Bump! Anyone?

 

[awsmone]

For that kind of timing (2 microseconds stated in the video), by definition and by virtue of the exact placements for timing of all the drivers, you must have your head in a vise.

This is the threshold for summing localisation, in fact all stereophony uses this effect, so the large speaker will sound like one driver from one location

what we are i believe talking about here is a dirac impulse of one speaker which is very large summing within the 2 micro sec

Given sound travels 0.000686 metres at 20C in 2 microsecond

The question is how far must you move your head for this effect to dissipate

Given a 2 metre tall speaker at 3 metres, the threshold is 50 microsecond for speech and 100 microsecond for Music

So 50/2 x 3/2x 0.000686 metres = 30 centimetres or 1 foot, and up to 2 feet or 60cm for pure Music...

Not exactly a vise!

If the true cone driver centres greatest distance apart is more like 1.5 meters:
would be 40cm and 80cm respectively

 

[Narayan]

Here´s the WAMM in action:

 

[Bobvin]

Here´s the WAMM in action:

Holy smokes! I would love to hear them in person. Even through a youtube video it is apparent those speakers are truly something special. F'n A.

 

[Sharp 1080]

Those two videos were amazing. To hear these in person is a dream only achieved by a few. I am certain a few have been granted access!

 

[asiufy]

Still my best and most impressive audio demo ever. WAMMs and D'Agostino amps. I don't think any YouTube video can do that system justice, as it was just so viscerally impactful that it's just physically impossible. You just had to be there.

 

[still-one]

I had to chuckle at myself as I listened to a Plus Million Dollar set-up from youtube via my MacBook Pro's speakers. Would like to hear them in person.

 

[KeithR]

Still can't help thinking of "Return of the WAMM" to the 1990s R&B song.

 

[Sharp 1080]

Still my best and most impressive audio demo ever. WAMMs and D'Agostino amps. I don't think any YouTube video can do that system justice, as it was just so viscerally impactful that it's just physically impossible. You just had to be there.

I can only imagine that experience Alex. I heard first hand about the WAMM from Bill Peugh. It was basically no matter what Wilson one owns larger to smaller, once you hear the WAMM there is no comparison.

 

[asiufy]

I can only imagine that experience Alex. I heard first hand about the WAMM from Bill Peugh. It was basically no matter what Wilson one owns larger to smaller, once you hear the WAMM there is no comparison.

I'd go further. To me, nothing compares, period. Whatever Dave (and Daryl) did on that one, I sure hope they can do similarly, at lower price points

Or maybe, since I know Bill is reading, they might find useful to show them here in Southern California... In which case, our showroom is always ready and available to receive them!



cheers,
alex

 

[DaveyF]

Love to hear the Wamms. I would think that your current showroom would be big enough for them....just, lol.
They do look the business that’s for sure...and from the two clips above, they could certainly bring ‘thunder’.

 

[Lee]

I am writing a big article on my factory tour to Provo for Part-Time Audiophile.

The WAMM demo was a life-changing experience. I've heard most of the most expensive speakers and the WAMMs reach a whole new level of realism and beauty.

 

[C.A.P]

I am writing a big article on my factory tour to Provo for Part-Time Audiophile.

The WAMM demo was a life-changing experience. I've heard most of the most expensive speakers and the WAMMs reach a whole new level of realism and beauty.

I can only imagine! I just wish us mere mortals could have a chance to listen ! Hell Id pay for a ticket to hear them !

 

[awsmone]

I watched some Wilson videos on David’s obsession with time alignment over the years

I also was impressed by the videos , it left me wondering, if he’s correct, and it does make a big difference, does this mean all the other manufacturers of speakers are doing it wrong, or is it the difference between 98% and 99%, I was thinking of Magico who put a lot of effort into their speakers but eschew this completely

It would be interesting to actually measure the impulse response at the listening position, and also compare the WAMM aligned and unaligned subjectively

 

[asiufy]

awsmome,

I can't say whether "he's right and everybody's wrong". All I know is that, when not setup correctly, Wilsons sound like nice, big speakers. Full, rich, some detail, etc.
But dial the drivers in to your exact listening position, and the magic happens. The analogy here is the focus of a camera. Everything "snaps" into place, instruments gain not only body but a clear, delimited "energy" around them. Depth (front to back resolution) also improves significantly. And the best of all, this is all very easily demonstrable and repeatable.
When I asked what made the WAMMs so superior to anything else he did, David said he was able to make the adjustments to the limit of human hearing. So with the WAMM, he's even able to take into factor in the propagation delay of the electronics into the individual settings, to truly "lock down" all the drivers into one coherent wave launch.
If you have a Wilson dealer near you, perhaps you could stop by and ask him to conduct a demo, then you go around the back and fiddle with the driver settings, and see how that impairs the sound...


cheers,
Alex

 

[microstrip]

awsmome,

I can't say whether "he's right and everybody's wrong". All I know is that, when not setup correctly, Wilsons sound like nice, big speakers. Full, rich, some detail, etc.
But dial the drivers in to your exact listening position, and the magic happens. The analogy here is the focus of a camera. Everything "snaps" into place, instruments gain not only body but a clear, delimited "energy" around them. Depth (front to back resolution) also improves significantly. And the best of all, this is all very easily demonstrable and repeatable. (...)

And all this comes with predefined tables. I downloaded the XLF manual before delivery, printed the tables and clearly marked in red the settings for what I expected to be the optimum listening distance in my room and my ear height in my chair. The speakers were assembled in less than two hours, and stayed in that setting since arrival.

 

[asiufy]

And all this comes with predefined tables. I downloaded the XLF manual before delivery, printed the tables and clearly marked in red the settings for what I expected to be the optimum listening distance in my room and my ear height in my chair. The speakers were assembled in less than two hours, and stayed in that setting since arrival.

Yup, they have an iPhone/iOS app too, with that information built-in, very handy!

 

[awsmone]

So if they are time coincident why is that not reflected in the measurements?

 

[awsmone]

I think we should give credit to Ed Long who developed time alignment in 1975 and put it into production

It would seem the Wilson system, must be a form of physical time alignment, and I wonder if they use LR type crossovers, which are flat through crossover points and gain greatly from time alignment
As the lobe points directly forward
The second advantage given the multiple drivers and large physical size and non flat baffle, is stopping lobe thinning at the cross over points, by focusing the drivers at the listener, I wonder if this is what people notice when the dial the Wilsons in.

Really a Herculean effort to overcome these issues

 

[art vandelay]

Wilson's use of second order electrical makes it impossible to achieve time alignment in the strictest sense - because the mid driver needs to be phase flipped to provide 'phase' alignment with the woofers and tweeter. That said, the level of phase alignment / coherence achieved is vastly better than average, because the drive units are (or can be) precisely positioned in space for a given listening height and distance. And this matters lots because the small amount of harmonic distortion energy from any individual drive unit is time and phase aligned relative to the other drive units when the speaker is correctly set up. I wonder if this is why Wilson speakers sound so coherent and can also convey a level of realism that many other otherwise fine speakers are not quite able to match? Achieving a flat phase response is obviously preferable - but this is something that's now quite easy to achieve externally with DSP correction. Sure, speakers can be made to work with first order filters, but the amount of driver overlap makes for a very messy vertical polar response which in a typical reflective room can render the benefits next to useless, or at best isolated to a very small listening area. There's also the issue of the phase response of the drive units themselves which becomes more problematic, and usually necessitating the addition of correction networks in the crossover. I don't think it's surprising that many speakers that claim to be time and phase perfect end up sounding less than perfect in most respects.