In search of my last great loudspeaker

[Sunny]

Wilson highlights.

Being a Wilson Audio Dealer and having the opportunity to spend several hours with Dave, John, Peter, Jerron, Trent and Bill, we really understand what goes into designing Wilson Audio speakers.

All Wilson Audio speakers are tested in 2-3 different Wilson rooms at their facility. These rooms are not made to be perfect on purpose. One of their rooms was a borderline room for audio. This is the understanding that is required by manufacturing. I call it real life rooms.

When you start to design speakers, you have these tools at your disposal.
Wilson Duette 2 speaker is now a purpose built speaker to be placed very close to your wall, into a cabinet or stand mounted.

The Sabrina works well in corners, much closer to a wall, Pulled out to get amazing soundstage, or almost anything you ask of her. She's marvelous.

The new Yvette is Magical. She needs some serious break in and good clean power. Mesmerizing with my Audio Research gear.

The Alexia is a mini Alexandria XLF. With the new Tweeter, she sings to me.

The new Alexx took a long time to break in in my store. She is now my favorite speaker in the line up.

The Alexandria XLF is the KING of speakers. Authoritative, musical and stunning in painting a musical picture. Completely 3 dimensional.


If you guys have any questions in setup or have issues, please contact us.

As Mr Martin Wax experienced in his article, a 50K-60K Certified Used Wilson X2 S2 speaker is a Great deal. We concur.

 

[rockitman]

Marty,

Did you use the standard propagation settings based on your 38" ear height and the distance you sit back from the speakers or did you sway from the recommended prop table settings ?

My latest settings are based on 10' listening distance and 40" ear height...not the 38" I use to use in my 9' back configuration.

 

[Gregadd]

Maybe this should be in the Wilson fan club section.

 

[steve williams]

Marty,

Did you use the standard propagation settings based on your 38" ear height and the distance you sit back from the speakers or did you sway from the recommended prop table settings ?

My latest settings are based on 10' listening distance and 40" ear height...not the 38" I use to use in my 9' back configuration.

Christian the only change I made to the Wilson settings algorithm was for the upper module. I moved it forward one detente position . Both Marty and I felt that this lowers the voice of the singer to a more realistic level.

 

[rockitman]

Christian the only change I made to the Wilson settings algorithm was for the upper module. I moved it forward one detente position . Both Marty and I felt that this lowers the voice of the singer to a more realistic level.

Thanks Steve. That is pretty easy to adjust. I will play with that.

 

[steve williams]

Last year when marty was here we played with the settings for my position. The upper midrange module in the suggested position caused an elongation upwards of where the voice was emanating from to an unrealistic high level. Moving the upper mid range module one click forward brought the voice down to a normal height and I haven't changed it in over a year. I seem to remember that Marty has likewise done the same

 

[Bruce B]

Maybe this should be in the Wilson fan club section.

Agreed. There's even 2 infomercials.

 

[microstrip]

(...) Wilson Duette 2 speaker is now a purpose built speaker to be placed very close to your wall, into a cabinet or stand mounted.

The Sabrina works well in corners, much closer to a wall, Pulled out to get amazing soundstage, or almost anything you ask of her. She's marvelous.

The new Yvette is Magical. She needs some serious break in and good clean power. Mesmerizing with my Audio Research gear.

The Alexia is a mini Alexandria XLF. With the new Tweeter, she sings to me.

The new Alexx took a long time to break in in my store. She is now my favorite speaker in the line up.

The Alexandria XLF is the KING of speakers. Authoritative, musical and stunning in painting a musical picture. Completely 3 dimensional.
(...)

Nice characterization of the current Wilson line.

 

[Sunny]

Yes Steve. Only Wilson Audio has been designed so precisely that a high end customer with the knowledge and expertise can document adjust and deploy proper setup. Kudos my friend. I hope you're enjoying your speakers. I am positioning XLF for a customer with ARC gear today.

 

[microstrip]

Yes Steve. Only Wilson Audio has been designed so precisely that a high end customer with the knowledge and expertise can document adjust and deploy proper setup. Kudos my friend. I hope you're enjoying your speakers. I am positioning XLF for a customer with ARC gear today.

Can I ask what ARC's?

 

[Al M.]

Yes Steve. Only Wilson Audio has been designed so precisely that a high end customer with the knowledge and expertise can document adjust and deploy proper setup. Kudos my friend. I hope you're enjoying your speakers. I am positioning XLF for a customer with ARC gear today.

Should proper speaker set-up really have to be so complicated?

I am asking after reading Marty's great post on his trials and tribulations.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

Should proper speaker set-up really have to be so complicated?

I am asking after reading Marty's great post on his trials and tribulations.

no. but we must be true to ourselves.

I think Marty is burdened by the weight of his prior speaker room development experience (it's acknowledged success) and being the scientist that he is. he re-created his prior room in his new right coast digs, and now he is trying to cover the same steps having confidence from their familiarity. his degree of precision and purity of purpose is (as expected) remarkable. hopefully he is enjoying (in his own perverted way) the process and ultimately will get the satisfaction from the experience and result.

Marty has very high expectations and the willingness to attain them.

i never approached things as scientifically, could never do that. but i can relate to the drive to get it right, if not the smarts to use that approach.

 

[steve williams]

Should proper speaker set-up really have to be so complicated?

I am asking after reading Marty's great post on his trials and tribulations.

It's really not that complicated and the beauty of the Wilson speaker is that each of the upper modules are adjustable for listener's ear height, speaker separation and distance from speaker to listener. IMHO these are all virtues of the speaker that I wouldn't be without

 

[LL21]

Should proper speaker set-up really have to be so complicated?

I am asking after reading Marty's great post on his trials and tribulations.

I hear you...but two considerations:

1. Complexity and effort are all relative. Most of us are considered over-the-top in whatever level of effort we have put into our systems by most other non-audiophiles. It is clear Marty is going to the edge of beyond to get spectacular sound out of his speakers, not just great sound. And to be fair, his earlier system was apparently spectacular. So he has made the CHOICE to go to this level because i suspect he has some seriously extreme standards of what he wants to hear. God bless him.

2. One of the things I give David Wilson a lot of credit for is that his mantra was always about 'consistently replicating high quality sound in whatever room the speaker was going to be placed'. And so he designed incredibly high levels adjustability into his speakers. This door swings both ways...with all the [literally] moving parts, it means the sound can get seriously screwed up. It also means it gives the utterly dedicated audiophile the control over: speaker placement as guided by a very detailed manual by Wilson, PLUS incredibly minute adjustments on the positioning of 4 different major speaker modules, PLUS minute 0.7db adjustments to a number of those modules by changing the resistors. Add that up, and it really allows for tailoring in the right hands.

The complexity is a curse for some, but a boon to those of us who have made that trek during the setup (or had people like Sunny or in my case, Pedro) do all the real work (and literally all the 'heavy lifting').

 

[steve williams]

I hear you...but two considerations:

1. Complexity and effort are all relative. Most of us are considered over-the-top in whatever level of effort we have put into our systems by most other non-audiophiles. It is clear Marty is going to the edge of beyond to get spectacular sound out of his speakers, not just great sound. And to be fair, his earlier system was apparently spectacular. So he has made the CHOICE to go to this level because i suspect he has some seriously extreme standards of what he wants to hear. God bless him.

2. One of the things I give David Wilson a lot of credit for is that his mantra was always about 'consistently replicating high quality sound in whatever room the speaker was going to be placed'. And so he designed incredibly high levels adjustability into his speakers. This door swings both ways...with all the [literally] moving parts, it means the sound can get seriously screwed up. It also means it gives the utterly dedicated audiophile the control over: speaker placement as guided by a very detailed manual by Wilson, PLUS incredibly minute adjustments on the positioning of 4 different major speaker modules, PLUS minute 0.7db adjustments to a number of those modules by changing the resistors. Add that up, and it really allows for tailoring in the right hands.

The complexity is a curse for some, but a boon to those of us who have made that trek during the setup (or had people like Sunny or in my case, Pedro) do all the real work (and literally all the 'heavy lifting').

+1

Great post LL21

Something only a Wilson owner can understand. The speaker is like a bunch of lasers that all need to come together at the same time and same place in every room. There aren't many companies that can boast of this. I am a perfect example by bringing my X2 S2 from a very large room in Northern California to one half the size in Southern California. I set the speaker up myself in both places.It takes little time or effort and the rewards with the slightest of change were excellent. I have recently shown where correct of rake angle by 0.1 degree changed the bass immensely.

Here's a caveat...when I moved to Southern California all of my audiophile buddies and they are all members here told me I was out of my mind to put X2S2 in my proposed new room addition as "the speakers were so big that they would blow the back wall off my room". I phoned WA just to be sure and not only did the entire Wilson team get back to me promptly and say that the speaker would sound good in my new room it would sound better than most speakers because of the upper module dexterity. I can say that the speaker sounded amazing in my last room and even better in this room.

BTW, one of the members who told me that the speaker would blow the back wall off my room is probably laughing because the hottest thread on WBF right now is by my good friend marty "In search of my last great loudspeaker"....guess what speaker he bought and why he bought it was of the upper module dexterity..X2S2. Its a fabulous read but in the end the reward that marty got was the icing on the cake.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...at-loudspeaker&p=429261&viewfull=1#post429261

This is another post about this very issue...

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...Steve-Williams&p=195582&viewfull=1#post195582

I assure you Al it's worth every penny for the rewards with such dexterity of a speaker will bring the listener a whole lot closer to the music and isn't this what it is all about

 

[the sound of Tao]

I hear you...but two considerations:

1. Complexity and effort are all relative. Most of us are considered over-the-top in whatever level of effort we have put into our systems by most other non-audiophiles. It is clear Marty is going to the edge of beyond to get spectacular sound out of his speakers, not just great sound. And to be fair, his earlier system was apparently spectacular. So he has made the CHOICE to go to this level because i suspect he has some seriously extreme standards of what he wants to hear. God bless him.

2. One of the things I give David Wilson a lot of credit for is that his mantra was always about 'consistently replicating high quality sound in whatever room the speaker was going to be placed'. And so he designed incredibly high levels adjustability into his speakers. This door swings both ways...with all the [literally] moving parts, it means the sound can get seriously screwed up. It also means it gives the utterly dedicated audiophile the control over: speaker placement as guided by a very detailed manual by Wilson, PLUS incredibly minute adjustments on the positioning of 4 different major speaker modules, PLUS minute 0.7db adjustments to a number of those modules by changing the resistors. Add that up, and it really allows for tailoring in the right hands.

The complexity is a curse for some, but a boon to those of us who have made that trek during the setup (or had people like Sunny or in my case, Pedro) do all the real work (and literally all the 'heavy lifting').

+ 2 on a great post from LL21. For some setup is a real pita and yet for some it is a labour of love, a patient challenge of maxxing out potentials and working the room and the characteristics of the speaker type.

Some speakers don't reward very much at all in setup by being more immune to the placement in a room or some cover their tracks a bit by being a bit less resolving or having a more forgiving fuller figure and this can be both a strength or a weakness depending on the expectations and experience of the punter in dialling a speaker in.

I learnt from a true master of the Magnepan and I've long felt more than most Maggies and Wilsons are speakers that demand a lot from their owners in this area but also can then reward them as much again or more.

They also make dialling in many other speakers an easier task from what you quickly learn from living with more revealing kinds of speakers and then what they clearly teach you about cause and effect with speaker placement by making the changes obvious and easier to discern in quality and effect.

Marty is clearly a man born for this task.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Besides the Wilson set up procedure, in my view given the adjustability, a proper freq reponse maesurement tool is the road to Go ,not a i phone but something with much more resulution.
It shows you what youve changed what you like and dont like and it ll be a great learning Experience.
If one wants it perfect that is
I see sometimes audophiles spending thousands of $$$. On cables while a cliopocketsystem(and learn how to use it )of maybe a 1000 euro
might Be much more appropriate ,
Or hire someone to do measurements on speakers and acoustics.
Looking at how much is spent on high end audio makes you wonder why its not yet mandatory for hifidealers to take measurements of the speakers/system that is placed

 

[microstrip]

Besides the Wilson set up procedure, in my view given the adjustability, a proper freq reponse maesurement tool is the road to Go ,not a i phone but something with much more resulution.
It shows you what youve changed what you like and dont like and it ll be a great learning Experience.
If one wants it perfect that is
I see sometimes audophiles spending thousands of $$$. On cables while a cliopocketsystem(and learn how to use it )of maybe a 1000 euro
might Be much more appropriate ,
Or hire someone to do measurements on speakers and acoustics.
Looking at how much is spent on high end audio makes you wonder why its not yet mandatory for hifidealers to take measurements of the speakers that are placed

IMHO and IMHexperience when setting speakers such as Wilson's, Sonus Faber, Quad's or Soundlab's you have to go by ear, not by measurements. It is why a method is needed - otherwise you will spend a lot of time without any convergence.

I have played hundreds of hours with REW. Great for initial settings of subs, misleading to find the best sounding position in a room, unless you are mostly looking for a reference system, as needed by professionals. Surely YMMV.

And yes, speakers differ enough in design and objectives to invalidate any universal rule on this subject.

 

[andromedaaudio]

Well at least it gives a guideline , An idea where a problem might be.
Some swap cables and Gear without knowing what or why

 

[Al M.]

Thank you, Steve, Mike, Lloyd, and others for your replies.

I set the speaker up myself in both places.It takes little time or effort and the rewards with the slightest of change were excellent.

Little time or effort: This seems to contradict Marty's experience.

I might add that even for 'just' the monitor/sub combo that I have, I have invested quite a bit of time and effort. Obviously, dropping a speaker somewhere in the room and hoping for the best doesn't cut it. But what Marty describes for the Wilson is something different altogether.