Where to start with my impressions of these speakers.....
In my over 30 years as an a'phile, I have never heard a speaker that is more perplexing!
On the one hand, the diamond drivers are some of the most revealing that I have ever heard. To hear how the tweeter handles transients and detail is somewhat of an eye opener. The sound of a brush on a drum head is almost real. The sound of air escaping from female singer's throat is stunning. IMHO, the diamond drivers are almost revelatory. OTOH, the fact that they are so immensely revealing also leads them to show up ANY weakness in the upstream components and this weakness shows up as a "hardness" ( diamonds are the hardest known substance) that I think would be VERY unpleasant for the long term. The MKS is beautifully constructed with great attention to detail....immense rigidity of the cabinet. Therein lies my second issue...they are simply too small to present what I feel is a life size image. Similar issue that I have heard with many speakers that are too small for the room that they are presented in. They can drop down into what seems like the mids 30's in the bottom end, BUT the bottom end is nowhere near as resolved as the rest of range served by the diamond drivers. Listening carefully, I could hear the x-over and clearly the two areas of presentation were not of the same cloth.
Dan Khesin, the designer and CEO of the company had some very interesting thoughts on the driver's and the choice of same. The mids( diamond drivers) and the tweets ( diamond tweets) are VERY expensive...to reproduce the bass drivers in diamonds is, according to Dan, NOT financially an option as the drivers increase in price exponentially as they increase in size. So,one of the compromises are the choice of the bass driver's. The cabinet is made from an aluminum sheet that is, again according to Dan, more inert and of a higher quality than the T6061 aluminum that is used by Magico and YG. I can believe this, as the finish work is absolutely first class.
BUT here's why I am still shaking my head.....
The 'life' or warmth that I like and look for in a speaker is missing entirely from these speakers. Purely analytical and revealing BUT lacking in a certain " humanity" that i listen for in music. To some the "humanity" or warmth of reproduction is a "coloration". Not to me. For some reason, I kept on thinking these speakers are the Halcro's of the speaker world..cold and analytical, yet showing tremendous "spec's". How much of this had to do with the ancillary gear and room is a good question. I suspect a lot, BUT I have a feeling that going to the n'th degree to get rigidity in all things cabinet and driver may not hold the path to the holy grail. IMO, these speakers are so VERY close to doing some things so well and yet they lack something that would want me to take them home. The size/footprint seems wrong as is the blend between the drivers,OTOH the design screams 'high tech' and quality is obviously there, the end result....Not my cup of tea.
OTOH, would I LOVE to hear these diamond driver's in another enclosure that is larger and has better integration with the bass driver's ( whatever they may be)...an enclosure that gives a little more warmth to the presentation-- you betcha.
BTW, I had a very pleasant chat with a fellow attendee who owns both the Wilson Alex 2's and Marten Coltrane's. He felt that these Polymer's KILLED his Alex 2's in several areas, particularly in the ability of the diamond driver's to reveal information. An interesting perspective, because when i asked him If he had heard the new XLF's he said he had and that in his opinion, the new tweeter did NOT change the overall presentation of the Wilson speaker. He is now trying to sell his Alex 2's!
I'm not sure I agree with him here!
