I had the great pleasure to spend a few days last week at Transparent Audio in Saco Maine. This is just outside of Portland which is a great place to visit. It is a young hip vibrant city with great food and tons of LOBSTER.
At transparent they have not one but two pairs of XLF's in two identical listening rooms. One is at the factory and the other and the Sumner's home listening room. I was fortunate to hear these speakers in both locations with a variety of music. We used CD, High resolution downloads and Master recordings from the Portland Symphony.
First a disclaimer, I have never really been in love with Wilson speakers. It is not the speakers per se but rather I am fan of line source, planars, ribbons and stats. I like some of the large "box speakers" but was never really blown away with any of them over long term exposure. I liked the Focal Grand Utopia EM, some of the Magico's although never heard the big ones really blow me away. I have heard Maxx 3's sound really good a few times.
Ok so enough background!
The XLF's in Maine were just terrific. They did everything well and we did a lot of listening. I got to hear every cable in the line and besides being cool it was very informative not only about the cables but about the speakers as well.
They can play all kinds of music and all kinds of levels and in their room, particularly at Karen and Jacks home, really totally disappear.
I felt the "traditional" Wilson sound was no longer there for me. This is a good thing since I always felt they were not enjoyable over the long term and were kind of bloated and at time can be very fatiguing in the highs.
The XLF don't sound like that at all!!! They have incredible low frequency detail and speed and the highs are very extended and smooth. I also like that they seem to be a very easy load to drive so there was no sense of strain on any of the amplifiers.
I cant make any comments about the Aida or the MBL's other than I have not heard the Aida and I don't care for the MBL since I have have heard them a few times and they never sounded good. I do realize that the room and set up makes a huge, HUGE, HUGE difference on any of these big guys and it makes no sense to own them or show them if the room and gear are not up to par.
I have heard the Nola, Scaena, Genesis, Infinity all sound amazing and terrible as well. The room design and the person setting them up needs to know what they are doing and sadly this is not the case in most places. Having heard many large systems in clients and friends home the set up and follow through on most big systems is really poor, even when some manufacturers have been involved.
I want to congratulate Karen and Jack along with Josh and Brad ( and any others I am unaware of
) for two great systems . I know how hard this is do.
