OK...here is the closest i have come to hearing Gary's mighty Dragons. I heard the Genesis 1.1s...but completely and i mean completely reworked...external Dueland Silver crossovers, ribbons, etc. It is to date the finest sound i have heard and by a wide, wide margin. I have been to Sound by Singer, Extreme? in Turkey, Audio Exotics in HK, full TAD system at Pioneer Plaza in Tokyo, KJ & Metropolis in London, A10 in Amsterdam, a few spots in Cambridge, MA, Madrid Spain, and elsewhere. I have heard at least 4 installations of Wilson X1s, X2s, XLF...plus Tidals with full Sunrays dual tower subs, TAD Ref Ones Mk II, big Thiels, ML CLX/Descents, Maggie 3s, Apogee Stages, SF Strads with subs...nothing prepared me for this. Or my wife who kindly joined me (and also has heard the XLFs, Strads, X1s as well). She, having minimal interest, has patiently taken the time when asked to listen to a few systems and provided comments. In her mind, as my own, there is no contest to what we have heard to date.
The system was in high-ceilinged room (maybe 15') and 17' by 30'. A panetheon of Kondo electronics...Gakuons, M1000, DCS Scarlatti, poured concrete flooring that had been physically separated from the floor that sustained the speakers...you name it. But in the end, i strongly suspect the noise floor, detail and human-ness of all sounds was from the extraordinary dedication to electronics...but the sweeping stage effortlessness of scale, nuance and dynamics was the speakers:
- It made the X1s and XLF installations i heard sound artificial and small by comparison. Dire Straights on Walker Proscenium III...was the last track of the evening, and the scale of the stage (not soundstage...i mean the stage where they were playing)...eclipsed that of the XLFs. OK...different room/different system...but this was not a close contest, and while i would NEVER say NEVER on the XLF sounding bigger in a different room...it would have to reach so far to achieve what i heard last nite, i personally am extremely skeptical it would do so...again having heard big Wilsons in 3-4 set ups in different rooms, some also very large and professionally treated (unlike the set up last nite which had no treatments other than isolation).
- the clarity of detail was so effortless, that listening to deep house, you could hear mumbles and little voices that i honestly think the artist never thought anyone would ever hear, and the words just lifted out of space into the room like they were always there and you knew what words he was saying as easily as if my wife read them to me sitting next to me.
- Audio Exotics in Hong Kong had done a tremendous effort in bringing forth detail from my music...and i had, until last nite, not heard its equal...but unlike trying to compare Tidals to XLFs...where i honestly felt both were contenders...you could choose one over the other, prefer one over the other...extrapolate whether it was the room, or the digital front end...but you could at least make the case that the speakers were contenders to each other...i do not find either to be a contender compared to what i heard.
Coming home, i remain extraordinarily grateful to have music like we have at home...but the X1s never felt more like big bookshelf speakers tonite than after last nite. And i honestly mean that...and i have no other way to say it. What the soundstage of the X1 to tremendous bookshelves in soundstage and effortlessness/detail/scale is comparable to what these incredibly customized Genesis 1.1s were to all of the X1s/X2s/XLFs, Tidal Sunray installations that i have heard.
Any problem? They are huge...i mean huge...and few have the room for them...sadly. The big Wilsons for all their size can remain relatively unobtrusive in a far more moderately sized room. The Genesis 1.1 with its 7' foot dual tower subs and nearly 4' foot wide dual panels (that are also 7.25' feet tall) was an incredible amount of speaker to have before you...but still...
The system was in high-ceilinged room (maybe 15') and 17' by 30'. A panetheon of Kondo electronics...Gakuons, M1000, DCS Scarlatti, poured concrete flooring that had been physically separated from the floor that sustained the speakers...you name it. But in the end, i strongly suspect the noise floor, detail and human-ness of all sounds was from the extraordinary dedication to electronics...but the sweeping stage effortlessness of scale, nuance and dynamics was the speakers:
- It made the X1s and XLF installations i heard sound artificial and small by comparison. Dire Straights on Walker Proscenium III...was the last track of the evening, and the scale of the stage (not soundstage...i mean the stage where they were playing)...eclipsed that of the XLFs. OK...different room/different system...but this was not a close contest, and while i would NEVER say NEVER on the XLF sounding bigger in a different room...it would have to reach so far to achieve what i heard last nite, i personally am extremely skeptical it would do so...again having heard big Wilsons in 3-4 set ups in different rooms, some also very large and professionally treated (unlike the set up last nite which had no treatments other than isolation).
- the clarity of detail was so effortless, that listening to deep house, you could hear mumbles and little voices that i honestly think the artist never thought anyone would ever hear, and the words just lifted out of space into the room like they were always there and you knew what words he was saying as easily as if my wife read them to me sitting next to me.
- Audio Exotics in Hong Kong had done a tremendous effort in bringing forth detail from my music...and i had, until last nite, not heard its equal...but unlike trying to compare Tidals to XLFs...where i honestly felt both were contenders...you could choose one over the other, prefer one over the other...extrapolate whether it was the room, or the digital front end...but you could at least make the case that the speakers were contenders to each other...i do not find either to be a contender compared to what i heard.
Coming home, i remain extraordinarily grateful to have music like we have at home...but the X1s never felt more like big bookshelf speakers tonite than after last nite. And i honestly mean that...and i have no other way to say it. What the soundstage of the X1 to tremendous bookshelves in soundstage and effortlessness/detail/scale is comparable to what these incredibly customized Genesis 1.1s were to all of the X1s/X2s/XLFs, Tidal Sunray installations that i have heard.
Any problem? They are huge...i mean huge...and few have the room for them...sadly. The big Wilsons for all their size can remain relatively unobtrusive in a far more moderately sized room. The Genesis 1.1 with its 7' foot dual tower subs and nearly 4' foot wide dual panels (that are also 7.25' feet tall) was an incredible amount of speaker to have before you...but still...
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