Was not the case at this the most recent one. The Quintessence Room at this Axpona with the Alexx V was in my opinion by far the best sound at the show. It had everything: resolution, dynamics, soundstage, and excellent bass. It was so musical!
Wilson Alexx V vs Rockport Orion
- Thread starter Chpray
- Start date
That's a lot of exaggeration. Rooms matter no doubt, but a room (and the capabilities of setup) can only do so much, the system matters most.This echos our ongoing discussions around how important and critical proper setup is. A good setup guy can make a $2K pair of magnepans sound amazing. A bad setup guy can make $750K M9s sound like a $2K pair of magnepans.
There are a lot of bad setup guys at Axpona.
Elliott, very nice to meet you. I enjoy your comments although I disagree with them. Also you are quite condescending. It's not polite to talk down to folks. I've been around the block though I'm new to the WBF. I really like the WBF. Condescension is a subtle friendly form of intimidation. Neither you or Jim have proven anything or really said anything other than state your rather novice opinions and generalizations. Wilson speakers more than hold their own with Rockport's, especially the XVX which is superior to any Rockport speaker, and yes I do really like my speakers.
Ron, McIntosh almost never advertises. Yet McIntosh sells more gear than any high end manufacturer. They don't advertise because they don't need to. Most dealers would covet being a McIntosh or Wilson dealer. Both companies are quite selective in their dealers, yet they have a very large dealership base. Maybe you could give one or two examples of high end companies regarding your last point. You must have a few well known high end manufacturers in mind that have a lot of sales but subjectively are lacking in sound quality..
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Subjectively lacking in sound quality according to whom? Part of the difficulty I am having with what appears to be your approach is that you are a mistaking this subjective hobby for something with an objective reference.
Wow so many complex crossovers and phase and time misalignment potential that could result in lots of loss of signal
Not really, having heard them, they don't move anywhere near as much air as dual woofer front loaded horns which can have much bigger woofers with 15 and 18 inch woofers (2 of them), matching the upper driver in impedance and sensitivity (flat 8 ohm impedance and 105ish db sensitivity) that can be run on simpler circuits. How can such a complex crossover with such small drivers with low impedances, low sensitivity and loads of caps, resistors, and capacitors in the electronics behind it keep up?
Can you please point out where it says their midranges are comparable to those of electrostats, ribbons, and high quality horn drivers?
Do you have the X-max and Q factors for the Wilson woofers, to see if they are anywhere even comparable to Altec woofers, which do not need to move much and require very less grip to move tremendous amounts of air. Right now your comments are reading like a child who says my mom is the most beautiful and my dad's the strongest. Of course if you had a baby who made such a claim, the neighbor's baby would ask how much does your dad deadlift, squat and bench. Numbers, please
And Ron and Peter like their's, Andro does his, and I like the ones I might one day buy. So you are just another forummer then.
Elliot G.
Industry Expert
First nice to meet you as well. I am certainly not a novice and insulting me wont work . I am not being condescending only stating the facts, of which you are only stating the marketing with nothing else. As I said its cool that you like your speakers but the opinions that they are clearly better than anything based on the criteria you espouse is just not true. I am not saying nor have ever said that Wilson does not make good products but your statement that what you have is clearly better than everything else is well BS. You are making circular arguements based on a reviewer , a literature sheet and when that doesnt work just by well I say so.
My name is Elliot btw .
Wow who told you this ..?
Wait , what , flatish 8ohm curve , please enlighten us , any measurments..?
More technical Irony Mr Banker , best your comments remain subjective and leave out the pseudo tech responses. Please feel free to post the time alignment measurements from these super horn speakers you are constantly boasting about , along with their Altec woofers linear x-max, measured impedance amplitude and phase would also suffice ..
Ask the owners ...
This is all very easily available, just google. Altec has been around for 70 years and not proprietary anymore. The whole tech on material, measurements, etc of all their drivers over the decades is available. You will educate yourself in the process digging through what to look
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Charles you are out of your depth here. Do you know what Elliot does for a living? He is an industry professional. Is that a novice? I put together my first stereo system in 1976. 48 years ago! Before i bought Rockport's I flew to Omaha from Atlanta to hear the XVX in the same room as Rockport on the same electronics for 9 hours at a dealer who sells both. You know my opinion. I flew to Maine to hear Lyra personally in Rockport's sound room to better understand the speaker. 15 or so others drove/flew distances to hear Peters XVX demonstration at this dealer and then later Joshs Orion demonstration. Same room same electronics. All as far as the staff knows (who sell both and make more money on the XVX) preferred the Orions. There is an Audiogon thread on this. Are they all also "novices". One of the store owners has both XVX and Lyra in his house (along with a set of Trios). Despite the XVX being paired with Subsonic subs, Gryphon Apex monos on the XVX and Mephisto monos on the subs, a commander preamp and an Air force one in a room he spent 2 years creating for them, Peter personally setting them up he still says that if could only have one speaker it would be the Lyra. Is this 70 year old man who owns a high end store which sells both a "novice" ? Specifically since you asked the tweeter height is incorrect. Try having someone speak to you at ear level and then have him raise up 12 inches and angle his mouth down towards your ears and speak again. It doesn't sound the same. Period. Wilsons superstructure holding box over box is susceptible to resonance and micro movements. That's physics period. Please watch the videos on Lyra and Rockport construction. See the huge difference in design choice. The soundstage is not natural if you are used to listening to live music. I was married to a musician who had a sound studio in our basement. I am friendly with multi platinum artist who has allowed me to watch her record in studio and I have had season tickets to live music most of my life. I spent two years listening to my stereo meditating and reconnecting with life every day after my wife died. I know what live and studio recording sound like. Rockport is closer to this than Wilson. My bet is you don't travel to listen to alternatives for yourself. You're not addicted to learning and growing. Music is not in your blood. Its not a spiritual adventure. You are a guy with money who's ego makes him susceptible to marketing BS and who desperately wants to posses what the "experts" say is the best without having any actual idea what's what. This kind of discussion threatens your superiority. Look, you don't have to justify your choice to me or anyone else. I can actually understand your choice.I think most people agree XVX is a fine speaker (except maybe the horn or planar guys). The money is gone. Relax. Enjoy - Jim (the novice).
JiminGa , could you please ad some paragraphs in your text.
Its like a wall of words im looking at
Its like a wall of words im looking at
Charles, it's a mistake to try and equate commercial success, particularly brick and mortar commercial success, with optimal sound quality. i'm not talking good or bad sound here. Wilson and McIntosh both sound good. but it all depends on what your expectations are for optimal, great sound. which is more about how things fit together, than brands.
if you are religious about your brands, get use to being defensive. if i owned your system i would be proud of it too. there is much to admire about it. don't allow anyone to take away the joy. but know that this forum will be supportive but also be critical sometimes. lots of strong views. it's not just a back slapping place.....although plenty of that.
commercial success is simply beside the point of this forum. it does not help, and might hurt. commercial success typically supports a vertical marketing set-up and lots of layers of distribution and frequent product update cycles and trade-ins. classic hifi dealers. selling. variable levels of set-up and actual end user performance. not saying customers are not happy, but what is their reference for great sound? a dealer's showroom?
not saying that is fair, or that you agree, but it is where you are. you don't have to change your mind, but only that it will help to understand perspectives. many come here and eventually evolve a lot from how they viewed things when they arrived. they learn.
"lacking in sound quality" unfortunately is completely in the eye of the beholder. it will always come down to taste and biases. good sounding gear can be viewed as pedestrian to some listeners. 'good sound' or 'hifi sound' might be viewed as not worthy to some.
just wear your body amour as you go until the balance of how the forum reacts to things get's to be comfortable.
So nothing to offer , as usual , whats a flatish 8ohm load ..?
I did own and measure Altec drivers when new , maybe you should focus on balancing cheque books and stop pushing pseudo Tech ..
So nothing to offer , as usual , whats a flatish 8ohm load ..?
I did own and measure Altec drivers when new , maybe you should focus on balancing cheque books and stop pushing pseudo Tech ..
Bet yours didn’t sound good
No, not an exaggeration. I took an extreme case to make a point about the critical importance of setup. But I'm not sure I agree the system matters the most. On small square rooms, in my experience, there's a lower limit on what sound is possible even with the best gear.
Scanspeak revelator series are the woofers
scan speak 26w/4878t00 10.5"
scan speak 32w/4878t00 12.5"
depends on the music and SPL's. small rooms well set up can handle tip top gear with reduced large music expectations. small rooms can be SOTA with small music. but those small rooms get exposed the more you push them. horses for courses.
i had a small room with top gear and got top intimate sound, but it was limiting to try to get that level of performance with larger music.
sure, there are particular weird sounding small rooms.
First, it's all subjective. For example, what you might see as acceptable performance might very well be a much higher bar than what others do. I would argue that's the case for most of us at WBF.
Second, a room's performance capability IME is mostly limited / most challenging in the bass region. I'd argue most people have not heard what truly accurate bass sounds like so they don't know what they're missing, which gets back to #1. But at the end of the day, I'd wager for most folks that walk through audio shows, they don't know what they're missing and as such, they don't realize the magnitude of deleterious effects of poor rooms / poor room setup, so much is a wash from their perspective and as a result, the system matters most.
Final thought - over the years, I've experimented with my office system of the moment in my main 2 - channel well set up / room treated room and of course, the system sounds better in the larger treated room, but is it transformed to be better than it's price? No. In fact, the larger room requires high playback level (distortion) for the same SPL and bass impact is greatly diminished. There is no free lunch.
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