Most beautiful speakers in the world ?

[Pearljam5000]

30th anniversary Nautilus

 

[Keith_W]

I am truly “baffled” by the big Wilson and Focal designs that use mechanical driver adjustments to achieve “coherent” wave arrival. An active design using a dsp and three or four good amps would get there more effectively I think.

I met a Wilson rep at a Wilson audio demonstration a couple of weeks ago. He said it was all about time alignment, something I am skeptical about. The range of adjustment is only up to a few cm between minimum and maximum. This would equate to a time difference of a fraction of a millisecond (10cm = 0.291ms). I suspect it's more a combination of adjusting the vertical dispersion and marketing.

I also asked how they "time align" the speaker when they come to your house to install the Wilson's. Do they use a microphone? Actually no, they use a table where they look up various distances and adjust the tilt of the modules accordingly.

 

[Sal1950]

disagree. With nearly everything else, beauty and styling matters as much as its performance at its intended function.

I think you misunderstand my post.
My main point or question is does excellent performance come with the
expensive cosmetic styling? It seems many times our measurements have shown
them not to go hand in hand.
The other one is strickly personal, I'll pay for performance first. If they don't look so
hot I can live with that

30th anniversary Nautilus

OMG, I'd shoot the person who tried to put them in my house. LOL

 

[ThatM1key]

30th anniversary Nautilus View attachment 294743View attachment 294744View attachment 294745View attachment 294746View attachment 294747

Look like a B&W person got high, saw a snail and thought hmmm.

I don't know if the "30th anniversary" is any better then the older models because there is no specs but the older ones do:

Specs are pretty meh

 

[test1223]

I met a Wilson rep at a Wilson audio demonstration a couple of weeks ago. He said it was all about time alignment, something I am skeptical about. The range of adjustment is only up to a few cm between minimum and maximum. This would equate to a time difference of a fraction of a millisecond (10cm = 0.291ms). I suspect it's more a combination of adjusting the vertical dispersion and marketing.

I also asked how they "time align" the speaker when they come to your house to install the Wilson's. Do they use a microphone? Actually no, they use a table where they look up various distances and adjust the tilt of the modules accordingly.

Yes, if you sit a bit higher or lower all the mm precise time alignment is wrong again

 

[Pearljam5000]

Look like a B&W person got high, saw a snail and thought hmmm.

I don't know if the "30th anniversary" is any better then the older models because there is no specs but the older ones do:
View attachment 294749
Specs are pretty meh

It's just a special color
They didn't change anything

 

[Pearljam5000]

I think you misunderstand my post.
My main point or question is does excellent performance come with the
expensive cosmetic styling? It seems many times our measurements have shown
them not to go hand in hand.
The other one is strickly personal, I'll pay for performance first. If they don't look so
hot I can live with that

OMG, I'd shoot the person who tried to put them in my house. LOL

It's the most beautiful speakers ever made

 

[Keith_W]

I think you misunderstand my post.
My main point or question is does excellent performance come with the
expensive cosmetic styling? It seems many times our measurements have shown
them not to go hand in hand.
The other one is strickly personal, I'll pay for performance first. If they don't look so
hot I can live with that

I did misunderstand your point. My apologies.

 

[Pearljam5000]

 

[FrantzM]

It's the most beautiful speakers ever made

But it's not aluminum, thus it can't be any good ?? ...


On that, recently saw in Amir's 2023 Pacific Audio Fest Report a Focal Speaker called "Sopra Concrete Brown", perhaps made of concrete ... Immediately thought of @Pearljam5000 and came up with these conclusions:
1) It couldn't be good since it wasn't a Genelec.
2) ... and it was made of concrete, the horror!
3) Why not Aluminum reinforced concrete or concrete reinforced aluminum?.... Perhaps it would have a chance..



Peace.

 

[Pearljam5000]

But it's not aluminum, thus it can't be any good ?? ...


On that, recently saw in Amir's 2023 Pacific Audio Fest Report a Focal Speaker called "Sopra Concrete Brown", perhaps made of concrete ... Immediately thought of @Pearljam5000 and came up with these conclusions:
1) It couldn't be good since it wasn't a Genelec.
2) ... and it was made of concrete, the horror!
3) Why not Aluminum reinforced concrete or concrete reinforced aluminum?.... Perhaps it would have a chance..



Peace.

It's even better than aluminum
They use zirconium

 

[TheBatsEar]

30th anniversary Nautilus View attachment 294743View attachment 294744View attachment 294745View attachment 294746View attachment 294747

An early prototype:

A slightly later prototype, two years before production started:

 

[fpitas]

I am truly “baffled” by the big Wilson and Focal designs that use mechanical driver adjustments to achieve “coherent” wave arrival. An active design using a dsp and three or four good amps would get there more effectively I think.

Yes, there's no substitute for digital time delay.

 

[thewas]

Yes, there's no substitute for digital time delay.

And coincidental drivers as otherwise you can only have time alignment for one axis but for example the reflected off-axis sound won't be.

 

[crazycloud]

OMG, I'd shoot the person who tried to put them in my house.

A hard enough 'accidental' shove and you could simply impale them.

 

[fpitas]

OMG, I'd shoot the person who tried to put them in my house. LOL

Maybe it's an acquired taste?

 

[Short38]

Going back to Keith_W’s post about meeting a Wilson rep who described the Wilsonusgigantus set up process, I offer four thoughts: 1. Bluetooth enabled high precision micro motors to adjust the driver modules (controlled by a proprietary phone app) 2. Phone app to do head to driver module distance calculations replacing the analog pencil and paper measurement tables currently used by installers. 3. Industrial bluetooth controlled motor driving a marble base turntable on which the speakers rest allowing precise toe-in 4. An audible alarm warning the listener when their head is falling outside the optimal listening space similar in concept to the lane departure warning system on automobiles. I would estimate the added cost of these enhancements to be under $150,000.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Yes, there's no substitute for digital time delay.

But that still leaves open the question of whether you can hear any improvements from digital time delay. I remember flying up to Jim Salk's house in Michigan to hear one of my designs with the stock passive crossover compared with a digitally optimized active version that included a phase coherent response and correction for room modes in the bass. We could switch back and forth instantly and neither Jim nor I could hear any difference except in the bass, where the room correction did tame a room mode noticeably. That's not definitive evidence by any means. But I'm not aware of any carefully controlled tests with loudspeakers (rather than headphones on test signals) that have shown any audible improvement. I remain agnostic on the issue, but we shouldn't simply assume there a benefit.

 

[dualazmak]

Regarding digital time delay, or digital time alignment over all the SP drivers,,,

At least in my multichannel audio project/setup, I believe I can/could hear "audible improvement" as summarized here and here, even though I (we) did not, could not, perform strict ABX subjective listening comparisons. (I assume the audibility would be greatly dependent on room acoustic environments...)

Since I use DSP software EKIO's group delay features, it is/was quite easy for me to compare between time-aligned and non-time-aligned any time, even on-the-fly (while listening to the music), sitting on sofa at my listening position. (You would please find my latest system setup here and here.)

 

[Pearljam5000]