Wilson Audio Speakers: Why do people like them?

[Arindal]

But if that chap had realised that better sound quality was available at a twentieth of the price, would he have purchased those Wilsons.

I would take the fact that he did purchase them, as an indication that he did not believe in your vision of ´better sound quality at twentieth of the price´. He just purchased what he found desirable and superior for his personal enjoyment. People who spend such amount of money, usually had done a couple of listening comparisons, therefore having made a personal decision to do it. They don't buy such products randomly or without comparing or because it looks so cool. They want it. Maybe we should accept that.

Noticed one interesting aspect: People who bought WA speakers, although I might not agree with their personal ideal of sound characteristics, usually seem to be happy with them on the long run. They in most cases don't whine and complain publicly, about acoustic problems and dissatisfaction with sound quality, but enjoy music and buy another WA a decade or two later.

If you want to counsel people on which speaker delivers better sound quality than the ones they already own, my advice would be to start with individuals who already expressed dissatisfaction. In my experience, these are mainly people who purchased speakers after what I would call an uninformed process, you hear reasoning like ´bought them from the white van´, ´they were -60% off´, or ´I bought the ones winning the tests/recommended on a review site´, or ´they were having the best measurements´. These people need help, not typcical WA owners.

If someone finds magic in their system—whether it’s a modest setup or a flagship rig—I say cheers to that. We’re all chasing the same thing: connection through music.

I nominate this statement for ´wisest post of the month´. Cheers!

 

[Digital_Thor]

Lt's not go to live orchestra cause the numbers can be staggering.
Considering live:
I saw another member with it's double 18" subs probably assigned to play lows, typical bass, drums, etc.

To compare, a single bass drum is considered small at 22-inch and about 90 liters. And that's one element of the instrument.
and this instrument is one of many.

We fool ourselves If we think we can do that easily at home.
(let alone a full orchestra with a full double chorus)

Well... I have heard some of these HUGE systems... and they can definitely deliver the SPL. But again, it will never be like being in front of a stage live or hearing unamplified music - I know and have known people who can sing, play guitar, harmonica, piano, church organ and so forth... so I've heard it all live at some point. Home HIFI is convenient and nice - but not live.
This Norwegian is in particular an awesome guy with a HUGE system. Seeing a movie there, is better than any cinema I've ever been in, and the bass is beyond anything

 

[Digital_Thor]

Not all. eg Telarc classical. And these are the recordings that come closest (IMO) to sounding like the live original.

Anything that is on some kind of CD or other media, has been through a mixing studio, where they had to listen to the recordings from all the microphones, and then mix it together into one coherent stereo experience, which they judged on their system, to be an enjoyable and recognizable experience for the listener. And again, the keyword is "close". Me using the word "manipulated" might sound too harsh, and maybe I'm being too pedantic here, but the original question was why people buy Wilson speakers, and I think that you foremost have to consider pedigree and status, when philosophizing over people's purchases.
I for example, build my own speakers, not because I think that I'm better at building anything, but because I realized that I liked the journey and being able to do exactly like I wanted it, rather than to accept someone else's finished product, with their specific compromises - mostly because of the given marked

 

[Sokel]

Well... I have heard some of these HUGE systems... and they can definitely deliver the SPL. But again, it will never be like being in front of a stage live or hearing unamplified music - I know and have known people who can sing, play guitar, harmonica, piano, church organ and so forth... so I've heard it all live at some point. Home HIFI is convenient and nice - but not live.
This Norwegian is in particular an awesome guy with a HUGE system. Seeing a movie there, is better than any cinema I've ever been in, and the bass is beyond anything

I have listened to exaggerated systems as well. And I agree, there's no substitute for high SPL undistorted (or inaudibly distorted to be exact) output.

Problem is proportions (If we forget anything else).
And I'm talking about the proportions dictated by the midbass. Do that wrong and male voices can be presented out of scale, a baritone's mouth can be imaged like a cage!
Do it small and kiss impact buy-buy!
Lots of trade-offs there.

 

[Frank Dernie]

These people don't listen to the music, they listen to their equipment. (Of course, that applies to many of us poorer ASR members as well. At least the EEs among us don't "listen" to our cables.)

I think this is an unfair comment.
I got into HiFi as a music lover and with a good income and not much spare time spent too much money but never saw what I had as a status symbol, since almost nobody on earth knew I had it or ever saw it.
I am an engineer but I HATE evaluating equipment and would almost certainly forget that was what I was trying to do if I was listening to a favourite recording.

IME it is people who spend hours measuring their kit and trying to modify it to give some purported to be better frequency response at some measurement position that are "listening to their equipment".

I know plenty of music lovers and plenty of HiFi enthusiasts and the spectrum from "mainly interested in music" to "mainly interested by equipment" is wide and, frankly I don't care where anybody lies on the spectrum, that is up to them, but IME it would be false to believe people with an expensive HiFi only listen to equipment and vice versa - in many ways with the people I know the opposite is the case.

 

[Frank Dernie]

You often end up with these discussions - IMO - because live sound will never bare like listening to a set of speakers at home - or the other way around. All recorded music, especially studio records, are mixed and manipulated to make the best of the experience in a home setting with HIFI gear - not live sound. Just trying to recreate the actual volume of a live drum set would make most HIFI loudspeakers explode.
In the studio, they fiddle a ton with everything we don't even know. Anything live is, well.... live. I often think that it is like taking a picture and try and explain how it was to see a given sunset - you can't experience what someone else experienced, through a picture - you have to be there and combine all your senses.
Anything live is none-repeatable and unique. Anything recorded, is absolutely manipulated to create an illusion that comes close, but will never be live.
Don't fool yourself to think that you can recreate a live experience at home - with any gear - ever. You can come close - but never close enough to end a possible discussion

This is where there is such a vast difference between the "product" which is a recording of pretty well all non-acoustic music and what, hopefully, recording engineers are trying to achieve with acoustic music, whether a symphony orchestra, solo piano, folk music or whatever.
What you write is absoilutely correct, and probably true for 90% of "HiFi" customers, I expect something else from recordings of the music I enjoy, but sadly the most realistic recordings I have are unmanipulated recordings made to a StellaDAT using 2 microphones, and I have very few of them.
IME the timbre and balance are influence by microphone position and the "realism" probably comes from not compressing the dynamic range.

But that is just my experience of my music system and the music I enjoy listening to a lot.
I don't expect realism if listening toe ZZ-top or Amon Duul II or Frank Zappa. I appreciate it if listening to Mahler or Verdi.

 

[Blockader]

This does not make sense to me.
I attend a lot of live performances of unamplified classical music. I want my audio system to reproduce as closely as possible what I hear at those live performances. So I am comparing a sound I heard yesterday with a sound I hear today. How is what my ancestors heard thousands of years ago in any way relevant to that comparison?

That point about evolution isn’t meant to contradict your experience, it’s actually part of it.
Both the musicians and the audience bring the same evolutionary “filter” to the live performance. The way instruments are played, tuned, and even how the performance space is designed has been shaped (consciously or not) by these ingrained listening preferences. We’re usually unaware of this filter, but when researchers measure people’s preferred frequency responses, the pattern becomes clear.

 

[ObiWanKenobi]

The S7t is my end game as well, unless somehow I have a bucket of money that falls on my lap, it will be the S7t Limited Edition or S7t Black Edition.

I heard the Black Edition in Munich HiFi Show 2025.
The difference was the new subwoofer 800 something (don't remember the full name) that added extra bass which for me was a bit too much.
Beside that they didn't sound different compared to the S7t.
I added the Gaia I and it made a difference in bass (for me it was deeper) and this is the one the comes with the LE or BE.

 

[PristineSound]

I heard the Black Edition in Munich HiFi Show 2025.
The difference was the new subwoofer 800 something (don't remember the full name) that added extra bass which for me was a bit too much.
Beside that they didn't sound different compared to the S7t.
I added the Gaia I and it made a difference in bass (for me it was deeper) and this is the one the comes with the LE or BE.

Thanks for sharing. Good to know. I also have the GAIA 1, but I haven't put them on because I have carpet and if I put them on, it becomes a bit too unstable?

 

[Frank Dernie]

I would take the fact that he did purchase them, as an indication that he did not believe in your vision of ´better sound quality at twentieth of the price´. He just purchased what he found desirable and superior for his personal enjoyment. People who spend such amount of money, usually had done a couple of listening comparisons, therefore having made a personal decision to do it. They don't buy such products randomly or without comparing or because it looks so cool. They want it. Maybe we should accept that.

Noticed one interesting aspect: People who bought WA speakers, although I might not agree with their personal ideal of sound characteristics, usually seem to be happy with them on the long run. They in most cases don't whine and complain publicly, about acoustic problems and dissatisfaction with sound quality, but enjoy music and buy another WA a decade or two later.

If you want to counsel people on which speaker delivers better sound quality than the ones they already own, my advice would be to start with individuals who already expressed dissatisfaction. In my experience, these are mainly people who purchased speakers after what I would call an uninformed process, you hear reasoning like ´bought them from the white van´, ´they were -60% off´, or ´I bought the ones winning the tests/recommended on a review site´, or ´they were having the best measurements´. These people need help, not typcical WA owners.



I nominate this statement for ´wisest post of the month´. Cheers!

Spot on.

I detest evaluating equipment and was in a fortunate financial situstion almost 30 years ago to devote 2 years in choosing a pair of speakers to last me the rest of my life so I didn't have to do it again.
I read reviews and took advice from dealers and travelled around the UK and France.
Here in the UK and the US reviewers were writing that the best speakers were the original Wilson WAMM which cost the same as a house back then but I found a dealer in France who had a used set (4 huge towers) so booked a demo.
I wasn't impressed but later tried the, new then, Grand SLAMM, Goldmund Analog and Apologue, B&W Nautilus and maybe others, I forget.
I ended up buying speakers which have given me musical enjoyment for 30 years and if I didn't read posts on this web site I would never consider changing and, actually, after looking into highly regarded (here) alternatives, I have decided to stick with them for several reasons, not least because they still give me lots of musical enjoyment every day and I never think to myself "there is something wrong with the sound"

I am a happy bunny and as an engineer enjoy this site but as a music lover am happy with what I have.

 

[MarkS]

Anything that is on some kind of CD or other media, has been through a mixing studio, where they had to listen to the recordings from all the microphones, and then mix it together into one coherent stereo experience

Telarc often used just two microphones, one for each stereo channel. There was no mixing.

SOUND; Minimal Miking Spreads (Published 1987)

www.nytimes.com

 

[Purité Audio]

I would take the fact that he did purchase them, as an indication that he did not believe in your vision of ´better sound quality at twentieth of the price´. He just purchased what he found desirable and superior for his personal enjoyment. People who spend such amount of money, usually had done a couple of listening comparisons, therefore having made a personal decision to do it. They don't buy such products randomly or without comparing or because it looks so cool. They want it. Maybe we should accept that.

Noticed one interesting aspect: People who bought WA speakers, although I might not agree with their personal ideal of sound characteristics, usually seem to be happy with them on the long run. They in most cases don't whine and complain publicly, about acoustic problems and dissatisfaction with sound quality, but enjoy music and buy another WA a decade or two later.

If you want to counsel people on which speaker delivers better sound quality than the ones they already own, my advice would be to start with individuals who already expressed dissatisfaction. In my experience, these are mainly people who purchased speakers after what I would call an uninformed process, you hear reasoning like ´bought them from the white van´, ´they were -60% off´, or ´I bought the ones winning the tests/recommended on a review site´, or ´they were having the best measurements´. These people need help, not typcical WA owners.



I nominate this statement for ´wisest post of the month´. Cheers!

In my experience users actually listen to very few speakers especially the more expensive designs, they tend to choose from the models locally available.
This is changing however, younger customers ( younger than me which is almost everyone) have actual technical knowledge and choose on performance rather than ‘the most expensive’.
Keith

 

[Arindal]

Telarc often used just two microphones, one for each stereo channel. There was no mixing.

AFAIK for orchestras they did not. Or could you name an example of a recording?

You are linking to an article published in 1987. There indeed was such discussion ongoing how to capture more of the concert hall reverb and make stereo recordings more ´realistic´ in terms of imaging. Minimal mic arrangements or one-point-recordings were suggested as one possibility, but eventually failed. I have been doing some projects with the late T. Nishimura who was a strong advocator of that technique, and can say from some discussions that the idea was ill-conceived and never really worked for 2-channel.

 

[Sokel]

Here's the mics and mic trees for an orchestra (green and red) :

..and the whole interesting video:

 

[Keith_W]

IME it is people who spend hours measuring their kit and trying to modify it to give some purported to be better frequency response at some measurement position that are "listening to their equipment".

I spend a lot of time making DSP filters and chasing the perfect response. I assure you that I don't "listen to my equipment". This is because I believe that speakers are for sine waves, other test signals, and DSP. I would never dream of contaminating my speakers with (feh!) "music"!!! I keep all those filthy and vile random oscillations from my main speakers and listen to "music" on my bluetooth speakers!

 

[ErVikingo]

But if that chap had realised that better sound quality was available at a twentieth of the price, would he have purchased those Wilsons.
Keith

Pretty sure. and why not. Makes him happy.

 

[ErVikingo]

And yet here you are, tearing down what I enjoy (I enjoy tearing down what others enjoy)

(j/k)

Ha ha ha. That’s funny!

I prefer getting music recommendations and humor! (Thanks!)

 

[Purité Audio]

Pretty sure. and why not. Makes him happy.

‘Ignorance is bliss’, I am not a fan.
Keith

 

[ErVikingo]

I nominate this statement for ´wisest post of the month´. Cheers!

Thanks much!

 

[Frank Dernie]

I spend a lot of time making DSP filters and chasing the perfect response. I assure you that I don't "listen to my equipment". This is because I believe that speakers are for sine waves, other test signals, and DSP. I would never dream of contaminating my speakers with (feh!) "music"!!! I keep all those filthy and vile random oscillations from my main speakers and listen to "music" on my bluetooth speakers!

Ah That is my mistake!
Every time I start dicking with my system I lose the will to live and put music on instead.
If I had other speakers I could listen to music whilst dicking about as well!