Wilson Audio Speakers: Why do people like them?

[ErVikingo]

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.

I'm sure you've seen it with cars also.

 

[sceptical1]

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

Why settle on 1/20th. The Asci a6b measures better than the Wilson. What are you trying to say?

 

[MattHooper]

I just got the Magico A5s and was struck by that chest feel. The bass is not huge, but very tight and goes low. Very different from my previous ported MBLs.

Cool!

Not many MBL owners around here .

I am a fan of the brand, and have owned MBL 121 stand mount speakers.

Which MBLs did you own?

 

[Pearljam5000]

How good is it?

 

[Arindal]

How good is it?

Without any EQ or room correction? Looks pretty good.

 

[Beave]

How good is it?

Well, for one, we don't have enough info about the measurement technique.

What's more, a flat in-room response tends to sound bright, so this is not good. You typically want a downward sloping in room response. But that depends on how the measurement was done.

And as Dr. Toole has pointed out many times, an in-room response by itself, good or bad in appearance, is simply not enough to tell us about a speaker's behavior.

So the answer is simply this: not enough info to make any kind of call.

 

[Audionaut]

How good is it?

For a measurement taken in a room, that looks pretty good.

However, it cannot be evaluated seriously because the room in which it was measured is unknown.

 

[Beave]

You guys think a flat in-room response (well, flat other than a couple of bass bumps) is a good response?

 

[Audionaut]

You guys think a flat in-room response (well, flat other than a couple of bass bumps) is a good response?

Guys? Do we know each other well?

I'm quite pragmatic about this and think that any frequency response is good if the listener likes it.

But I assume your question is aimed at the prevailing doctrine, and the answer to that is > It depends ...

 

[Blockader]

Guys? Do we know each other well?

I'm quite pragmatic about this and think that any frequency response is good if the listener likes it.

But I assume your question is aimed at the prevailing doctrine, and the answer to that is > It depends ...

When people pay 40000$ for two relatively dinky floorstanders, they tend to not be entirely honest with themselves or anyone else. So please allow me to be skeptical about what people really like here.

As for the in-room response: I don't know the room or the full measurement conditions, but it's trash. That said, a high shelf filter would sort this out pretty easily.

In-room response doesn't really paint the full picture of a speaker sounds, in fact it is a very unreliable source of information.

 

[Arindal]

You guys think a flat in-room response (well, flat other than a couple of bass bumps) is a good response?

If the more or less flat in-room response is the result of a linear anechoic response, neutral early reflections and tonally balanced reverb at the same time... well, yes, that is pretty likely to be a good response! Other way ´round, a flat response alone in a room is not sufficient to ensure excellent tonal balance. So, ´it depends´ is the correct answer.

I did not notice anyone claiming to prove a balanced response solely based on this single in-room curve made under unknown circumstances. What we can see, though, is a more or less balanced behavior of a speaker which frequently receives hostile feedback for its anechoic measurements, which certainly don't meet technical ideals. So it is proof enough that in a room things can be turning out differently, not always to the worse, that's all we can say.

a flat in-room response tends to sound bright, so this is not good. You typically want a downward sloping in room response.

That is not the case. An in-room response tilted downwards all over the frequency bands for which our ears are sensitive, will always sound dull, lacking treble/brillance, heavy on bass/lower midrange, this or that way. We should note that a minor downward slope in the highest treble region, i.e. 7K+, is to be expected and not necessarily contributing to dull tonality (as our brain is used to a certain degree of absorbtion/dissipation for shorter wavelengths in huge rooms and greater distances).

A flat in-room response will not sound bright, if both direct and indirect sound are tonally well-balanced. Cases in which a balanced in-room response is reported to sound overly bright, are in all cases known to me, a result of increasing level of direct sound towards higher frequencies, while direct and indirect sound show a pretty different tonality. Well, yes, that is expected to be bright, but it is also indicative of two massive flaws at the same time.

In-room response doesn't really paint the full picture of a speaker sounds, in fact it is a very unreliable source of information.

I would argue that anechoic curves alone are as unreliable, telling only a fraction of the picture, particularly if the indirect sound in a given listening room is likely to dominate.

IMHO it really makes sense to look at the whole spinorama data, particularly anechoic response, early reflections, early vertical reflections separated, and overall d.i. or sound power. Not that this all would allow a precise and sufficient prediction how it exactly will sound in a given room, but it helps understanding what is going on and predicting if a desired combination of loudspeaker and room might work, or rather not.

 

[Mort]

For an in room response with no ds

You guys think a flat in-room response (well, flat other than a couple of bass bumps) is a good response?

With no DSP? Sure.

 

[Sokel]

Which W/P is that?
It must be more than 7 of them right now, over the years!

First version measured legendary well On and Off axis, shape and ease of placement helped with that too.
Boi, they could kick like mules despite not been very big.

They were also the ground for a gazzilion mods, most popular of them was turning them to actives, mama Wilson helped with that too back then.

 

[Sokel]

Which W/P is that?
It must be more than 7 of them* right now, over the years!

First version measured legendary well On and Off axis, shape and ease of placement helped with that too.
Boi, they could kick like mules despite not been very big.

They were also the ground for a gazzilion mods, most popular of them was turning them to actives, mama Wilson helped with that too back then.

*Scrap the bold, it's not seven but eight, the last one 2024.

And the evolution of the Watt half part, 1985-2024, here the back view :

Wilson was always searching strange materials as it seems, the old one is made of Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA) while the new one is made of their X-material.

And yes, as the legend of the measurement says, it was taken at the listening position, so at least 2.5 meters far and can't be right, the drivers alone dictate a better declining shape of the response even if someone was randomly trow them away at the baffle.

Here's SP's in room measurements for Watt alone and Watt (S3)-Puppy (2) around 2011 as a whole:

Wilson WATT Series 3-Puppy 2 loudspeaker | Stereophile.com

"No pain; no gain." Thus goes the June 1991 offering from the Cliché-of-the-Month Club—(800) MOT-JUST—a saying that seems particularly appropriate for audiophiles with aspirations. High-performance loudspeakers fall into two categories. First are those exasperating thoroughbreds requiring...

www.stereophile.com

Very different shape, no wonder they could kick so hard (that, with SP bump included)

 

[MattHooper]

That is not the case. An in-room response tilted downwards all over the frequency bands for which our ears are sensitive, will always sound dull, lacking treble/brillance, heavy on bass/lower midrange, this or that way. We should note that a minor downward slope in the highest treble region, i.e. 7K+, is to be expected and not necessarily contributing to dull tonality (as our brain is used to a certain degree of absorbtion/dissipation for shorter wavelengths in huge rooms and greater distances).

A flat in-room response will not sound bright, if both direct and indirect sound are tonally well-balanced. Cases in which a balanced in-room response is reported to sound overly bright, are in all cases known to me, a result of increasing level of direct sound towards higher frequencies, while direct and indirect sound show a pretty different tonality. Well, yes, that is expected to be bright, but it is also indicative of two massive flaws at the same time.

FWIW…

I have very sensitive ears (with bouts of Hyperacusis bright high frequencies can literally cause pain, like a knife stabbing in my ear).

My MBL Omnis, which obviously did not put out a downward tilt off axis, never sounded bright, or too bright, to me in my 13 x 15 room - and that was the case whether I was cutting down room reflections or leaving the walls more reflective.

No audiophile pals found them bright either.

 

[MediumRare]

I’d like to see in-room measurements at an obvious/standard placement and then show how much they change after “refinement” to the “perfect” position. Of course, the bass will change, as with all subwoofers, but what effect does the alleged time-alignment (fraction of a millisecond) and movement of the mid/tweeter have?

 

[Buckchester]

A flat in-room response will sound thin and bright. That is well known. It should have a gentle downward slope as you progress through the frequency range.

The measurement of that watt puppy really doesn’t give us enough info. But it does look like it will sound a little bright. It also looks smoothed. We would need a little more info to see directivity behaviour and to see if there are any resonances. But this can’t be done in room for frequencies above the room transition frequency. Those would need to be anechoic (or properly gated). Because a microphone will sum the direct and reflected sounds, whereas two ears and a brain can differentiate between the two above this range.

 

[xanalog]

A flat in-room response will sound thin and bright. That is well known. It should have a gentle downward slope as you progress through the frequency range.

Isn't this what a "house-curve" tries to achieve, at high frequencies?
Most speakers -naturally- have their own house-curves. imo

 

[Blockader]

Isn't this what a "house-curve" tries to achieve, at high frequencies?
Most speakers -naturally- have their own house-curves. imo

No, it's not that simple. Human hearing evolved in environments where high frequency sound was almost always being damped by air, vegetation, terrain, and other organic materials. Because of that, we're not used to hearing strong upper treble energy relative to the rest of the spectrum unless the sound source is very close .Over time, this shaped what our brains interpret as “natural” sound. As a result, a slightly recessed treble often comes across as more realistic, while too much upper treble energy can easily sound artificial or fatiguing. This is the case with those Wilson speakers.

 

[Pearljam5000]

He explains about the measurements in this video @4:40
Link:

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