Mojo Warrior
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Wilson Audio speaker owners are starting to look like a Cult.
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Not telling you something new [definitely not as a newcomer I am] but perhaps good to remember:I find the situation analogous to power cables if we do not consider price and measured performance and just look at pure subjective performance for the conclusion, and it scares me.
I'm an amateur, know a bit about design regarding speakers (note I mean a bit) but give me a list of a drivers and the ability to 3d print a waveguide to the tweeter and I can come up with something similar, …I think. Maybe better. At a MUCH lower cost. As long as I got to build a box that is free from resonances and really braced. Mix in measuring microphones and adjustable crossover filters to then optimally create passive ditto so ... Maybe. But the fact is that there are damn good drivers now that even a more or less stupid guy can get quite far with. Really big baffle, well then it can also be good, an amateur DIY speaker.Oh, cmon. Gross resonances, FR curve that looks like a civil war battle line, polar plot that could be significantly bettered by a $150 Behringer speaker which has a bigger, better woofer. and a preference score in the 2's. All for just $10k. Just another Wilson "smell my fart" design. How is this not a headless panther?
I'm not sure we're drawing the right conclusions from the listening test:I have a feeling like @amirm found it sounds better than it looks on paper
Conclusions: these speakers are unusable without eq, which is not what you expect for 10k.when I played content with much bass content, it became overwhelming. I plugged the port but then there was not much bass to satisfy. So I removed the plug and deployed a few filters
I am going to recommend the Wilson TuneTot with equalization
Thanks for the album recomendation, decided to play in my living room and check and indeed it sounds phenomenal, I have the saxo playing now next to me.
About amirm impressions on the speaker, I am also buffled. Perhaps is those scan-speak revelator driver that I heard a few times being mentioned as one of the best that help the speaker sound so good? I wouldn't know...
Anyways I can't take the price off my head....
Well, it’s pretty difficulty to make identically performing speakers where they only differ in dispersion width.The original Harman research did not take into account directivity,
The mega-$ watch analogy is a good one. A thin $50 Swatch keeps better time than a bulky $50,000 grand complication from some craftsman in Geneva with an unpronounceable name. But, like with Wilson speakers, people buy them as jewelry that convey wealth and status, not for their nominal function.This speaker gives me a true hifi feeling from the old days. High end components put together like it was made by a guy with ocd in a shed, to get an end result that's pleasing to the ear. Reminds me of expensive watches and hypercars. I don't know if that should make me laugh, cry or be indifferent. People do weird things sometimes.
Well, it’s pretty difficulty to make identically performing speakers where they only differ in dispersion width.
I am not sure I understand what you mean, by saying they sound like miniature speakers, even with subwoofers.I personally find Amir's listening impressions quite helpful. For anyone saying buy the Genelec 8361a instead, I can't help but feel that his comments about them sounding small and the Wilsons sounding larger than they were to be extremely valuable. Sean Olive used to have the Harman training program on his blog and I went through it and it is as extremely difficult as Amir says it is, so I definitely value his hearing impressions. So for me this is not a cut and dry issue of "just buy 8361a". I've also owned (and still own) several of the best measuring mini monitors under the $500 range and these continue to sound like miniature speakers even with several subwoofers. To prevent any sarcastic retort about why I still own them it's because if ~ $1500 worth of speakers (good luck stealing the subs!) were stolen from my office I'd be upset but it wouldn't be devastating.
At the risk of being deleted for going off-topic ... I have always hated the way RVG miked pianos. It comes through on even cheap headphones.I personally find Amir's listening impressions quite helpful. For anyone saying buy the Genelec 8361a instead, I can't help but feel that his comments about them sounding small and the Wilsons sounding larger than they were to be extremely valuable. Sean Olive used to have the Harman training program on his blog and I went through it and it is as extremely difficult as Amir says it is, so I definitely value his hearing impressions. So for me this is not a cut and dry issue of "just buy 8361a". I've also owned (and still own) several of the best measuring mini monitors under the $500 range and these continue to sound like miniature speakers even with several subwoofers. To prevent any sarcastic retort about why I still own them it's because if ~ $1500 worth of speakers (good luck stealing the subs!) were stolen from my office I'd be upset but it wouldn't be devastating.
Going back to the annals of my audiophile journey I recall it was Wilson What Puppy 5 (or 6?) that really impressed me at a hifi show. One of my favorite albums at the time was John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, and the imaging on these was quite remarkable. Even more obvious was the fact that Rudy Van Gelder just didn't record piano properly and it sounds like a very small boxy instrument. This is evident on nearly any RVG recording where he also recorded horns, because to him the horn sound was the most important. These were recordings made to be played on 1950s and 1960s home consoles and the Wilson WP showed exactly this issue. I was working at Best Buy at the time and had their highest end JBL tower speakers that I got for a remarkable 40 or 60% off due to employee discount and on these speakers the presentation on A Love Supreme was more like a wall of sound where imaging was diffuse and all instruments were given equal size which was incorrect.
The major issue for me with Wilsons has always been how they will tank in value once they bring out a new speaker. I sure as heck couldn't afford the What Puppy 5 but when the next one came out there was a flash flood of the previous model on the used marked. By two or three revisions later even my meager pay could afford the ones I heard, but I chose to avoid them for this reason. I've been seeing the same pattern with them decades later.
Anyway, from the great The Sopranos that is my "$4 a pound"
Yeah, but Wilson has kind of short-circuited that strategy with the name, don't you think? Imagine a visitor to a rich guy's living room:A thin $50 Swatch keeps better time than a bulky $50,000 grand complication from some craftsman in Geneva with an unpronounceable name. But, like with Wilson speakers, people buy them as jewelry that convey wealth and status ...