Hifi, this bissara part of our world.
Edit:
Compared to these speakers (check price and performance):
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 bookshelf speaker. It was kindly purchased new and drop shipped to me for testing. The DBR-62 costs US $600 a pair from multiple sources/dealers. The DBR-62 comes in black and walnut finish or the distressed Oak and...
audiosciencereview.com
View attachment 183581
...or...
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Revel M106 bookshelf speaker. It was kindly purchased and drop shipped to me. It is not a new sample but came to me with full packaging and protective wrapper. The M106 costs US $1,000 each or $2,000 for a pair. It is only sold through dealer...
audiosciencereview.com
... and so on and so forth..
Did you read the text of the lab report, or just look at the graph and wince?
I'd really like to see a much more detailed report. But I took a couple of things away from it:
1) Wilson are designing speakers at what appear ludicrously high prices, to work for far field listening in untreated, reflective rooms. As the report says:
"Thus the ~6dB notch in the Alexx V's forward response at 2.7kHz [see Graph 1, below] is indicative only of very nearfield listening, this midrange suckout progressively filling in with distance, tightening the ±3.3dB response error to a superior ±2.5dB".
2) The speakers require powerful amps, like so many high end speakers these days, as a result of their design choices. So these speakers are designed for, well, wealthy people. The target room is probably an expensive apartment, also explaining their design choices around limiting the bass response (though I often feel that the limitations there arise from listening sessions using vinyl that get used in some high end designs, I have no idea whether Wilson fall into that bracket)
3) If the response shown for the Alexxa is really about far field listening, repeating that response in the TuneTot says that despite some of the marketing, it too should be treated as a far field device for a similar environment. This may explain the subjective component of the TuneTot review here? Of course the Kilppel and the measurements should tell us how the speaker works, but I assume that there is an element of the figures telling us about one type of room/environment and Wilson targeting a different one.
Unless someone turns up with a device that can properly and objectively evaluate the far field response of a system in a room, I guess we are in "dark arts" territory here. Designing a very expensive speaker for (casual?) listening in an unoptimised environment probably makes no sense to us because we would not only reject the speaker, but also the "targeted room" as inadequate. But if you live in a minimalist Manhattan apartment and want to add a decent cost-no-object stereo system, you might just find that Wilson's product is a good option.
But then again, that graph... and of course, the "ASR" approach would still yield better results even without environmental treatment - EQ adapting what you use to your room, It may be that the Wilsons provide a better starting point in some rooms at a cost, but you could say that about any "badly designed" speaker that doesn't distort badly once optimised.