audio perfectionist website updated with the below:
http://www.audioperfectionist.com/pages/watchdog.html
Postscript to Watch Dog #21
Following the posting on this web site of my Op Ed piece, which exposes the Wilson Maxx for the inaccurate and overpriced product that it is, I received a hateful email rant from John Giolas of Wilson Audio. For the amusement (and amazement) of readers of Audio Perfectionist Journal, the Giolas tirade appears below, just as I received it, in its original raw and unedited form. The squeamish are forewarned that Giolas has spewed forth quite a vehement mouthful. Read on at your own risk!
In particular, notice that Mr. Giolas has opted to attack me and my readers personally while his letter offers absolutely nothing to rebut my comments about the Wilson speakers.
The message I received from Michael Fremer was more civil but he completely misinterpreted the purpose of a Watch Dog article so I chose to respond to many of his points. First the email message from Mr. Giolas, next the email message from Mr. Fremer and then my response to Fremer's message.
Mr. Giolas' message:
From: john@wilsonaudio.com
Subject: Audio Perfectionist?
Date: October 27, 2005 10:48:02 AM PDT
To: info@audioperfectionist.com
Mr. Hardesty:
I have read, from time to time and from a safe distance, your ongoing missives specifically directed and targeted at Wilson Audio. Since you exist at the lunatic fringe (both literally and figuratively) and since you in no way affect the well being of Wilson, I have largely ignored your tirades. For me, life is too short to intentionally expose myself to negativity and hatred, especially when it is so baseless and silly. Your writing (both specifically related to Wilson Audio and as a whole) is so utterly misinformed, misleading, bellicose, arrogant, and cynical, it has been impossible for me to take you very seriously.
I have to admit, though – a little like western culture’s absorption with serial killers – your bitterness and hatred are both fascinating and disturbing to me. Your writing (and I assume your personality) fits the evangelical zealot prototype perfectly. You write in absolutes and proclamations, thumping your podium in self-righteous indignation; as if you, somehow, have been endowed with a great secret knowledge that you benevolently pass onto your simple-minded congregation. With religious certainty and with false benevolence, you broadcast and delineate “technological facts” to the great unwashed. All the while, you avoid conveying any relevant experiential process. Like all effective cultist evangelists, you remain vague on the actual facts, circumstances, and evaluation process. To you, the “truth” is information you control, a tool to further your agenda. You are audio’s version of Jim Jones.
It is profoundly ironic, given your obvious lack of journalistic ethics, that you engage in such a boisterous attack of the audio media. You openly bash the mainstream press while engaging in an approach that has no validity, no concerted process, no discipline, and no credentials. Your writing is so redolent with irrational religiosity and so tainted with undisclosed agendas that it amazes me that you actually have the audacity to comment on other journals. Alas, I recognize the sad truth that in today’s world any angry zealot can find an audience.
My first instinct was to counter, line by line, the myriad of inaccuracies and misrepresentations regarding Wilson products, its culture, the reviewers, and its constituency of clients with a well reasoned rebut. My experience tells me that this would be a little like arguing religion with a cultist zealot. It would truly be a waste of my time.
What I do want to tell you is that I find it sad that anyone would engage in behavior that benefits no one and is destructive to all that participate. Like Jim Jones, you invite your readers to drink the poison of your hatred and misinformation. You and your kind are cancerous to an industry I love – an industry built on the love of music, not the paranoid disdain of others.
It is also sad to me that you are somehow connected to Richard Vandersteen, a man who I respect and admire (I have owned many of his products, including two versions of the 5). I am dismayed that he might somehow share in or be involved with your nuttiness.
A very good friend of mine once gave me very good advice. She said don’t jump in the pool if you know it’s filled with sharks. So, since it is self-defeating and self-destructive to me, I refuse to read anymore of your stuff.
And while I risk getting a leg chomped by stupidly sticking it in the pool, I would like to invite you to come visit the Wilson Audio factory; come see for yourself the engineering process, the care of execution, the passion that we have for music that drives us to do what we do. Come listen to the MAXX Series 2 at my home, properly set up with great ancillary gear.
Then, at least, you could rant with some level of credibility.
John Giolas
Wilson Audio
Mr. Fremer's message:
From: grooves@musicangle.com
Subject: MAXX2
Date: October 27, 2005 6:37:42 PM PDT
To: info@audioperfectionist.com
Richard:
I enjoyed reading your review of the MAXX2s. I especially liked the way you put quotes around the sarcastic words "mystical and mysterious" to describe the cabinet materials, when I don't think anyone used those words except you of course, nor did the reviewers mention imply that there was anything about the materials that were the least bit "mysterious" or especially "mystical" other than the marketing expression "X" or whatever Wilson calls it, which I care little about.
Then, of course, in the next sentence you acknowledge that the accelerometer measurements showed "pretty good performance" from the cabinets (an understatement, of course).
That's just one example of your hardly "objective" "review." It wasn't really a review at all. You don't talk about where you even might have listened to the speakers or how actual music sounded on it. Or how that music differed from what you hear live. But that's okay because the tone of your review was so off the chart that no one reading it could possibly find it objective. So in the end you just hurt your own cause whatever that might be.
I can tell you that in my room, the MAXX2s sound more like what I hear at the symphony, which I attend once a month at Avery Fisher Hall (no need to dump on the hall here) than any other speaker I've had in my room and that everyone who's come down to listen---audiophile and non audiophile--- loves them. "Accurate"? There are none. All speaker have colorations of one kind or another as do all recordings as do most rooms.
In the real world, there's a reason people respond to the MAXX2s at hifi shows and in store demos and in homes. It has nothing to do with the "carriage trade," or with them being not as well informed as you. It has everything to do with high performance in many areas, perhaps some compromises in others, which all speakers have, that happen to work out very well in the case of the MAXX2s. Speaker design, and indeed recording music, has always been and probably will always be a combination of art and science. I'm not sure you recognize that.
People recognize the sound of music..they are not deluded. Your attitude is very poor and it sinks your cause, whatever it might be....
Sincerely,
Michael Fremer
My reply to Mr. Fremer:
Michael,
I have never reviewed the Wilson Maxx speakers. The piece that you read is a Watch Dog, an Op Ed piece of sorts, that is critical of the reviews of the Maxx in Stereophile and TAS. I encourage you to visit my web site for a complete explanation of the purpose and tone of Watch Dog articles. http://www.audioperfectionist.com/pages/watchdog.html
I review products only after listening to them in my own system. I do, however, criticize the reviews printed in magazines that pretend to be consumer advocates, but aren’t. My critiques are based on the material that is printed in the magazines and my listening experiences at shows and stores and in the homes of friends.
I try never to personally attack the people involved, only their comments and opinions (unlike some in our industry, as evidenced by the email message that I forwarded to you).
If I may, I’d like to address your points one by one.
If Wilson isn’t alluding to mystical properties by calling something “material X” I’d like to know what he is doing and I’ll bet the truth is out there. I know what the components in these speakers cost and I’m sure you can build one hell of a box for $40K even if pretty good performance is an understatement (and I don’t believe that it is)!
I agree that this isn’t much of a review because it’s not a review at all! I don’t agree that it lacks objectivity. I believe that there is far more objective information in my critique than in both magazine reviews combined. A novice would assume these are high tech, accurate speakers after reading the reviews. I contend they are neither. They provide an artist's conception of what music sounds like, not a reproduction of the recording as I advocate.
I am a classically trained musician. I don’t need to travel to recalibrate my ears because I listen to my own playing (not particularly good) on my own grand piano (quality commensurate with my skills) every day. Yes, I listen to lots of other live music, too.
I count as my friends Brooks Berdan of Brooks Berdan, Ltd., Luke Manley of VTL, and Dave Gordon and Terry Dorn of ARC. I have attended every CES show since the beginning. I have heard Wilson speakers of all types in many different settings with a significant assortment of associated components. I have compared the Wilson Maxx 2 to the Vandersteen Model 5a in the same ARC room at T.H.E. (CES) in 2004 and 2005. I have heard the Wilson speakers with my preamp (7.5) in various VTL demonstrations. The best demonstration of Wilson speakers I’ve heard was in what is perhaps the best room in the country, located at Brooks Berdan, Ltd. in Monrovia, California.
There are, of course, objective measurements of speaker accuracy and engineering competence. That’s why your editor at Stereophile publishes measurements and comments about these measurements with your reviews. All engineering is a balance of compromises but, in my opinion, art should always be applied in addition to competent design, not as a substitute for it.
Wilson makes products that people like and he’s been successful doing it. As clearly stated in my Watch Dog article, I fully support this. To reiterate, I believe that informed consumers should buy whatever they like. And I believe that reviewers have an obligation to provide the information necessary to inform consumers. That, Michael, is my cause. What’s yours?
Richard Hardesty
