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Wilson Audio's New Sound?

So, I did a search on "Wilson Audio" here on Agon to determine if this would be a redundant thread, and I could not quickly determine that, so if this is old news or a recent rehash, then I apologize in advance.

I attended a recent open house at an audio dealer in the Seattle area and two of the display rooms featured Wilson Audio speakers. From my experience at this and other dealers around the country, this was the last room I had any interest in visiting. My general opinion of Wilson Audio speakers was that they were impeccably crafted, large, heavy, accurate, a bit on the bright side, Silver, very expensive, and they generally failed to connect with me emotionally regardless of the equipment or material driving them.

So imagine my pleasant surprise when at this recent open house, the two different sets of Wilson's (Sophia 2 and Sasha) were my favorite speakers. The electronics ahead of the Wilson's were from Audio Research in both cases. I mean, these speakers REALLY sounded good.

A few days later I was reading the latest copy of Stereophile, and low and behold in his column Art Dudley was waxing poetic about his new found love for Wilson Audio Sophia 2's. He, like me, apparently has recently found Wilson religion. Unlike me, he has access to Dave Wilson for an interview and Peter McGrath for a visit to his home to personally set their speakers up for his long term demo - at least one of the perks of a monthly deadline. But, also like me, he apparently really didn't much care for the sound of Wilson's prior to his recent encounter with the Sophia's. Anyway, for a bighorn and planner guy like Dudley to go over the top for a (albeit super sexy epoxy painted, exotic material, custom driver) boxy speaker is news.

Why? Without plagiarizing Dudley completely, he is convinced the current crop of Wilson's are not your rich brother's Wilson's of a few years ago. According to Mr. Wilson himself (secondhand via Mr. Dudley) the company has a new tuning method for their new model speakers based on more "real world" listening conditions. Huh. All I can say is, whatever they are doing it is working. Big Time.

This also makes me think about your rich brother and his slightly older Wilson's tuned for listening in an anechoic chamber but placed in his plush and acoustically imperfect Italianate Manse. Has Mr. Wilson deposited brother Rich at the doorstep of obsolescence? Just wondering, because if I had the old Wilson's, I would be wanting the new ones, like yesterday. Also wondering if there is an "upgrade" path for their older speakers in terms of crossover parts or settings that can "soften" their delivery to be more "real world" friendly.

Anyway, perhaps I am just looking for the dark side to radically improving your product. For an unapologetic bottom fisherman who trolls for yesterday's (more like the last century's) high end gems, like my European sedan that was first purchased by someone else about eight jobs and two degrees ago, I will have to wait quite a while for the current crop of Wilson's to hit my price point. And I really can hardly wait.
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Showing 2 responses by atmasphere

atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,138 posts
 
Wilson has always designed his speakers to be tube friendly and the current crop is no exception. I've heard the Sashas several times recently and they do quite well with the human voice yet play the frequency extremes easily. Plus they are efficient; the meters on our amps were not even moving yet they were playing at a very nice level.

They are demanding of the front end as you would expect from a decent speaker. I would not expect to put run of the mill electronics on them and then think I was going to get away with it. You have to play stuff with finesse. That way the speakers will have finesse too. You put something ham-fisted on them and that's how they will sound. They are quite transparent.
atmasphere's avatar
atmasphere
12,138 posts
 
IME/IMO the reason that there are so many varied opinions about the Wilsons is very similar to the varied opinions you hear about Sound Lab or a lot of other excellent speakers.

A really good speaker is revealing of what you put on them, and some amps and preamps that are well-reviewed are not really all that great, and some are. So you can have the speaker sound terrible with transistors and tubes, and you can have it sound excellent with transistors and tubes.

I've heard the Sashas with our electronics as well as a few other amps and preamps, enough to know that the speaker is excellent and if you don't like what you heard from it, its could well be the fault of the electronics which you are assuming are better than they really are. Could also be the fault of the setup in the room, but it isn't the speaker. BTW they work great with classical, heavy metal and anything in between or outside :)
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