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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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rhyno's avatar
rhyno
649 posts
 
i own WP6s and despite their well known strengths, i hated the sound stock---too bright, etched, disjointed, aggressive.

adding the DIY equivalent of Walker HDLs to the Watt changed that (numerous visitors to my rig all corroborated my findings). anyone who owns older versions of Wilson speakers really should give this tweak a try.

have not heard the Sasha's or Maxx3s, but felt the 8s were quite good, and a considerable jump from the stock performance of my speakers, though a small improvement over the tweaked WP6s.
jpspock
14 posts
 
Has anyone heard Sasha's with Pass Labs XA??
camali
20 posts
 
I heard the 'Sashas' for the first time today and I was quite surprised at the difference between them and the Watt/puppy 8. Amp was a gryphon diablo which I've previously heard with the watt/puppy 8 sound great and whilst the Sashas were superb at large orchestral works, it seems that they've sacrificed the excitement factor when listening to other music like hard rock. If I listened to 90% classical I might have considered buying them, but I also love heavy rock and blues etc, and they just didnt do what I had hoped. I'm sure some will much prefer them to watt/puppys and I can't argue with some of the refinements, but they have come at a cost which is not necessarily makes them better, at least in my opinion...
beerdraft
198 posts
 
Camali, I listen to mostly Blues and Classic Rock and if you didn't get an excitement factor in that genre of music with the Sasha, I promise it wasn't the Sasha's fault. In my system they will do anything from Classical to heavy metal just fine.

Also someone mentioned earlier that Wilson must've learned to quit testing speakers in a anechoic chamber or something when it comes to voicing them or something to that affect. To my knowledge Wilson never used an anechoic chamber, in-fact I saw a quote somewhere that he was asked why don't he test his speakers in a anechoic chamber and that someone had done a test on his speakers in one and they didn't test well. Dave Wilsons response was, "who the heck listens to there speakers in an anechoic chamber"??? From what I understand Wilson now has three very different rooms that are setup to a more real world situation from very well acoustics to not so much and they are voiced through extreme test in each room with a series of things they must pass, that said they are perfectly placed in each room for these test.

I have it quoted from a guy who ought to know, sorry I can't mention his name because he isn't with Wilson but he has been in this industry for 40 plus years and is very knowledgeable about speakers especially. He said to me he felt the Sasha was a break through in speaker technology and he don't know exactly what they did but it is a break through. He also has the Sasha at his home and trust me, he can have any speaker in the world, he chooses the Sasha.
rtn1
535 posts
 
I would respectfully disagree about the Sasha for classical music. If the Sasha does some things well, it's not classical music.
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