Wilson Speakers & Reviewers

Well, I'm sitting in front of Wilsons right now, and for about the last 8 years.  Sophia model 2's.  Prior to buying the Sophias, I was always a B&W guy - many pairs, several I still have - and the Sophias replaced 802 S3s in my main listening room (802s still in my home office after my DM1600's died).  I've never been impressed with the various iterations of the W/P (until Sasha - which I do love) as they, while very detailed, have a hollow sounding midrange to my ears, and are finicky to set up correctly.  Ditto with the Max lines, so I never considered Wilson until I demo'd the Sophias.  Loved them immediately - and couldn't afford the Sashas...sigh.  The strengths with all Wilsons are dynamics, imaging, and ability to play at very high SPLs without any congestion at all.  Not the best speaker for low volume (quiet) listening IMO, they need a bit of power to open up.

I've always run them on Meridian amplification, as I did the B&W 802s.  First with bridged 557s, then one in stereo when one died, and now with a G55 bridged after the other died.  I did try a number of Class D amps before the G55 and found some harshness / hardness in the vocals at higher SPLs that didn't manifest with the same amps and the 802s.  Not the easiest impedance curve.

@jonnie22 - I"m not aware of caring what 'audio writers' like or dislike in speakers.  I base my purchases on what I like, not what they like. 

@wspohn - Agreed.  I picked up my Sophias as store demos (~61% of new price) when the model 3's came out. $17K just wasn't in the cards, and is just too much IMO for speakers.  That said, Wilson is hardly the industry leader in ridiculously priced audio jewelry.  There are people who spend as much on speaker *cables* as my Sophias cost...

@johnnie22 - you miss the point entirely. I'm not pushing Wilson speakers (as I said, their W/P line prior to the Sasha don't appeal to me at all), or making any claims about the "quality" of their sound, or their value against any other brand, merely giving *my* own preferences.  What you or Ken Kessler prefer has no relevance to, or affect on, my preferences, nor should mine affect yours.  Frankly, if one needs "support" from some "authority" for one's audio choices, as you seem to, then sound is not the primary basis of those choices.  I was simply sharing my experience with Wilsons in response to the OP, not foraging for audiophile approbation.

And you're apparently operating under the false assumption that I haven't listened to other speakers, and so am ignorant of the choices available. Sorry to disabuse you of that rash assumption, but I spent a number of years listening to many, many speakers before buying the Sophias, and sound and $$$ were the only deciding points.  I listened to my B&W 802s for 20 years before making the move, and have been auditioning "high end" speakers for well over 40 years.

@gpkid - I've yet to hear the Sabrinas - glad you enjoy them.  Nice to see Wilson design something a bit more accessible to more folks (i.e. sub $30K!!).  Yes, for all the Wilsons I've heard, setup is more critical than most brands, and - at least in my setup - the sweet spot is smaller than I would like, but in the sweet spot, bliss...they have just the presentation/sound that *I* like.  They ain't going anywhere!

@jonnie22 - " ...I just don’t want to be odd-man out...." this is what I was referring to.  Unless you are afraid to accept your *own preferences* as valid on their own, why on Earth would you care about being "odd-man out"?

Did you miss my acknowledgment that Wilson has a "house sound"?  No speakers have a *flat* frequency response - none - and each has a particular sound based on the trade-offs each make, and their priorities. 

"It seems people who like Wilson are simply not aware of other brands -like Emerald Physics, Spatial or PureAudioProject horns. Or Tekton. Or Devore O-series, or, or , or.... "  yet another attempt to dismiss other's ***PREFERENCES***  as merely ignorance. Why are you so afraid to accept that some people like Wilsons *because* they sound as they do?  Why the need to denigrate others as ignorant rubes?  Were you bitten by a Watt/Puppy as a small child?

@jonnie22 - I don't take any issue with you reporting what you heard, just with reporting what you *assume*, yet cannot possibly *know*, i.e. that "... people who like Wilson are simply not aware of other brands...".   Such statements simply demean people who have, indeed, heard many, many brands, and still prefer their Wilsons.  You don't like them, fine, no problem, many don't.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on the subject of making one's own sonic preferences contingent upon other's opinions.  I'm afraid the concept of "making sure i'm not hearing things" doesn't make sense to me in this context.  I hear what I hear, that's what is real to me.  I can't perceive what *you* or anyone else perceives, in the way you perceive it, but even should my preferred sound drive the audiophile masses screaming from my listening room in horror, it would have no affect on my perceptions, and certainly wouldn't make my perceptions *wrong*.  In the context of personal enjoyment, perceptions cannot be wrong, by definition.  To me, that's the right thing to do.

YMMV

@firefightingrob - That's kind of my experience with Magico speakers as well.  My local dealer sells Mac, Wilson, Linn, Magico, Sonus Faber, Meridian, Wisdom, Maggies, Martin Logan, Totem, and MBL so comparisons are fairly easy to do (albeit in different rooms).  Magicos (I believe I've only demo'd the Q3 and Q5, no S series) IME do nothing wrong - they seem very neutral and balanced, and do most everything very well.  I think they may be too neutral for me, and seem to lack some of the excitement I get from my Wilsons, though I could live happily with them - out of my price range however.  I've listened to most if not all of the W/P iterations except the 8, so I really can't opine on that particular model, but your description pretty much agrees with what I hear from the 7s.  My Sophias are less dynamic than W/Ps, but more balanced and not *as* forward to my ears, and not quite as critical for setup.  I've lived with mine for 8 years now, and remain happy with them. 

Unlike some, I don't suffer from audiophilia nervosa, and as long as I'm happy with how my system sounds - which I am, I feel no compelling need to change it (well, after 20 years with my 802s I did feel a bit of itch...).  Nor do I worry that "I could be missing out on the Grail", that *true* audio Nirvana is just one more change, one more tweak, more _____ away.  That pathway, IME, never leads to satisfaction.  

IMO, when it comes to speakers, you can get *objectively* better speakers up to a point, but once you achieve full range performance, relatively flat frequency response, with real life SPL capability, then "different" is really what you get with different brands and technologies, and "better" becomes entirely subjective. I've never met a dipole I could live with long term, for example (even the Radialstrahler mbl 101 X-treme - though my God what dynamics!!! - for a measly $250K last time demo'd them), yet many feel only a dipole can sound realistic, while they sound unrealistic to me.  I'm right...and they are right.

I really  have no idea why some folks feel compelled to be either rampant fanboys, or haters, of specific brands (ok, well, maybe Bose), and refuse to accept that an individual's preference is inviolable, and requires no external justification.  Oh well, happy listening with your Magicos!

@frozentundra - Dude, 8" of snow?  Two words; Move South!  Too cold for my blood - supposed to be 95F here tomorrow ;-)
As for being vehement, I am, but only insofar as defending one's right to a preference, and pointing out the folly of relegating dissimilar preferences to simple ignorance on the part of the holder.

@astewart8944 - Wilsons can definitely grab your attention.  For some, the attention doesn't wane, but for many others it does. A buddy of mine came over when I bought my Sophias and he was really impressed (his speakers at the time were B&W 804s), so much so that he had to go out speaker shopping.  He came home with Sonus Faber Cremona M's after auditioning them side by side with the Sophias.  He and I think both are great speakers, we each could live happily with either, we prefer a different one.  That's why I've been clear that I'm not promoting Wilson speakers, or making any claims of their superiority or inferiority relative to other speakers.

There are a great many very good speakers out there that I'd be satisfied with - many if not most are more than I paid for mine, and more than I'd choose to spend.  But there are many (e.g. Paradigm Studio 100 V5, Triton 1, etc.) that provide an incredible amount of performance for reasonable money as well. Each to their own.