Peter McGrath joins Robert Harley as they evaluate and distinction the Chronosonic XVX and the Alexia V forward of Robert’s upcoming evaluation in The Absolute Sound Magazine.
The put up Wilson Audio’s Chronosonic XVX vs. Alexia V | Robert Harley Previews appeared first on The Absolute Sound.
It’s been fascinating to watch how Wilson Audio has systematically trickled-down its flagship technologies into its lower-priced loudspeakers. The latest example is the just-announced Alexia V—a reworking of Wilson’s mid-line Alexia. Excluding the WAMM Master Chronosonic (a limited-production model), there are six floorstanders in the Wilson line: the Chronosonic XVX, Alexx V, Alexia Series 2 (now the Alexia V), Sasha DAW, Yvette, and Sabrina X.
Wilson Audio’s current wave of innovation began in 2017 with David Wilson’s magnum opus, the $850,000 WAMM Master Chronosonic. That speaker was a reimagining of Wilson’s first product, the groundbreaking WAMM from 1982. But it was the Chronosonic XVX, designed by Daryl Wilson, that turbocharged the company’s recent creative burst and is now informing the redesign of the lower-priced models. The XVX introduced more innovations than any other speaker in Wilson history—innovations that are now trickling down the line.
Among these innovations is the XVX’s entirely new midrange driver with an unusual motor made from Alnico (aluminum-nickel-cobalt) magnets that Wilson calls QuadraMag. After living with the XVX, I’ve come to believe that this midrange driver is the heart and soul of the XVX. It has a harmonic beauty that defies description, combining dense rich tone color with superb resolution of inner detail. The driver simply offers a lifelike rendering of instruments and voices, which are immediate and present, yet subtle and delicately nuanced.
The “V” in the XVX signifies the incorporation of Wilson’s so-called “V Material” in the enclosure construction—the first use of this material. According to Wilson, the discovery of V Material was a “game changer” because of its extraordinary damping properties. When used strategically alongside Wilson’s long-standing “X Material” and “S Material,” V Material complements these stiffer substances to realize the ideal combination of rigidity and damping.
The XVX was also the first model to benefit from new in-house-made capacitors. Wilson had long been using Reliable Capacitors (better known as Rel Caps), but while developing the XVX, Wilson bought Rel Cap and all its machines and processes. Before re-starting the production line in its factory, Wilson re-engineered the capacitors to a higher specification and tightened the manufacturing tolerances. In addition, the in-house capacitor-making ability allows Wilson to produce one-off caps to experiment with new designs.
The first speaker to be redesigned using materials and techniques developed for the XVX was the Alexx, now called the Alexx V. The Alexx V, reviewed by Matt Clott in Issue 327, represents a massive leap in performance over its predecessor. Matt was so taken by the Alexx V that he bought the review samples.
Now Wilson has applied what I’m calling the “V treatment” to the Alexia Series 2, a speaker one step below the Alexx V. The Alexia, in Series 2 version since 2017, is the least expensive speaker to feature separate midrange and tweeter enclosures, along with Wilson’s patented time-alignment mechanism for synchronizing the arrival of each driver’s wavefront at the listening position. The just-announced Alexia V features 30 separate areas of improvement, many of them directly descended from the XVX—the QuadraMag midrange driver, V material, custom capacitors, and custom binding posts, to name a few. The Alexia’s woofer and midrange enclosures, made from X Material and S material, are now damped with layers of V Material to further reduce cabinet vibration. The entire structure was redesigned to realize more precise time alignment between drivers. The spikes supplied with the Alexia Series II have been replaced by Wilson’s Acoustic Diodes that are significantly better sounding than the stock spikes. With the Acoustic Diodes I heard greater transient fidelity; notes started and stopped more precisely, and low-level resolution increased.
Watch for our review of the Alexia V when it becomes available. The Alexia V promises to bring flagship-level materials and technology to Wilson’s mid-line loudspeakers.
Driver complement: 8″ woofer, 10″ woofer, 7″ QuadMag midrange, 1″ doped silk-dome tweeter
Woofer loading: Rear ported
Sensitivity: 90dB 1W/1m
Impedance: 4 ohms (2.59 ohms at 84Hz)
Frequency response: 19Hz–33kHz, ±3dB
Dimensions: 15.75″ x 53.25″ x 24.25″
Weight: 265 lbs. each (net)
Price: $67,500 to $79,500 depending on finish
Wilson Audio Specialties
2233 Mountain Vista Lane
Provo, Utah 84606
wilsonaudio.com
The post Wilson Audio’s Mid-Line Alexia Gets the “V” Treatment appeared first on The Absolute Sound.
Lee Scoggins had the pleasure of hosting Wilson Audio’s Peter McGrath to set up and dial in his new Alexia V Loudspeakers!
The post Dialing in my Alexia V Loudspeakers… | W/ Peter McGrath appeared first on The Absolute Sound.
My love affair with subwoofers dates to the days when I owned Magnepan loudspeakers and was perpetually searching for that elusive bottom octave. As exciting as the Maggies were, the excursion limitations of their bass panel dictated that they simply could not deliver the very deepest bass octaves. But mating a subwoofer to a panel speaker, as I was hardly the first to discover, was a daunting proposition. Truth be told, it’s not that simple to mate a subwoofer to any loudspeaker, but when you pull it off successfully, then the payoff is big.
What are the advantages of a subwoofer? There is the simple pleasure of hearing the very deepest musical regions reproduced, whether from organ, bass drum, or bass guitar. The growl, the richness, and the sledgehammer hit that a sub can convey in spades are all deeply satisfying to experience. But there are a host of other, perhaps less obvious benefits, that are worth quickly enumerating, starting with the fact that a subwoofer can play an indispensable role in recreating the venue in which a recording was made. A subwoofer can also smooth out the treble by providing a more solid musical foundation. Then there is the fact that a well-tuned subwoofer can also enhance subtle details in a recording. For all these reasons and more, I’ve pretty much continuously employed a subwoofer over the past decade or so. Make that two subwoofers because running them in stereo is really the optimal approach.
Now, with the introduction of Wilson Audio’s LoKe subwoofer, I’ve upped the ante and moved to a total of four. One of the audio gremlins that’s been lurking in the back of my mind for awhile has been to experiment with installing a second set of subwoofers to try and smooth out the bass response even further. LoKe seemed to offer the perfect opportunity not only to test out Wilson’s latest offering, but also to see if I could extract just a little more from my own system, which is centered around Wilson’s flagship WAMM Master Chronosonic system. Plus, I figured that any subwoofer named after the mighty Thor’s evil brother must bring something devilishly unique to the audio table. And that Wilson’s compact but potent LoKe certainly does.
Unlike the large Wilson WAMM Master Chronosonic subwoofer, which requires an external active crossover and amplifier, the 110-pound LoKe is a powered subwoofer with a built-in 500-watt amplifier. It has a front-facing 10″ driver and port. A rear panel contains a passel of electronic controls for the subwoofer, including adjustments for slope, phase, and volume, as well as balanced and unbalanced inputs. Maneuvering the subwoofer into place is easy as it arrives with casters installed on the bottom of the enclosure. Corner installation is usually going to be optimal, and that’s where I positioned it in the rear of the room. Why the rear? My main object was to determine what would occur when another set of subs was added to supplement the main ones in the front of my fairly large room. No, this wasn’t looney tunes, as it were. Instead, the addition of the twin LoKes turned out to make eminently good sense. Good things can come in small packages.
To help install the subs optimally, Peter McGrath of Wilson visited me. He was equipped with both measuring equipment and a variety of his own recordings. We conducted several measurements to determine the best positioning, phase, and volume output—a process that takes several hours. As we were simply trying to augment the lowest frequencies, there was no question that we were going to employ the low-pass filter. Somewhat to my surprise, however, it turned out that the 12dB slope was more efficacious in my room than the more severe 24dB slope. There simply wasn’t enough oomph when we tried the 24dB slope. I ran the subs directly from the outputs of the darTZeel NHB-18NS preamplifier for the purest connection, rather than from the Wilson ActivXO crossover. The solid-state darTZeel experienced no impedance issues running three sets of outputs simultaneously—main amps, ActivXO crossover, and LoKe subs.
With the subs dialed in, I went right to the big stuff. First up on the list was Prince Royce’s song “Senorita Por Favor” on his Alter Ego album. McGrath almost lost it as he listened to the salacious lyrics, but he was most impressed by the sheer wallop of the bass line. It was as though the soundstage had been further expanded with even less sense of instruments colliding with one another. My impression was that it came one step closer to a 3-D sound. Something similar occurred on the Arturo Sandoval album Ultimate Duets. On the ebullient tune “Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing,” Sandoval’s trumpet comes soaring over congas, entering the stratosphere. The additional support in the bass region helps create a more majestic sonic tapestry against which vocals and trumpet could shine. With the LoKe in situ, I could honestly say I wasn’t worrying about a thing.
Then there was the Deutsche Grammophon LP of Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. I was almost literally blown away by the impact of Chicago’s fabled brass section in what the late Harry Pearson liked to call the power region. I’ve never heard what you might call the bottom third of the musical spectrum reproduced with that kind of palpability and presence. The tuba and trombones were awe-inspiring, not to mention the ability of the entire brass section to play in what seemed like perfect synchronicity to produce an effect larger than the sum of its parts. Once again, the ability of the LoKe to help support the bass had a salutary effect. In the “Catacombs” section, for example, Adolph Herseth’s trumpet solo develops with even greater clarity and poignancy. For anyone who cherishes the “Chicago sound,” this setup provided more than a glimpse of its storied heyday.
To get an even better grasp on the LoKe, I also ran it without the main subs. I can’t say that it could replace or even vie with the WAMM subwoofers. But it did more than hold its own. Two things impressed me. The first was the speed of the sub. There was no bloat or smear. On one of the trickiest things to reproduce—acoustic bass on jazz recordings—the LoKe firmly resolved the notes and displayed excellent pitch accuracy. The second thing was the sheer amount of air that the LoKe could move. Don’t be fooled by its diminutive size. The LoKe can bring it on. There’s nothing low key about it.
The LoKe has become a valued part of my audio arsenal. Put bluntly, I’m smitten. The most important attribute that it has for my system is to create an enveloping sense of music in my listening room. It suffuses it with music. When I listen without the LoKe, the system simply sounds more two-dimensional. It lacks that sense of oozing sound emanating throughout the room. There are times when I’ll listen to my speakers with no subs at all. (I like to listen to different setups.) But for the ultimate listening pleasure, there’s no substitute for a quad of subs. This is a more than worthy successor to the older Wilson WATCH Dog subwoofer, which was no slouch itself. Daryl Wilson, who has succeeded to the helm of Wilson, deserves a lot of credit for successfully steering the company into a new era. If you have a big system and are hankering for more, then the LoKe may well offer it. The old audio rule holds: There is no replacement for displacement.
Driver: 10″ woofer
Integral amplifier power: 500 watts
Frequency response: 20Hz to 250Hz (±1dB)
Effective piston area: 21.75″2
Effective displacement: 33.42″3
Dimensions: 13-7/8” x 20¾” x 21″
Weight: 110 lbs. each
Price: $8750 each
WILSON AUDIO
2233 Mountain Vista Lane
Provo, Utah 84606
(801) 377-2233
wilsonaudio.com
The post Wilson Audio LōKē Subwoofer appeared first on The Absolute Sound.
Wilson Audio CEO Daryl Wilson gives Michael Fremer the tour of their factory, the people behind it, and the story of how it all came to be.
Watch Peter McGrath introduce the Alexia V to the press at Innovative Audio here.
Learn More about the Alexia V and Wilson Audio Industries here.
The post Like Father Like Son… | Michael Fremer Tours Wilson Audio appeared first on The Absolute Sound.
So findet etwa der erstmals in der Alexx V vorgestellte Convergent Synergy Carbon (CSC)-Hochtöner nun auch in der Alexia V Anwendung. Diese Kohlefaser-Hochtonkammer wird komplett im eigenen Haus per 3D-Drucker hergestellt.
Neben einem optischen Update wurde das Gehäuse an verschiedenen Stellen optimiert. Die Ausrichtungsbrücke des Mitteltongehäuses etwa wurde so gestaltet, dass sie mit der neuen Form verschmilzt und die strukturelle Integrität erhöhen soll. Die Wandstärken der Gehäuse wurden ebenfalls sorgfältig optimiert: In einigen Bereichen wurde die Masse erhöht, während in anderen Bereichen Material entfernt wurde.
Die Aussparung an der Oberseite der Sasha DAW-Tieftöner, die unerwünschten Druck zwischen dem Mittel und dem Tieftongehäuse reduzieren soll, ist nun Teil der Alexia V. Das aerodynamischere Hochtonmodul wurde außerdem neu geformt, um den größeren Convergent Synergy Carbon-Hochtöner bequem unterzubringen.
Ferner konnte die Impedanzmessung leicht verbessert sowie die Empfindlichkeit der Alexia V um +1 dB erhöht werden. Im Inneren der Alexia v arbeiten neue, speziell angefertigte Kabel und das Innenvolumen des Mitteltongehäuses wurde um 6,4 % erhöht, um einen während das Innenvolumen des Tieftongehäuses im Vergleich zur Alexia Serie 2 sogar um 8,9 % vergrößert werden konnte.
Die neue Alexia V soll ab Ende des Jahres zu einem Paarpreis von etwa 92.000 Euro verfügbar sein.