A brutal review of the Wilson Maxx

Splaskin: "I am hoping that some of the Wilson Maxx2 speaker owners will see the light and sell their speakers for a good price. I would love to own a pair!"

Well Put! Go ahead and please contact me directly to get rid of you Maxx 2's because of a review... I buy based on what I heard, not reviews.. I learned that the hard way about buying based on reviews and hense sold a lot of gear on Agon.

Lets try it this way, No Wilson Slamming here, but fact is anybody can pretty much buy the Scan speak kits, and there are many Clones out there of actual wilson speakers as well, All parts are available, AND no way even in a modest but reasonably built enclosure sound much different, nor do they do anything engineering wise that can not be rivaled for the cost of parts.. So for what its worth Fact is they are overpriced for what you get, but that does not mean they don't sound good in certain situations.

I have to say that I didn't have Wilsons in high regard (I have heard over the years X-1, 5.1, 6 all in show conditions driven by Krell electronics and didn't like the sound at all) until last month, when I heard a Maxx II driven by ARC electronics (CD, REF 3, 610T) at the HiFi Show in London.

That demo was very good indeed. And I'm saying that as an Avalon Eidolon owner.

IMO Wilson has changed dramaticly the voicing of their speakers, for the better.

Some of you guys really don't get it - Absolute Sound, Stereophile, etc. are old-fashioned hucksters, plain and simple. They are big businesses that have no agenda other than selling adspace - NONE. The fact that Fremer and pals can write reasonably well, know a modicum of theory, and a lot of jargon, does not make their ears any better than anyone elses, including the average Audiogon'r - and it certainly doesn't make their ethics any stronger. If you actually read Hardesty's publications you will see that he has no ulterior motives, other than making a living by giving advice on how to achieve excellent audio reproduction. If Wilson's were great speakers, in his opinion, he'd say so.

The irrefutable reality about Wilsons, and a lot of the newer crop of speakers, is exactly what Hardesty says. They're not designed to reproduce the original recording faithfully, but to EQ it in such a way that people with more money than ears take the bait. The "boom and sizzle", as Hardesty calls it. And as he also points out, you can like "boom and sizzle" AND the Wilsons, and there's nothing wrong with that - but THEY ABSOLUTELY CANNOT REPRODUCE THE RECORDING ACCURATELY, period! No argument. Because they don't even attempt to - it's demonstrably inherent in the design. Which doesn't mean they won't impress your buddies with sizzling cymbals and slammin' bass.

So the question comes down to what you consider to be the "audiophile" quest:
1. the pursuit of absolute purity in reproduction OR
2. Impressive Sound, which in our younger days we'd get by pushing in the "Loudness" button.

What Hardesty, and many others, are saying is that the Wilson style of speakers simply has the Loudness button built in and flipped to "on".

Personally, I'd rather have absolutely flat, phase and time correct speakers as a starting point. Without that, how can you possible call it "audiophile". You can call it High End, you can enjoy the Bling, your friends can say WOW, but it ain't audiophile in my book.

It's not that "flat" is what I enjoy all the time either. There are electronics which can be added into the chain (such as DBX 5BX, EQ, and even subharmonic synth.) to pump up or tone down certain recordings or media, a little or a lot, on demand. And believe me, the electronics can do it with far more effectiveness and versatility than a Wilson Sophia.

So I also disagree with "audiophiles" who say that processing the signal to make it more enjoyable is unacceptable or "wrong". If I enjoy it more, I win. But having a fixed version of it built into the speaker makes no sense.

So I very much agree with the Hardesty camp that Flat, Time and Phase Correct HAS to be the holy grail, at least as a starting point, for serious listening.

Just an opinion that I find hard to dispute after listening to the speakers and the man behind them.

"David Wilson’s speakers aren’t accurate transducers
but you can’t fault his business acumen. He sells a
line of products, which are all essentially 7-inch two way
satellites sitting atop passive woofers in fourth order
vented boxes, for exorbitant prices and he has
managed to enlist the major magazines to aid his
efforts."

Mr. Wilson is the same fellow who exclaimed in an interview recently in Stereophile that speakers are the item to drop the largest amount of money on first, in an audio system. So much for his credibility IMHO. Oh that's right, you sell speaker for a living! As Ivor Tiefenbrun responded in the same article "where is my medicine?"

Cheers!