any experience w/ Wilson & Spectral?


Hi, I have a set of wilson sophias and I was curious to know how spectal amp (dma 160s) would sound? Also, do I have use spectral pre or can it be mixed with tube pre (audio research ls25).
Thank you in advance for all your inputs.
allenc
I have heard Wilson Sophias set up with spectral monoblocks at a lrge New England dealer who has great rooms.

For casual listening stuff like female singer, jazz and lounge lizard music the system sounded great. Nice staging and placement of voice and instruments.

However...........

You don't want to know what happened with full-range classical.

Best,

Paul :-)
beemer, can you please explain? I do listen to quite a bit of full range classical.
Hello Allenc:

Full range classical......

To be tactful, I can say that for me the results were less than pleasing. As the volume increased the instruments melded together into an unpleasant congested melee and loss of resolution.

Best,

Paul :-)
I heard the WP7 with Spectral amp and preamp in Montreal and found the sound to be extremely analytical and hard.
I replaced a pair of Martin-Logan CLSes + Kinergetics subs with a pair of WP7s 2 1/2 years ago. I had been running the CLSes with a Spectral DMA80 that was in turn driven by a Spectral DMC10 delta preamp. While these electronics made a wonderful combination with the Logans they were not as ideal a combination with the WP7s. Truly, there was nothing "wrong". Clarity, punch, frequency extension, imaging and soundstaging were fantastic. They just didn't have the meltingly beautiful, singing quality that I had heard elsewhere with the 7s played with tubes. I noticed the absence of this characteristic with other Spectral/Wilson (Sophia, WP7) combos at shows, dealers and in home systems. I auditioned the WP7s with literally dozens of pieces of electronics, both tubed and solid state, before coming to my decision. I feel it was time well spent.