Revel Salons vs. Wilson Sophias

The thought occurred to me Cincy. Did you have a trained Wilson dealer voice those Watt Puppy 7 speakers for your room? They are very specific in terms of their placement needs. I have heard people complain about the tweeters sound on the 7s before, but it sounds like the problems you had might be more complicated. When I placed them myself, the 8s didn't sound so great, but once they were profesionally voiced everything lost the disconnection between frequency ranges and everything integrated well. Even a few inches can change the sound completely!

Unfortunately, my room has two dimensions with a shared multiple (~9' and ~18') so I have a terrible bass reinforcement mode in the high 60 Hz region. I'm still deciding how I will deal with that (likely I'll build a Helmholtz resonator, or buy a Rives PARC).

Jeff, I did not have a Wilson dealer place the WATT/Puppies in my room, but I did follow the Wilson procedure quite carefully myself. The speakers were easy to move around in my room, and I experimented quite extensively with the placement of the speakers. I found that the placement of the speakers significantly affected the bass frequency response, the soundstaging and the imaging. However, as you might expect, the midrange and treble frequency response were not affected to any noticeable degree.

In the end, my biggest problem with the speaker is that it could not be made to sound "natural," in the context of live acoustic music, in my system. My electronics and source components are exceptionally revealing, so my system had the effect of shining a very bright light on the performance attributes of the speaker. My take on the WATT/Puppy 7 is that Wilson achieved excellent dynamics, speed and soundstaging at the expense of flat frequency response and timbral accuracy.

As you suggested earlier, however, this may have no relevance whatsoever to the performance of the WATT/Puppy 8 or any of the other Wilson speaker models, including the Sophia. I would also expect that the 7s might show better with electronics and source components that are more forgiving.

Jeff, I should add that I admire what you have done with your room and your system. I have a lot of respect for your Ayre electronics. I am currently in the process of completing construction on a new two-channel listening room that was designed by Rives, and I like what you have done with yours.

Cincy,

Thanks for the compliments. I'm looking forward to seeing what you are having done in your Rives Audio designed space. I can tell you from my personal experiences with the room so far, that the difference in sound quality is tremendous between the before and after.

I was surprised how an acoustically treated room could change so much in the perceived character of a speaker. Room interference and reflections in the initial 50 ms or so sum up with the direct sound and alter the timbre of the speaker output, creating a hybrid sound of the speaker character and room character. So I got a lot closer to the actual sound of my speakers once I had the room completely treated and finished. I got even closer than ever in the last week while eliminating some of the opposite wall 1st order reflection points and ceiling reflection points that weren't covered properly due to not having found the final speaker and listening position placements.

I just eliminated all of the final 1st reflections that were still lurking in my room last night (there were 1st reflection points on the ceiling that I had yet to put absorption on). It is incredible what a difference in focus and detail something that seemingly simple can have on the music. As I eliminated the reflection spikes in the impulse response one by one, I could hear the fog slowly being lifted from the sound. It is remarkable, and well worth the money (even if it did end up costing me more money because I didn't like what it revealed character-wise about my old speakers...).

Rives' design work is top notch. The cool thing is, at the HE2007 demonstration you could experience that night and day difference first hand between his two demo rooms (one well treated, and the other untreated).

So, whether or not the OP decides to go with Revels or Wilsons, I hope he does look into treating his space acoustically as well. I'm grateful I posted here that fateful day sometime in the last two years about my issues with getting 3D imaging in my system, as following through on the recommendations to treat my listening room have improved my audio listening experiences 100%. For that I am grateful to the people here on these fora.

I ran Salons for three years in a reference two-channel system (amps were either VAC Renaissance 140 Mk. III monos or Rowland Model 6 monos with batteries, and cabling was Kimber Select 3038 and 3033). I have friends (one of whom is Cincy_Bob) who have run either Wilsons, Salons or both, and I have logged a fair amount of hours listening to Wilsons at one of my dealers, Innovative Audio in Manhattan (everything over the last ten years but the WP 8 and Sophia 2). I ran Vienna Acoustics Mahlers in a second two-channel system for six years, which feature the Scanspeak carbon-fibre pulp midbass driver found in WattPuppys and Maxx's (although the speakers do not share the same crossovers, cabinets or tweaks).

My overall take on your question is that moving to Wilsons from Salons would be a sideways move at best. They are both very good $10-$20 speakers with different strengths and weaknesses. As you will use them primarily for home theater, you will have more ultimate headroom with Salons compared to Sofias, as Salons can handle enormous amounts of power, go deafening loud, cleanly, and produce 15 Hz. bass in many rooms, which is important for the dynamics and dinosaur stomping found in film soundtracks. As you say, the WP's are a better comparison to the Salons, and they likewise can go very, very loud cleanly, but are not full-range speakers, lacking the last half-octave of bass (while not so important for music, this could leave one wanting for film).

Regarding the ability to make speakers work in a reflective room, the Revels were built with excellent power response (reflected sound mucking things minimally) as one of their chief design goals. They reward good placement, but are relatively easy to set up as a result, assuming that speaker/room interactions as to bass performance do not excessively limit placement options. Although lacking in personal experience, my understanding is that Wilsons can be quite finnicky to set up.

Regarding midrange performance and clarity, I find the Salons to be among the very best performers I have heard, regardless of price, for their truth of timbre and transparency. A byproduct of the transparency is detail, which may be the best I have heard. I am afraid that, at least with WP 7's (and WP 6's and previous iterations of that speaker, as well as a couple of versions of the Grand Slamm, the Maxx II's and the Alexandrias), I, like Cincy_Bob, cannot get past the hot Focal tweeter which, to my ears, throws off timbre throughout the midrange and highs and makes the speaker unlistenable with symphonic music. I will defer to other posters regarding the WP 8 and the new tweeter, but it is still a Focal titanium tweeter and still a Wilson, so I remain skeptical.

The Wilsons are the much better buy if resale value is important to you, as they are the Rolex of speakers (...).

If I were putting together a new system in a large room and listened to a lot of symphonic or other dynamically challenging music, I would pair Salons with a really top-flight solid-state amp -- they are an incredible bargain given their used prices, and given their fundamental neutrality, resolution and dynamic headroom, are perfect for big symphonic music, which is what I listen to. The Wilsons are efficient, lithe and have great jump factor, which, in tandem with the tizzy tweeter, is why critics over the years have disparagingly labeled them as "disco speakers". That is an exagerrated take on them, I believe, but unless the WP 8's and Sophia 2's are a complete departure from the previous Wilson house sound, I see no reason to move to Wilsons from Salons given your expressed needs.

PS - After much wandering in the audiophile woods, I have returned to my time-aligned, phase-correct Dunlavy roots, with the Karl Schuemann-designed Ultimate Monitors, which are unparalled in my experience at coherence, accurate timbre and imaging.