Wilson Sophia 2's on Marantz Reference

Dylanhenry

Got it. Yes, no prob. it's simple words.

High End encompasses the whole of things from those things usually not within the confines of "Mass Fi" B&M stores, to the Rockports and other such Uberexpensive products, IMO

High End also can be subdivided, again IMO, into popular High End, Mid High End, and Ultra High End, and likely more or with other tags.

According to my friends I'm in the Crazy End of High End audio, as they all say you are nuts to spend that kind of money.

Yes also, I'm not a big fan of the Wilson Sophias either... though not due to what lays beyond them in the product line..... just their cost to performance ratio. Listening to them sure made some other speakers appear to have far more value thereafter.

I would say also if I were yet in the "lots of watts camp", and could find a preowned pair in superior cond & my choice of color for $5000, I'd buy 'em myself. At their usual of over 6500 though, they are no longer attractive. too many others including my own pair come too close or excell past them in areas I prefer to consider them given the pricing disparity between them.

$6500 - $7500 in the preowned speaker mkt sure buys one a heap of loudspeaker performance, even excluding BW & Wilson.

Be well

What people are missing here is the Sophia is a much more forgiving speaker for your upstream gear. Easier to drive and easier to match. Based on looking at your current system I would keep your Transparent Cabling and your ARC CD3 player (skip the Marantz or at least head to head test them).

I'm not sure if the Marantz Integrated will sound as musical as you are use to with the Pathos integrated. You might consider an Accuphase Integrated instead, then it will be more musical and better built. Pretty good combo with the Wilsons.

I'm not sure Accuphase is better built than Marantz. Have you handled and/or looked inside any of their new stuff?

I have and it's very impressive. Typical Japanese i.e. almost overbuilt; terrific fit and finish.

Disclaimer- I handle neither line.

I've heard both extensively, and I feel that the Sophia is the better sounding speaker comapared to the WP8.

I have heard the Maxx and the Alexandria as well...

So, I completely disagree about the whole Sophia not being good enough relative to the WP8. They are different sounding speakers. There is a reason why the Sophia has so many excellent reviews and "best of" awards. It's because it's a really, really good sounding speaker. 1000%> better sounding than the 802D IMO, which to me sounds disjointed and tinny on the top.

So Dylan, you are welcome to your opinion, but it is an opinion, and not fact.

Thanks Blindjim, yes I agree, there are definitely sub-genres even within the narrow confines of "high-end".

To me, there are some companies that are EXCLUSIVELY "high-end", such as Rockport as you mentioned, and Wilson, Magico and Kharma, for example.

Then there are many other brands that have SOME "high-end" speakers, and some (if not most) that are not.

B&W, Focal and KEF would fit in these categories, amongst many others. No reasonable person would deny that the Focal Grande Utopia EM is not a "high-end" speaker, or the B&W Nautilus. Yet few people make that claim about the Focal Chorus 726V or the B&W CM9, even though they are both very fine speakers, and certainly relative to other lines of their respective brands, very good value.

And of course there are many companies that don't deal with the "high-end" end of things, but are outstanding manufacturers. There are too many to mention, but I know if I had only a fraction of my budget, I would still be very happy with what's available in the under-$5,000 range, or even less.

Some ID speaker brands come to mind and they seem to offer the best "bang for the buck" these days. Speaking of which, I have heard some people praise the Salk Veracity HT3 as being superior to the Wilson Sophia 2, which doesn't surprise me.

And with the Salk Veracity HT3 priced at under ONE-THIRD of the cost of the Sophia 2s, you have to wonder if the Sophia 2s would ever sell if they didn't have the Wilson name. Certainly there are many others that agree with you that the Sophia 2s offer poor cost-to-performance ratio.

Like I said before, Wilson is a great speaker manufacturer. But part of what makes them great is their focus on the "ultra high-end". The speakers they make are certainly "cost-no-object", even for the manufacturer, and for consumers in that section of the market, such high prices aren't as much of an issue as it would be for those buyers looking at speakers at the "high-end entry-level". As a result, the Sophia 2 was designed to meet a restrictive price-point, unlike Wilson's "cost-no-object" speakers.

But what the problem is with a company like Wilson making a speaker like the Sophia 2, which costs about 1/13th of the price of their Alexandria X-2 Series 2, is that Wilson, despite being described as "the most successful high-end speaker manufacturer in the world", simply does not have the economies of scale to produce a value-competitive product at this price range.

While undoubtedly successful in the "high-end" world, no one would ever claim Wilson has the economies of scale to rival those of popular speaker manufacturers such as Paradigm, Energy or Definitive Audio. And if any of these speaker companies were to release the Sophia 2, with their economies of scale, the Sophia 2 would cost closer to $4,000, not $14,000.