Wilson Alexandria V2

Friend of mine had the same problem with his Maxx 2's, large room and kept blowing the mid-range. SPL's not high either.
He traded for SoundLab U1-PX's after he heard mine. IMO its worth auditioning electrostatic speakers.
Couple of quote from friends who own large hi-fi stores: (1) "On Saturday I had an interesting situation in the store, in one demo room I had ML's new CLX being driven by Ref 7&3 & Evo 600 mono's. In another room Maxx 2 & FBI & 505CD, It was chalk & cheese the CLX system was totally organic whilst the Maxx 2 set up was pure 'Hi-Fi'....

(2) "No offense to Dave Wilson but his designs have always been “hi-fi” to me and it’s no accident that his first speaker, the original WAMMs, had (and still do) two electrostatic elements in it. I am not a fan of the Wilson sound but I must say I like the Sophias and Watt 7s (not the 6s) in the areas where they are musically involving – the lower mids. Gayle Sanders’ (Martin Logan) best effort was and still is the CL series of full range electrostatic and their latest CLX is their best effort yet. I think they lost the plot when they started developing hybrids and subwoofers/cone loudspeakers and home cinema.
It was people like Roger West (and Quad) who stayed true to the electrostatic loudspeaker and only redeveloped the Dynastat hybrid as a way of offering his electrostatic technology to a wider audience because of price. Roger once told me if he had his way he would make his full-range ESL even bigger – a true wall of sound. Incidentally the first SoundLAB creation way back in 1978 was a hybrid design called the R-1".

Scousepasty, it's interesting that you mention the last part. A couple of years ago Sound Lab demonstrated a pair of 5-wide arrays of ProStat 922s, each array set up in a continuous arc at each side of the stage in the 21,000 seat LDS Conference Center main auditorium in Salt Lake City. Ultimately the arrays would be several units high, producing clear, coherent sound of uniform loudness no matter where you are seated. The mind boggles.
Dealer disclaimer.

Back on topic, I too find it odd that Maxxes would be blowing capacitors, especially with such amplification that I couldn't imagine would be clipping. Have the amps been passing or putting out some DC or other spurious signals on occasion? I would get them checked out before doing anything else.

Essentialaudio,

Just to be clear, Maxxes have protective resistors. He is not blowing capacitors. Just resistors that are easily accesable and put in place to protect the drivers from being blown. Maxxes & Alexandrias both have these to protect the drivers from being over driven & destroyed. It is easy to do, if you like to play very very loud. I have done it once but honestly, it was incredibly loud. Using it as a party speaker. Not a great idea. Saved me a lot on new drivers. I have owned quite a few speakers that you need to replace drivers when played too loud. My CLS's used to ARC when played too loud so the CLS referral I find funny.

None the less, comparing a dipole to a dynamic speaker is apples & oranges. I love both but they both are different.

Thanks for the clarification, Dgad. Blowing resistors due to overdriving is a very small consideration for most people, I think, unless the speakers don't perform well at low and moderate volumes. The much larger considerations are the sound and do you find yourself getting lost in the music and wanting to listen for very long periods of time. That's certainly the case here.

I recently upgraded from Maxx 2's to Alexandria X-2 series 2. Thare are many differences. The top end is waaay more laid back than in the Maxx, but very detailed. I suspect that is where some of the Hi-Fi comments come from re: Maxx. The mid range is more organic and "clear". The bass is markedly improved. Actually I find the Maxx to be almost bloated by comparision. I spent tons of time and money trying to control the bass in my room (24x17x11). The Alexandria solved that problem instantly. I has a similar type of sound to other Wilson speakers, but it is improved in all areas. I only blew a resistor once in my Maxx's when I demoed an ASR emitter using the battery. I assume to much DC. Of note I tried the Lamm ML 2.1 for a month, but decided to keep the Boulder.