Upgrading from Wilson Sophia 2's?

I would look at room treatments if you haven't already done so. I was having a similar problem with my Mini Utopias, too bright and aggressive on so- so recordings and some panels from Ready Acoustics helped quite a bit. But there seems to be a tendency with Focal, Wilson, and some of the other high end speakers to go for the last bit of detail. I spend most of my time with my Spendor SP-1/2e's, which give a more relaxed presentation. I have also read good things about S-F but no dealers near. I would check out the room before I did anything else. Mine is 13x 35 and I found I was getting good response at 32Hz, way down at 50 and 62 and back up at 100. [I use 2 REL Stadium Subs]. This made the sound more aggressive than it is after I put up the panels. Response is now flatter and sound fuller. Hope this is some help.

Do you experience this with both your analog and digital front end? I bet the Sophias sound excellent w/ good recordings (as mine do). If your goal is to set-up a system to make these inferior recordings sound "good", I fear you will end up with a highly colored system. I would experiment with speaker and listening chair positions, room treatments, and cables before giving up on the Wilson's.

I sold my Sophia's. I've owned many other box speakers such as Watt/Puppy 6's, Dyn C4's, B&W801N's, ML Odyssey's, Totem Winds and Forests, Dunlavy SC-V's etc... My instincts told me to think outside the box and give Magnepan a try. The 3.6R's have been the most glorious upgrade I have ever experienced. Problems I thought were due to other components over the years are now gone! Strings are natural, bass is addictively textured and full of dynamic shadings, treble is sweet, phenomenaly extended, pure and grain free with no fatigue. Micro and macro dynamics are utterly realistic. Mids are full, ripe and organic. Soundstaging and depth are the best I've heard as well. Once broken in, they far excede the requirements of any music loving audiophile. The funny thing is that all of the anecdotal misinformation passed around about Magnepans being bass shy, lacking in dynamic slam, having bright treble, being hard to drive, hard to place or lacking in focus or transparency is complete nonsense. My 3.6R's driven by my Krell 400xi have none of the limitations I had heard talked about in high end circles. Once you hear a properly set up pair you would have to be into cherishing audio artifacts rather than music to not fall in love with them.

Tell us more about your room, besides the dimensions. Do you have wood floors, tile, area rugs, mirrors or windows, Ceiling Height?

Does the room seem live or dead to you?

Were you happy with your previous speakers in this room?

I think we all need to decide if it's your room, your associated equipment or your speaker choice?

Rich

Sure, the room dimensions are approx. 20ftLx16ftWx7ftH. Subfloor is concrete with berber carpet/heavy padding over it. Drapes on left wall at first reflection point for L CH. Open right to bar 4ft from end next to front wall. Tall Plants behind speakers in corners, soft fabric couch along rear wall (listening wall). Large wood end table on left next to couch and in front of couch. Large wood cabinet behind and in between speakers at 36"H. Canvas artwork behind speakers and behind listening position. Speakers are 12ft apart tweet to tweet and 48" from front wall left/right outside edge, 46 1/2" inside edge L/R. Left speaker 3ft from left draped wall. Listening position is 11ft from mid panels. Subs are outboard L/R in line with mid panels and raised onto 2" thick wood platforms..both are spiked with Mapleshade heavyfeet. Ceiling is acoustic tile. Room sounds just slightly on dead side/neutral. Walls are dryvit/over wood studs. Dedicated 20amp lines wt wattgate recepticles. Previous speakers seemed to lack low level dynamic shadings and soundstaging was ok but not great. Depth was good but not great. Some speakers sounded bright (Winds). Others sounded too warm and rolled off (Krell Res2's). The Sophias lacked air and seemed a tad closed in sounding. Is that enough detail?