The respect that Wilson receives from the audio press is clearly a conspiracy between writers at Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, HiFi+, HiFi News and Record Review, Analogplanet, The Audio Beat and others. I think the editors of those publications all get together at a remote location and agree that Wilson speakers of all stripes have to consistently win awards, or one of them might be "left out" and lose its audiophile publication club status.
Don’t they know that the alleged composite x and s material that Dave uses are gimmicks so that he can put Ferrari paint on the enclosure and sell cheap paper (pulp composite) drivers and silk dome tweeters for outrageous prices? Doesn’t Dave know that to be considered a bespoke speaker company one has to use ceramic or aluminum drivers, beryllium tweeters or diamond encrusted versions (oh, he tested both types but they did not work for him) to be deemed great speakers? After all, those are all faster drivers with no downside. (No knock on companies that employ exotic materials in their drivers. Some of those indeed are great speakers.) But a great loudspeaker consists of infinitely more than that. It’s all in the implementation.
The most important product produced by the speaker is the sound it generates. Is it natural? Is it accurate? Does it produce real sounding dynamic contrasts? etc. Many manufacturers still believe that, on balance, some of the more traditional materials still work better together than exotics. Some are bespoke speaker companies. Wilson is one of them.
I believe Wilson will always be a perfect target for those who think they know how to design a great sounding speaker. (You’ve got to be kidding me, the midrange in inverted acoustic polarity and the woofer in positive?-- this just can’t be done well.) But for those of us who agree with the likes of John Atkinson who wrote that if he could retire tomorrow, he would purchase a pair of Alexias to listen to for the rest of his years --well, we just don’t understand.
But Bo knows. But that’s only Bo Jackson.
Don’t they know that the alleged composite x and s material that Dave uses are gimmicks so that he can put Ferrari paint on the enclosure and sell cheap paper (pulp composite) drivers and silk dome tweeters for outrageous prices? Doesn’t Dave know that to be considered a bespoke speaker company one has to use ceramic or aluminum drivers, beryllium tweeters or diamond encrusted versions (oh, he tested both types but they did not work for him) to be deemed great speakers? After all, those are all faster drivers with no downside. (No knock on companies that employ exotic materials in their drivers. Some of those indeed are great speakers.) But a great loudspeaker consists of infinitely more than that. It’s all in the implementation.
The most important product produced by the speaker is the sound it generates. Is it natural? Is it accurate? Does it produce real sounding dynamic contrasts? etc. Many manufacturers still believe that, on balance, some of the more traditional materials still work better together than exotics. Some are bespoke speaker companies. Wilson is one of them.
I believe Wilson will always be a perfect target for those who think they know how to design a great sounding speaker. (You’ve got to be kidding me, the midrange in inverted acoustic polarity and the woofer in positive?-- this just can’t be done well.) But for those of us who agree with the likes of John Atkinson who wrote that if he could retire tomorrow, he would purchase a pair of Alexias to listen to for the rest of his years --well, we just don’t understand.
But Bo knows. But that’s only Bo Jackson.
