A brutal review of the Wilson Maxx

I'm not a big fan of the Wilson sound either, and Hardesty doesn't SEEM to have an agenda. Who knows for sure, but I think he's just telling it the way he hears it. Only way to tell for sure is to listen for yourself. I thought the review was pretty well done, but in kind of an "expose" style. I've heard the Maxx2s a few times, and IMHO they're way overpriced for what they offer. But one man's turd is another man's gold nugget, so go figure . . . .

Good guess Larry - I think Hardesty wrote for Widescreen Review which, if I remember correctly used Dunlavy V's in the biggest and best test rig.

My dealer was in business with Hardesty years ago and If Im not mistaken he mentioned that Hardesty uses Vandersteen 5As with Theta. FWIW.

I don't own Wilson speakers, never have, probably never will (too expensive for my budget). However, I have heard Wilson speakers on several occasions and found the sound quality, to say nothing of construction/finish quality, to be excellent. If you want to have a look at an interesting comparison of Wilson speakers versus other high end speakers read this thread: http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1085320068&openmine&zzMgattmch&4&5#Mgattmch . A comparison of Thiel CS 7.2, Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage, Audio Physic Kronos, Focal-JM Labs Grand Utopia Be, Wilson Audio Alexandria X-2 and TAD-1 speakers under identical conditions in front of approximately 120 people at a time. I actually posted this thread. It would appear the vast majority of people who attended this high-end speaker demonstration found the Wilson speakers to be the best of the lot. The number of audition attendees make the data reliable, read unbiased. Richard Hardesty's review/opinion of Wilson speakers is definitely at odds with what most audiophiles think. I guess we are all entitled to our opinions.

No agenda...are you kidding?!! I haven't seen pissing in print like this since the great sniping contests between Absolute Sound and Stereophile in days gone by. How Mr. Hardesty can claim to have made impressions of systems (those of Fremer and Harley) that he has never heard is frankly absurd, if not idiotic. The guy is a crank.