A brutal review of the Wilson Maxx

Let's see, Harley and Fremer had the product in house and lived with it (and with reference associated equipment), Hardesty was able to read Atkinson's measurements and hear it in small hotel rooms with 95 volts.

Wow, how is one to decide which to trust?

I havent seen a bad review in a long time. But i see B&W pretty much on top of every page. Oh wait, Wilson sells speakers that cost more then someones house and odd enough just like B&W has TONS of advertising in their magazines. Kinda strange, really!

I dont trust reviewers for big magazines personally, i do trust the small guys who write freely in their own time for internet publications, and of course my ears. I would rather pay three times more for the magazines if they had no advertising in there. And i bet that the scores and reviews would be different!

-Flo

That Mr. Hardesty has named his journal eponymously with Mr. Wilson's subwoofer is more than telling: Axes are clearly grinding. The few who are able to procure MAXX IIs are unlikely to be dissuaded by his "opinion". But the rest of us will surely thank him for reminding us of how blessed we are to be precluded from the option.

...not only speakers are all colored but our ears too.
Our ears are so complicated that none realy ever figured its curve of a freequency reception. So I agree with Mr Fremer on that part.

I can also assume that Maxx speakers can sound great(never heard them.

On the value part, they use ScanSpeak drivers that cost arround $35+- depending on freequency range. The building materials are also not the best that could be used. The freequency curve and limits measured also not in the best range...

If someone wants to bash Wilson than go ahead do so but explain it objectively.

However, if someone claims to be objective but throws in cheap shots directed at other peoples's integrity, it hardly makes that person objective.

If you really believe that any advertising makes someone corrupt than that is your right but its an extreme position. All people have an agenda whether its for advertising dollars or for other things. If you think Mr. Hardesty or anyone else is completely bias free than you are the biggest sucker. We are human and are built with conscious and unconscious bias.

I might like Wilson or I might like Porsche or I might like a fancy restaurant in NYC like "Per Se". This does not mean that I am right or wrong. Sure, I can buy all the ingredients that are in a fancy meal or all the pieces of a fancy car but that does not mean that I could put it together as well.

There are some people who just feel that the sum of the individual parts of any given thing should cost no more than those individual parts. Sorry assembly matters to some people. Sure build your own ipod from scratch and it will be cheaper but it most of us would rather have someone else build it for us. Same goes for my car and same goes for my steak dinner.

By the way there is a lot of talk about what things cost and what they are worth. Let's be honest, almost all audiophile equipment costs too much. Part of the reason is that its not mass produced so its more expensive to make. The other reason is that they have to charge more because they sell fewer of them and want to make a profit. If we lived in a better world than we could for instance produce a million high end speakers for a lot cheaper than the cost of only making 5,000 of them. If you want a good price than buy a mass produced product, if you love music which I reckon is what brings you to audiophile equipement and this website than you are overpaying for that love. Most of my friends would think a speaker is overprices for $2,500 let alone $10,000. So those that say the wilson speaker is crazy expensive for $40,000 don't consider that most people think their $2,500 speakers are almost as crazy expensive. If you got the money and a passion for something, you tend to spend your money on it. People spend millions on a painting that cost probably a dollar to make hundreds of years ago and would cost a couple hundred dollars to make nowaways.

Its fun to talk about what we like and what we don't like. Its not cool however when we attack the people we disagree with especially to impugn their integrity.

Let the love and criticism of the products fly with your reasons why but not because you think there is a cabal out there to swindle us or that 99% of us are dumb to buy a given product. I say that even though ashlee simpson new album is the #1 selling album in the country.

Michael