A brutal review of the Wilson Maxx

Just a thought on playing live music next to a rig. I had a friend walk into my home with his trombone in hand. He commented that the rig was playing loud. I told him my aim was to reproduce the sound of the live performance to scale. He then proceeded to take his horn out and play along. To his astonishment he said he could not effectively play soft enough to properly accompany the sound eminating from my system.

Many times in the past, people have said to me that their systems are really close to the sound of real live unamplified music. Its when I proceed to play my Taylor next to their system do their jaws drop... NOT even close.
That is one of my pet peeves about the audio hobby today, many reviewers hold a particular piece of equipment up on a pedestal,so the public believes it is capable of reproducing music; especially since it costs tens of thousands of dollars. What the reviewers never seem to do is hold the piece to the highest standard as a reference.
When Harry coined the term 'The Absolute Sound' I for one felt that this standard was one that would make reviewers and the public realize how inadequate all equipment is and that with that in mind, no real exultations would be forthcoming ( except in regards to other available equipment perhaps). Today it seems that several reviewers and magazines are happy to stipulate a piece of equipment has amazing abilities. Compared to other available equipment maybe, but compared to live sound...NOT IMHO.

Unsound

As a pretty poor trombone player myself in the past I can confirm this to be true. Trombones when they are *leant* on can really be very dynamic - equally true of trumpets and parts of the percussion section.

I guess that's why the orchestra only has very few of us and a boat load of strings!

Also you may find your recording of the trombone was taken at say 40ft if it was in an large group and your room might not be that big!

Good to see the the discussion has moved toward the live instruments

:o)

I need to step in again. I had a system that in the room it was placed sounded as good as an instrument in playing in the same room. Or it did over half the time as long as it was a good recording. The trade offs are worth it though because I have heard live instruments sound horrible do to the room they are in. These are the times that make up for the times my system didn't sound as good. The real problem is that musicians today think they can buy a few thousands of dollars worth of digital recording equipment and get close enough to a good recording studio. Our systems were already way ahead of the recording industry and just like the way digital made new audiophiles worse, it is now making the music industry worse. It already made the Cell phones worse. I have so many customers today who have never heard analogue before and it does make their ears worse. I tell them if they want to know what digital sounds like, listen to a fax machine.

the wilson max is the 901 of today