A brutal review of the Wilson Maxx

a few years ago my brother-in-law and his friend visited my home. my brother-in-law is a fairly good amatuer trumpet player and his friend is a professional jazz trumpeter. they brought their trumpets.

after dinner we retired to my dedicated 2-channel system room and proceeded to have them accompany Miles Davis on the 45rpm vinyl of Kind Of Blue.

it was great fun and an unforgetable evening.

the vinyl held it's own. i'm not saying that the live instruments did not have advantages but they were not staggering. the guys were able to play 'with' the recorded music; not over the top of it.

my system and especially my vinyl is much better now. i wonder how it would sound. BTW, this is actually somewhat on-topic....as my system then (5 years ago) included Wilson Watt/Puppy 6.0's with Levinson #33 amps.

the great thing about the trumpet is that the scale of the instrument works in a typical listening room.

I have said many times throughout threads here on A'gon that I have a hard time finding a speaker that comes even close to reproducing the tonal qualities of a live sax. As a sax player for many years, it almost makes "High end audio" a moot point. Maybe this is why so many people have gone to the "Sounds good" school no matter what the technical aspects of the design may be. "Sounds good" is definitely in the ears of the beholder.
I went to 1st order speakers years ago because they seemed to capture more of the harmonic richness of instruments. While not perfect, that was my reasoning.
Maybe it is in the recording process. I have a friend who does recording for the local symphony. He tries to produce a recording as faithful to the original as possible. It still always falls short of the live performance even though he uses very well thought of mikes, etc.
I really feel we are still a long way off from reproducing a live event. Yeh, you can add tricks to the recording to help simulate the event such as artificial ambience and/or reverb.
I guess my thing is with the escalating prices of equipment, is it worth it after you reach a certain point?

If pressed for a response I would say I was in the "sounds good to me" school, but issues like this are never so clear cut. When I first came across Audiogon I would have place myself in the accurate reproduction camp, but two factors got me thinking. First, I developed a knowledge about studio recording techniques and came to the conclusion that it's virtually impossible to know exactly what the recording is supposed to sound like. There are just too many variables and artistic considerations involved in even a minimalist recording to really say what the recordings should sound like. Second, in looking at the virtual systems listed here on Audiogon I came to a deeper understanding of what real life audiophile systems were put together. I ultimately came to the realization that if you knew what you were doing, which presumes a good knowledge of audio equipment, the sound of live instruments and a the possession of a reasonably good ear, you could put together a wonderfully musical system that while not strictly accurate, still gets to the heart of the music. So much depends upon individual taste, both in equipment voicing and the particular type of music you play. One size will never fit all.

Bigtree, your recording friend may think he's trying to faithfully reproduce an original event, but ultimately he cannot. What is the original event? What he hears in center section from row DD? What the conductor hears at the podium? What it sounds like under the balcony? Who's to say, because the sound of the orchestra does sound radically different in each of these locations. The recording chain is by its very nature an editorializing process. A recording is not a piece of captured reality, but instead is a separate entity that through artificial means is an analogy of a distinctly separate event. It's not a trivial difference.

I like this guy Hardesty too. I also agree with what he says about freedom in the marketplace. Anyone should be able to make something and sell it for whatever they want. But, would you really buy these speakers based upon a review? After being out of the audiophile shopping mode for 15 years, I walked into a room at the S.F. CES show that had the Sophia's playing. I had never heard of Wilson's speakers. I loved the sound. After researching them and finding out the price, I shopped elsewhere and found speakers that did the trick for me for much less. Still, some people do not have the same concerns about money as I do. They are free to spend as much as they can, and as studies have shown, the brain responds to external stimuli based upon its perception of the source. So, maybe for people with unlimited budgets, the Wilson Maxx speakers do sound better. Hah!

David

Onhwy61, My friend has tried to catch the essence of the performance. You certainly can't recreate it from every perspective but I think he tries for what the average listener would hear in the center lower level of the better seating areas. However, I still think the reproduction chain should capture the "Sound" of real instruments to the point that they do sound realistic.
I'm well aware of "Artists" or recording engineers expression. That should still not mean that speakers can't reproduce instrumental tones properly even if the overall recording is questionable.
However, with what you have said, it stregthens my point. What are we trying to accomplish with high end audio since the whole thing is flawed and we don't have the "Absolute" standard. Nobody knows what the original event sounded like except from one perspective that they had when attending the event. It is a matter of interpretation.
Now, I do believe you can record individual instruments and you should be able to achieve a reasonable facsimily of that event, wouldn't you think? We have tried this and this is the basis for me using 1st order speakers. IMO, they sound closer to the individual instrument.