Wilson Alexia 20x15 Room

Your system with Alexias will sound fabulous. This is a very popular combination and for good reason. Wilson uses ARC among others in their listening room and ARC uses Wilson in theirs. I've used various Wilsons (Sophias, Watt Puppys Sashas) with various electronics over the past decade or so and, for me, ARC is my favorite tube combo with Wilson and D'agostino my favorite ss combo. In fact, I like the Wilson/ARC so much that I have gone for 3 years without a change in my electronics which for me is an eternity. Not that I don't always keep my ears open. I might add that I have heard your exact system at a dealer and was awed by the presentation.

@Charles, I agree and not sure what I was thinking when I mentioned Vac. Lovely amps yes, and a better choice than ARC, but in valve amps they would be my 3rd choice with the S5's. In tubes, I would rate the CJ Gat and Art mono blocks 2nd (particularly in a bigger size room). But for similar money, I would personally go for a Vitus SS-102 and SL-102, together with a Vitus SCD-025 for synergy with the S5's. The SL-102 is a true balanced linestage which has a serious optional phono stage, pre-out to integrate with a surround sound processor & one the best metal remotes i've ever seen. Horses for courses as they say.

AQ Wel Signature xlr @ $7499/1 mt ? I have no plans to spend 50K to on cables :) .

That is what I understand. But you need to be aware that what you connect to the speaker is the quality what comes out of the speaker.

Beside this your used equipment have their own properties togheter.

This means that they have an overall sound and a kind of image.

Like the Alexia have his own kind of overall sound and way of image.

The combination will create a new overall sound and a new kind of image. Because all the different properties togheter will create the new sound and image.

That is why you need to find out how the combination in sound and image will work out.

I'll put in my 2 cents. I'm going to try and be objective and fair here (even though like everyone I have my biases).

I just sold my Alexias. Before that I owned Sashas (and still own Sophia 2's in my home theater).

My friend owns Vandersteen 5A's which I have heard many times over the years (with different electronics) and I feel I know the differences between these speakers fairly well.

The Alexias will give you a bigger sound. They also have much more slam (they can really rock).

BUT, they come with some tradeoffs. The 5As will give you more articulate bass. The fact that you can EQ the low frequencies is might powerful. You can also drive them with tube amps (if you like tubes) and still have the low frequencies powered by solid state.

The Alexias require careful room placement in order to not obscure the midrange with their abundant bass.

In my opinion, the 5As are a LOT easier to listen to because they don't have distortion in the upper midrange. Maybe it won't bother you (i.e. you might not detect it), but I couldn't listen to a lot of rock or pop with my Sashas or Alexias without wincing at vocals. I first thought it was my room or other gear and I spent a lot of money trying to correct it. I then upgraded to Alexias because of the better tweeter and more adjustable upper cabinet. I spent a solid year trying to understand why certain frequencies hurt my ears...

Whenever I went over to my friend's house and heard his 5A's, I didn't hear any of these issues. I could just sit back, relax and enjoy the music.

Then a friend pointed out that I was probably hearing driver breakup and pointed me at the Stereophile measurements where not only did the upper frequencies look pretty jagged but you could clearly see the midrange driver breakup as it was crossed over into the tweeter's range. It was 20db lower in volume (which is either a lot or not enough depending on your ears).

In any case, as an experiment I got in a pair of Magico S5's. All the issues I was hearing in the upper frequencies were just... gone. It was clean, linear. I could enjoy vocals again. Even clarinet and other instruments were more enjoyable.

I am NOT trying to sway you to Magicos. I'm not even trying to tell you to stay away from Wilsons. I'm just trying to help you make sure you like them. My advice is to listen to a bunch of music at the dealer and ensure that this 'issue' that I'm describing (whether real or just in my mind) is not going to bother you.

Apart from this complaint about the Alexias, I think they are dynamite speakers. They have a lot of presence and body and can do everything from piano to symphonies to rock to acoustic music very well.

Good luck!