Looking To Meet Some Arizona Audiophiles April 24th

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
As most of you know from my CES photo blog the speakers which truly caught my attention was the new Wilson XLF (which was only on static display) and the new Sonus Faber Aida which after several days of listening was heralded by me as the best speaker at the show. It was driven by all Audio Research gear and was simply terrific to hear. Suffice it to say, both of these very eloquent speakers have a silk dome tweeter and it was this that truly caught my attention. Needless to say I am a huge fan of Wilson Audio and the speakers made. Going back these past 15 years I have owned the WP 5.1, WP 6, MAXX l, XS, X1 Series lll, X-2 series l and now the X-2 series 2 all of which had an inverted titanium dome tweeter. I listened at great length to Dave Wilson's dissertation as to why he chose the sik dome tweeter for the new XLF


http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?5537-Photos-Of-New-XLF-And-Silk-Dome-Tweeter


I can say that I heard all of the big super speakers at CES but it was the Sonus Faber Aida to which we kept coming back to hear more. At the end of the show it was this new SF Aida which for me reigned supreme as the best in show. Could this silk dome tweeter be something to consider.

I came to the show with 3 hardened and long term audiophiles :) all of whom also agreed about the SF Aida as the best in show. What we all wanted to hear however was a direct A/B comparison of the 2 speakers in the same room with the same electronics. Well there is only one place in the USA where one can actually hear this comparison demo and it's in Scottsdale Arizona at.......

LMC Home Entertainment - High End Audio / Home Theater http://www.lmche.com/index.htm

I will be going to Scottsdale just for the day on April 24th to hear the speaker demo and will be accompanied by my very good friend and audio buddy Marty, who is also a member here. We have gotten a direct invitation from the store owner who BTW will be picking us up at the Phoenix airport to take us to the store. I fly in from the SF Bay Area and Marty from Dallas. We arrive just before noon. We fly home at 6:30 and will get 4 hours of listening in. We both plan on sharing our thoughts here but I am putting out the information with the hope that any local members who might read this can find a way to the store so that we can all meet up and share our thoughts on these two new speakers.

Who says audiophiles are crazy??? Who in their right mind will fly several 1000 miles to hear 2 pair of speakers for 4 hours and then turn around and go home ;)?

Well it smacks of a fun day and Marty and I are hoping to meet any local members who read this?

PM me for details if interested
 
Agree!
 
Hi Steve, Marty,

Just for fun, will you be able to add the Mbl 101 X-treme Radialstrahler Luxury to the shoot-out? I noticed on their website they also have this on demo. $263K! A worthy contender one would think.
 
3-Way Shoot-out at the LMC Corral!!! ;) Yee-haw!
 
Whoa! Talk about firepower!! Particularly intrigued by Burmester with XLFs. I suspect Mc with Wilson will sound extremely pleasant...just dont know how it will stack up compared to such august competition in detail, retrieval, transparency, decay...quite a nice shoot-out!
 
That's a trip I wish I could join you on. I'd probably stay at least 5 days though to play TPC, Troon and Wildfire again. Grab some steer steak at Pinnacle Peak while you're there Steve :)
 
Too bad Steve, that steak is worth an extra hour. Marty is from Texas however so he's probably had just as good or better.
 
Only there for 6 hours Jack

Your ears are better than mine, Steve. I find that 24hrs after flying, I can't trust my ears for any critical listening. Which is why I always fly in at least 24hrs before setting up for a show. It always sounds harsher and thinner with poor imaging and soundstage when I've just flown.
 
Your ears are better than mine, Steve. I find that 24hrs after flying, I can't trust my ears for any critical listening. Which is why I always fly in at least 24hrs before setting up for a show. It always sounds harsher and thinner with poor imaging and soundstage when I've just flown.

Gary

you make an interesting point but AFAIK I haven't had problems
 
Hope I'm wrong here Steve:confused:, BUT I don't think the SF Aida's will do well with any of the upstream gear at that store. IMO, Silk domes sound best with tubes and except for the Mac gear ( which again IMHO isn't anything to shout home about), that's not what you will be hearing. How the Wilson's will fare with that same gear is going to be telling, but I would expect a much better match would be your Lamm's or ARC gear for both the Wilsons and the SF Aida's. This is most likely why SF showed the Aida's with ARC at the show where you liked them so much. ( Yes, I know SF and ARC are owned by the same company:))
 
Gary

you make an interesting point but AFAIK I haven't had problems

I have Found that flying-in for a negotiation requires a different kind of critical listening. This type of critical listening does not need an overnight sleep to optimize the experience, just a little homework and maybe the potentiality of a multiple transducer order.

Happy listening and SQUEEZE...gently, of course.

Cheers and have fun!

ALF
 

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