Yesterday I went to the demo of the new Alexia speakers, at the Innovative Audio Video showroom in Manhattan. The demo was presented by Peter McGrath, who played lots of music, starting from his own recordings.
First of all, I'd like to state for the 1000th time how pleasant is going to an Innovative event: the crew is just amazing, starting from the patron Elliot, maybe the nicest guy I've ever met in the world of hiend (too frequently crowded by jerks...)
The showroom displayed 3 rooms:
- Wilson Sophia III, driven by Spectral SDR-4000SL, DMC-30SS gen2 and DMA-260
- Wilson Alexandria XLF, driven by dCS Scarlatti DAC + Sooloos, Lamm 2 chassis preamp and D'Agostino monoblocks
- Wilson Alexia (obviously), driven by Meridian reference audio core (connected either to a MacBook + Amarra or McGrath's digital recorder), VTL TL7.5 III and Sigfried II.
I went with my now usual audiobuddy Christos and my lovely wife Federica (the only woman in the entire showroom... it has been easy to her to obtain abundant answers to her curiosity!).
In the Sophia room we spent enough time for 3 songs: the sound was rich, balanced, maybe not that explosive (despite the system has not been squeezed by McGrath's powerful tracklist...) as we would have realized later. Definitely, the classic "system that I wish I had" (apart of the digital source, beautiful but not capable to be connected to a music server/computer).
Our experience with the XLFs, which I had already auditioned at Innovative, has been supershort. I was curious to check how they were doing with the D'Agostinos (with VTL they were sublime). It's gonna be another time
And now, let's go to the Alexia. Their shape and size was a concern to Federica, who shyly asked "cannot they be smaller?". Elliot explained that they are unbelievably small, for what they can do. I was skeptic in beginning, but then I had to change my mind. (another of my wife's concerns was the look of the Transparent speaker cables - "they look like giant cockroaches")
Compared to the Sasha, the Alexia might share the same base (more or less) but they're considerably larger. The look is more "difficult", but definitely better than in picture. The sound was just immense!
McGraph skipped from Carmina Burana to Keith Richards, going through Mahler or Ryan Adams and many others. Total lack of dynamic restriction was some of the most immediate perception, specially with Carmina Burana. With Mahler, the huge soundstage and the clarity in instrumental discrimination was just impressive. Pop/rock selection demonstrated how beautiful the Alexia can sound with voices and not-acoustic instruments.
I wish I did my first XLF encounter with this very same tracklist. I might better tell how the Alexia approximate the goals of the XLF. Definitely, the Alexia outperformed the Sasha, which I auditioned in the past with a very similar system.
I'm now just wondering where do the Maxx stay, now that they have such a competitor within the same family...
All in all, that demo has been one of the most mesmerizing listening session I've ever heard. I've always been a fan of VTL amplification, which just consolidated my personal preference of them in the crowd of tubed gear. I cannot hide I wish to listen to the Alexia with some solid state gear, such as Spectral (some of my very favorite).
Unfortunately I will never be able to afford such a system...
First of all, I'd like to state for the 1000th time how pleasant is going to an Innovative event: the crew is just amazing, starting from the patron Elliot, maybe the nicest guy I've ever met in the world of hiend (too frequently crowded by jerks...)
The showroom displayed 3 rooms:
- Wilson Sophia III, driven by Spectral SDR-4000SL, DMC-30SS gen2 and DMA-260
- Wilson Alexandria XLF, driven by dCS Scarlatti DAC + Sooloos, Lamm 2 chassis preamp and D'Agostino monoblocks
- Wilson Alexia (obviously), driven by Meridian reference audio core (connected either to a MacBook + Amarra or McGrath's digital recorder), VTL TL7.5 III and Sigfried II.
I went with my now usual audiobuddy Christos and my lovely wife Federica (the only woman in the entire showroom... it has been easy to her to obtain abundant answers to her curiosity!).
In the Sophia room we spent enough time for 3 songs: the sound was rich, balanced, maybe not that explosive (despite the system has not been squeezed by McGrath's powerful tracklist...) as we would have realized later. Definitely, the classic "system that I wish I had" (apart of the digital source, beautiful but not capable to be connected to a music server/computer).
Our experience with the XLFs, which I had already auditioned at Innovative, has been supershort. I was curious to check how they were doing with the D'Agostinos (with VTL they were sublime). It's gonna be another time
And now, let's go to the Alexia. Their shape and size was a concern to Federica, who shyly asked "cannot they be smaller?". Elliot explained that they are unbelievably small, for what they can do. I was skeptic in beginning, but then I had to change my mind. (another of my wife's concerns was the look of the Transparent speaker cables - "they look like giant cockroaches"
)Compared to the Sasha, the Alexia might share the same base (more or less) but they're considerably larger. The look is more "difficult", but definitely better than in picture. The sound was just immense!
McGraph skipped from Carmina Burana to Keith Richards, going through Mahler or Ryan Adams and many others. Total lack of dynamic restriction was some of the most immediate perception, specially with Carmina Burana. With Mahler, the huge soundstage and the clarity in instrumental discrimination was just impressive. Pop/rock selection demonstrated how beautiful the Alexia can sound with voices and not-acoustic instruments.
I wish I did my first XLF encounter with this very same tracklist. I might better tell how the Alexia approximate the goals of the XLF. Definitely, the Alexia outperformed the Sasha, which I auditioned in the past with a very similar system.
I'm now just wondering where do the Maxx stay, now that they have such a competitor within the same family...
All in all, that demo has been one of the most mesmerizing listening session I've ever heard. I've always been a fan of VTL amplification, which just consolidated my personal preference of them in the crowd of tubed gear. I cannot hide I wish to listen to the Alexia with some solid state gear, such as Spectral (some of my very favorite).
Unfortunately I will never be able to afford such a system...
