What are the Top Horn Speakers in the World Today? Vox Olympian vs Avantgarde Trio vs ???

[Amir]

i think my misunderstanding came because David made this remark

"and bonzo is right bypass Sophia & Sasha v1 for v2!"

Taking a sagacious walk into the Wilson family From many years of ESL life

Ok ,I am replacing a set of ESL with a set of very nice original Sophia's.. Having heard them in a rather larger room I am hoping for good results Now I have had ESL for many years and liked the airiness and spatial detail.. However I have been yearning for more detail and pin point sound...

www.whatsbestforum.com

on a thread where I had a few posts earlier mentioned sasha 2 is better than previous versions including Alexias - on memory I did not remember he had qualified only with Sophia and Sasha 1, because I have been on in various posts against the bigger wilsons, and here it was the Alexia.

Ok , thank you for accepting your mistake, Now in this big universe you are the only audiophile who believes Wilson Sasha 2 is better than Wilson WAMM.

 

[bonzo75]

Ok , thank you for accepting your mistake, Now in this big universe you are the only audiophile who believes Wilson Sasha 2 is better than Wilson WAMM.

I wrote better than Alexandria and XVX. I have never heard the WAMM, though given Wilson sonic history have no desire to

 

[tima]

i think my misunderstanding came because David made this remark

"and bonzo is right bypass Sophia & Sasha v1 for v2!"

Taking a sagacious walk into the Wilson family From many years of ESL life

Ok ,I am replacing a set of ESL with a set of very nice original Sophia's.. Having heard them in a rather larger room I am hoping for good results Now I have had ESL for many years and liked the airiness and spatial detail.. However I have been yearning for more detail and pin point sound...

www.whatsbestforum.com

on a thread where I had a few posts earlier mentioned sasha 2 is better than previous versions including Alexias - on memory I did not remember he had qualified only with Sophia and Sasha 1, because I have been on in various posts against the bigger wilsons, and here it was the Alexia.

He also said this ...

Taking a sagacious walk into the Wilson family From many years of ESL life

Ok ,I am replacing a set of ESL with a set of very nice original Sophia's.. Having heard them in a rather larger room I am hoping for good results Now I have had ESL for many years and liked the airiness and spatial detail.. However I have been yearning for more detail and pin point sound...

www.whatsbestforum.com

this is 2017 stuff. What I vaguely recall is the discussion was about relative coherence. The at-the-time Wilson rep noted that the Alexia speaker alignment mechanism was more precise than that of the Sasha and poor setup of the Alexia would give the poor coherency result. The big difference in Sasha 2 was the silk tweeter vs the titanium tweeter of the Sasha 1 and more slots for aligning the midrange. If you want to suggest a Sasha from the past, I'd go with the DAW.

 

[abeidrov]

I wake up every morning and sometimes during night thinking about what David, Romy, Bonzo, Amir and others said about this or that model of WA speakers. This is the most important thread for every WA speakers owner. It should be moved to the corresponding forum section. Surprisingly, there are still some posts about horn speakers here… Very annoying, they should be deleted asap.

 

[abeidrov]

Del

 

[morricab]

Brad, please think about these questions:

- wilson benesch use no crossover for midrange but it is not more dynamic than Wilson Alexandria.
- Wilson Alexandria does not use first order crossover but it is as dynamic as good horns (horns with first order crossover).
- Aries Crates big horn was very compress in munich 2024 It was even less dynamic than small wilsons.
- WAMM in Munich 2025 was more dynamic than some horns in munich 2025
- big WE horns were the most dynamic speakers in the show but not all horns are as dynamic as WE horns

The specs/theories are not the whole story of design.

The key is our listening skills to understand which loudspeakers are more advanced

Amir, these are silly examples. Wilson Benesch drivers are low sensitivity and wil suffer thermal compression effects earlier than high sensitivity drivers.
Wilson Alexandria is not as dynamic as good horns. Sorry it’s not. It’s good for a box speaker of moderately high sensitivity.
I disagree about your opinion on the Aries Cerat horn. They had bass integration issues until Sunday but compressed? No.
WAMM sounded like crap…only listened for a short time because it was not a natural sound.
We can agree on WE but that’s it.

 

[bonzo75]

- big WE horns were the most dynamic speakers in the show but not all horns are as dynamic as WE horns

Not disagreeing here, but that makes WE horns good, other horns need to be auditioned outside the show, including many not demoed at the show

 

[Bonesy Jonesy]

That's definitely a really poor design.

And a very expensive one !

 

[Amir]

I wrote better than Alexandria and XVX. I have never heard the WAMM, though given Wilson sonic history have no desire to

XVX is not my favorite, I think Alexandria is very different to XVX. Between new model of Wilsons (after 2010) I just like WAMM.

 

[Amir]

Amir, these are silly examples. Wilson Benesch drivers are low sensitivity and wil suffer thermal compression effects earlier than high sensitivity drivers.
Wilson Alexandria is not as dynamic as good horns. Sorry it’s not. It’s good for a box speaker of moderately high sensitivity.
I disagree about your opinion on the Aries Cerat horn. They had bass integration issues until Sunday but compressed? No.
WAMM sounded like crap…only listened for a short time because it was not a natural sound.
We can agree on WE but that’s it.

Brad, I had Wilson Alexandria in my home and I can not agree with you. (I am not distributor of Wilsons audio in Iran).

I never said Wilson WAMM was the best sound of show because I believe D’Agostino is not good amplifier for WAMM. WAMM need high power Class A1 tube amplifier like Audiopax M100.

Brad, please be honest , if WAMM was crap in show then Aries Crates was super crap. I was not alone and three of my friends listened to both WAMM and Aries Crates and all of them liked WAMM but non of them liked Aries Crates.

If you listen to Gobel Majestic, Wilson WAMM,TAD R1 with proper amplification you will realize those are best cone speakers in this market.

 

[Amir]

I am electronics engineer so I know electronics and physics theory but I have no interest in reading specification of speakers or dacs …

Why? Because those specifications never helped and most of the time those specifications caused wrong pre judgments.

Audio is very complex subject so very few smart audio designers can change our audio world to a better place. I do not trust most modern turntable/tube/horn systems.

 

[microstrip]

Are these audiophile terms? Stereo terms? How do you get emotional connection to the music when you are paying attention to these terms - instead of the music?

Surely they are audiophile terms applied to stereo sound reproduction - the way knowledgeable audiophiles communicate. Whether they bring or not emotional connection with the music depends on listener preferences.

I would love to see a Mahler concert where the musicians had skipped any formal training and were just told by the conductor "play with emotion, don't care for how you play or others play".

BTW, for music I read Gramophone, Diapason or other music magazines, occasionally surfing in the net at knowledgeable sites, particularly for jazz.

Cheap talk about emotion or armchair pseudo-psychology is not my interest, although it is loved by audio marketing. If you want to debate emotion sourced on stereo you must understand stereo with some minimal depth, something many people fail to understand - they just want dogmas and recipes.

 

[microstrip]

Compression is one of the most critical factors in music reproduction and one of the most often overlooked topics. Other areas must also be addressed, including time and phase distortion; however, get those right, and you're well on your way!

Are you addressing the subjective or the objective compression of speakers?

 

[microstrip]

I wake up every morning and sometimes during night thinking about what David, Romy, Bonzo, Amir and others said about this or that model of WA speakers. This is the most important thread for every WA speakers owner. It should be moved to the corresponding forum section. Surprisingly, there are still some posts about horn speakers here… Very annoying, they should be deleted asap.

In fact the thread tittle was challenging. But it seems we do not have real horn experts able to discuss just the differences and similitude of these top speakers - although many people are experts on WA!

 

[bonzo75]

In fact the thread tittle was challenging. But it seems we do not have real horn experts able to discuss just the differences and similitude of these top speakers - although many people are experts on WA!

I thonk you should just follow Jacob Helibrunn

 

[Al M.]

I thonk you should just follow Jacob Helibrunn

Can he tell us about the Vox Olympian in comparison to his Avantgarde Trio?

 

[bonzo75]

Can he tell us about the Vox Olympian in comparison to his Avantgarde Trio?

he moved from WAMM to trios and was micro's favourite reviewer

 

[andromedaaudio]

he moved from WAMM to trios and was micro's favourite reviewer

Was ( indeed )..... because he swapped the Wilsons

 

[Al M.]

he moved from WAMM to trios and was micro's favourite reviewer

I know that he moved on from WAMM to Trios, but Microstrip's question was about a horn expert who can tell us about a comparison of the speakers in the thread title.

 

[bonzo75]

Can he tell us about the Vox Olympian in comparison to his Avantgarde Trio?

Trio vs other good horns (or between any two good sounding horns, because horns sound so very different from each other) is all three of subjective taste, genre dependent, and source dependent. Easy Answers can only be given between a good sounding horn vs a bad sounding one..