Wilson Alexandria XLF Measurements "Quite Poor"

[microstrip]

Frantz heard the system with twin Gotham subs. As for better bass with the Aida vs X2 I would strongly disagree as I had opportunity to a lengthy audition of the Aida and FWIW I am not a big fan of downward firing subs

As for my new room I will be using a pair of JL Audio Fathom F113's as the new room is smaller than my last.

I also agree with Frantz' comment that the X2's are keepers for a very long time

Steve,

Please note that I did not say that the Aida's had better bass than the X2 ... However, in my room, the position where I am getting the better imaging and better sound with the X2 with my current equipment is not the same where I had the Aida's, that resulted in a fuller bass. But still a lot to listen, move, swap and measure.

People have to consider that I spent many months optimizing the Aida's positioning and setup, and I have had the X2 in my room for a week. There are no miracles in audio, we need a lot of experimentation and listening before we can commit to a serious opinion.

Can I ask you what was the distance that you had between the back of the X-2's and the front wall in your old room? Do you want to share with us what will be the dimensions of the new room? BTW, I am really agreeing with you on one point - IMHO the X-2's love high quality tube equipment!

 

[FrantzM]

interesting...and generally agree about their imaging precision and obviously quite like X-series myself. What else do you like in this level of speaker? What do you use? Curious, thanks.

@Lloyd

I think imaging is not a matter of speaker size but of the way it deals with the wavelaunch. Pardon the big word but it means that the sound from the speakers reach the listener with a minimum amount of diffraction .. The X-2 does this extremely well. IT will go from smallish.. say a solo voice in a dry environment, to the huge sound of a concert hall. I have repeated this experience for a while but there was cut by Boz scags in an acoustic setting and clearly a small venue and close miked... The darn man was there Spooky to an extent I have rarely head from any system... Then we heard a larger piece, from RR Recording I believe, don't remember .. The venue grew to big, very, very big .. Small monitors don't do that, they usually can't do that. They will be nice on small and continue to be small when the venue change and not only small monitors but also many speakers that image well .. They cannot grow to fill the soundstage with sound .. THe X-2 do it with a midrange that will make people with Quad marvel but with a dynamic I am not sure the Quads that I have heard (several) can.. Not anything against the X-1 but it is not as pure and neutral as the X-2.

I am not looking for speakers in that "price range'. I have had a change of philosophy concerning speakers I may open a thread on it. But at such a level I require neutrality, purity and an absence of coloration. I think it is a lot to pay for colorations however nice they may be. I consider a system to be just like the post office. Please deliver me the mail don;t add anything to the message. I wouldn't be too lenient on a speaker that put its patina on everything I listen to , I would like it to get out of the way and try to replicate the sound on the medium, if possible...

Did Steve already own the Gotham's when you listened to them? Surprisingly I am finding that, in my room, the X-2 are asking more for subwoofers than the Aida's did.

I heard them with Wilson XS and then Gotham. The XS IMO (Sorry Steve ) wasn't placed at the best position to strut its stuff and I came with the impression that beter placement would have made a serious difference, Steve if I remember correctly ended up not using it for 2-ch that much... The Gotham are another story .. First they were optimized in term of placement , settings and even room treatment. Second there were two of them . Third, One is superior to the XS , With 2 ... Need I say anything. Now I actually believe the X-2 more so than many speakers in its price range, requires a sub. The FR is is said to go below 20 Hz the speaker doesn't seem to go that low the way say speakers in this class (The Big JM Labs, The Big Rockports, the Dunleavy V and many others) ... They are not bass shy ... Faaaaar from it, simply they don't seem to plumb the depth below 30 Hz as well as they do everything over 30 Hz... The kind of low bass you feel as a dry , I-am-there-and-I-am-potent kind of looow bass... From 30 Hz to 500 Hz they match what one hears in real life and with accuracy. Few speakers are so at ease as well as the X-2 in that region .. They provide in that region a realistic energy that gives music a solid foundation that gives music a realism missing in many speakers ... Still to get the best of them IMHO they require subs more so than many in their price range, to repeat myself... I believe the best reproduction is attained by using subwoofers, as in multiple subwoofers regardless of the speakers ... The myths about speakers too fast to be mated with a "slow" subwoofers needs to be dispelled.. X-2 with good subwooferS (there are may out there) takes you to another level, which interestingly enough highlights the qualities of the speakers, and these are numerous ... In my book I would have used X-2 with gob of power. The cleaner the better but lot of power nonetheless

On the surface the difference between the X-2 and the rest of the Wilson line doesn't seem that much say the Maxx3 and the X-2 . A comparison with Live music will let you know how more neutral and true to the medium they are. They have, to me, the least amount of a "house" sound than the other Wilson speakers I have heard. And they are chameleon that works well with any amplifier you throw at them ... Tubes, SS or Class D I think they sound good (Not that I have heard them with Clas D ) ...I sincerely believe they'd sound good with a decent AVR ... Ouch !! The Heresy

 

[Steve Williams]

My X-2's were 4 feet from the front wall. Distance from tweeter to tweeter was 11' and distance from speaker to listening position was ~12.5'

New room build out is smaller than my last. I have spent the past several months consulting with audiophile friends, my acoustician (who BTW uses mathematical algorithms to calculate room nodes etc) as well as consulting with John Giolas and Trent Workman at Wilson Audio re successful implementation of my X-2's in a smaller room. They consulted with Wilson engineers who have stated that the smaller room will be fine. I must admit that I have continued to ruminate about the X-2's in a smaller room and began to think seriously about switching to the Alexia as I love the speaker and am enamored with the new soft dome tweeter. As a result I had the same conversation with Debby Wilson who consulted with her father and brother on my concern. Both felt the X-2 woud be a better choice not so much for the bigger sound which I love but rather for the ability to custom adjust the aspherical propagation delay on the upper modules of the X-2 more accurately than the Alexia.

My room will be almost identical in size to Fremer's although my roo height will be 9'. Fremer's as I understand it is only 8'

Exact measurements are still TBD but are ~ 20.5 L x 15' W x 9' H

The room will be heavily treated and because of amount of air the X-2's move will have a form of venting into the attic to create an almost Infinite Baffle using a product made by my acoustician. The floor will be heavily treated to minimize any chance of the 8-10 Db suckout at 100-200 Hz that Fremer has with his XLF's. Walls will be double thickness with sound board on the room side of the dry wall. This will be glued and screwed to underlying drywall. Hardwood will be used on front 1/3 and carpet on rear 2/3 of floor. Tufted wall fabric and curtains will be used with the curtains being lined with a fabric also designed by my acoustician which will serve as corner bass traps. All Lutron lighting with a Control 6 and dedicated lines for gear for which I bought 5 Furutech Rhodium AC outlets and 3 MIT 20 amp Duplex AC outlets with noise filter for the regular wall outlets in the room. Too many other things to mention right now re room treatments but once build out begins I will post updates. finalplan approval is anticipated in the next week. Yes I will still use my Lamm ML3/LL1 Signature combo but have gone to twin Fathom F113's rather than my twin Gotham subs which are just too much for that room

 

[MylesBAstor]

Does anybody think anyone buying a pair of XLFs gives a rats ass about measurements? Doubt it will cost Wilson any sales. Maybe the more interesting question is why so many audiophiles like the sound of the XLFs - yet the speakers don't meet our preconceived notion of what's important in speaker measurements? After all, Dave isn't a moron.

 

[treitz3]

I believe that this quote is appropriate for this thread.....from a gentlemen I'm quite sure many of you know well....

Appreciation of audio is a completely subjective human experience. Measurements can provide a measure of insight, but are no substitute for human judgment. Why are we looking to reduce a subjective experience to objective criteria anyway? The subtleties of music and audio reproduction are for those who appreciate it. Differentiation by numbers is for those who do not.

Tom

 

[microstrip]

(...) I must admit that I have continued to ruminate about the X-2's in a smaller room and began to think seriously about switching to the Alexia as I love the speaker and am enamored with the new soft dome tweeter. As a result I had the same conversation with Debby Wilson who consulted with her father and brother on my concern. Both felt the X-2 woud be a better choice not so much for the bigger sound which I love but rather for the ability to custom adjust the aspherical propagation delay on the upper modules of the X-2 more accurately than the Alexia.(...)

Steve,

I really understand you - even the soft dome tweeter of the Aida's is something very special. Sometimes I am missing it ... There is a freshness and airiness in it, that helped voices and transient sounds to sound natural that I can not find in the X-2's. I was also was listening to the Alexia, but is does not have the scale of the X-2's and mostly, the 95 dB efficiency your Lamm's like so much and I am appreciating. But it had a very nice treble ...

In Europe, during the middle ages, when people needed to ask for something to the Pope they send monumental embassies to Rome, with gifts, to draw attention to their causes. Should we organize a similar embassy to the Wilson Factory, in Utah, asking for a tweeter upgrade for the X-2's?

 

[theguesswho]

Speaker measurements (especially frequency response) like all measurements are important to UNDERSTAND how much damage is being done to the signal. Now, of course, we dont know the ears and tastes and quirks of the mastering processes gear and speakers and blah blah and what is a reference anyway and blah blah, but,

dang it,

if you ignore measurments you end up with some really freaking strange additions or subtractions from the original recording, and at the speaker end, FR errors anywhere of a db or more are like huge % distortions of the original intent of the master engineer best bet of what your system sounds like.

I am not against making your music suite your tastes as far as listening comfort, but man, if you just go by ears alone, you have no idea how much music you are either loosing or boosting, and making things all sound more the same, and for me, that is boring as hell. I want to hear differences and tone and detail, and true as possible those things, and when I want to customize, thats what EQ or tone controls or outboard processors etc do way better than trying to make your speaker be a one off equializer or your room a one off equalizer...

arent we all pretty much in agreeement that taming the speaker room interface toward neutral is what we want?

Measurments help us keep centered and understand our deviations......dont people want subs that actually do go low....pschoacustics can fool you with processing where a sub that does not go as low "sounds" like it does....

I say, have you measured your freq response and if so can you post a graph of it?

Wendell

 

[andromedaaudio]

Audio would have never come this far without measurements and the equipment to do that , kinda like the same situation as it would be impossible to built a house without a tape measure.
There is no magic in loudspeakers unfortunately , although some can sound magical .
As for the hifi news measurement , it wouldnt surprise me if the resistors werent optimal for the situation

 

[A.wayne]

Sounds like a great effort Steve, I'm sure you guys are overlapping to cover seams, since you are double walling ...?

My X-2's were 4 feet from the front wall. Distance from tweeter to tweeter was 11' and distance from speaker to listening position was ~12.5'

New room build out is smaller than my last. I have spent the past several months consulting with audiophile friends, my acoustician (who BTW uses mathematical algorithms to calculate room nodes etc) as well as consulting with John Giolas and Trent Workman at Wilson Audio re successful implementation of my X-2's in a smaller room. They consulted with Wilson engineers who have stated that the smaller room will be fine. I must admit that I have continued to ruminate about the X-2's in a smaller room and began to think seriously about switching to the Alexia as I love the speaker and am enamored with the new soft dome tweeter. As a result I had the same conversation with Debby Wilson who consulted with her father and brother on my concern. Both felt the X-2 woud be a better choice not so much for the bigger sound which I love but rather for the ability to custom adjust the aspherical propagation delay on the upper modules of the X-2 more accurately than the Alexia.

My room will be almost identical in size to Fremer's although my roo height will be 9'. Fremer's as I understand it is only 8'

Exact measurements are still TBD but are ~ 20.5 L x 15' W x 9' H

The room will be heavily treated and because of amount of air the X-2's move will have a form of venting into the attic to create an almost Infinite Baffle using a product made by my acoustician. The floor will be heavily treated to minimize any chance of the 8-10 Db suckout at 100-200 Hz that Fremer has with his XLF's. Walls will be double thickness with sound board on the room side of the dry wall. This will be glued and screwed to underlying drywall. Hardwood will be used on front 1/3 and carpet on rear 2/3 of floor. Tufted wall fabric and curtains will be used with the curtains being lined with a fabric also designed by my acoustician which will serve as corner bass traps. All Lutron lighting with a Control 6 and dedicated lines for gear for which I bought 5 Furutech Rhodium AC outlets and 3 MIT 20 amp Duplex AC outlets with noise filter for the regular wall outlets in the room. Too many other things to mention right now re room treatments but once build out begins I will post updates. finalplan approval is anticipated in the next week. Yes I will still use my Lamm ML3/LL1 Signature combo but have gone to twin Fathom F113's rather than my twin Gotham subs which are just too much for that room

 

[JackD201]

Spaeker measurements (especially frequency response) like all measurements are important to UNDERSTAND how much damage is being done to the signal. Now, of course, we dont know the ears and tastes and quirks of the mastering processes gear and speakers and blah blah and what is a reference anyway and blah blah, but,

dang it,

if you ignore measurments you end up with some really freaking strange additions or subtractions from the original recording, and at the speaker end, FR errors anywhere of a db or more are like huge % distortions of the original intent of the master engineer best bet of what your system sounds like.

I am not against making your music suite your tastes as far as listening comfort, but man, if you just go by ears alone, you have no idea how much music you are either loosing or boosting, and making things all sound more the same, and for me, that is boring as hell. I want to hear differences and tone and detail, and true as possible those things, and when I want to customize, thats what EQ or tone controls or outboard processors etc do way better than trying to make your speaker be a one off equializer or your room a one off equalizer...

arent we all pretty much in agreeement that taming the speaker room interface toward neutral is what we want?

Measurments help us keep centered and understand our deviations......dont people want subs that actually do go low....pschoacustics can fool you with processing where a sub that does not go as low "sounds" like it does....

Nobody is dissing measurements, but man, when the guy doing the measurements explicitly states the compromises of those same measurements as JA did, it is only logical to take those into account when attempting to interpret them. Taking said measurements as absolute is just crazy. Oh look, ugly graph, must be an ugly speaker. What? The guy just said the graphs were made in less than ideal conditions! It carries as much weight as a Wikipedia entry. Yes it is indicative but no it is not definitive.

 

[A.wayne]

There you go again Tom, back off on the logic, its audio damn it ....

Spaeker measurements (especially frequency response) like all measurements are important to UNDERSTAND how much damage is being done to the signal. Now, of course, we dont know the ears and tastes and quirks of the mastering processes gear and speakers and blah blah and what is a reference anyway and blah blah, but,

dang it,

if you ignore measurments you end up with some really freaking strange additions or subtractions from the original recording, and at the speaker end, FR errors anywhere of a db or more are like huge % distortions of the original intent of the master engineer best bet of what your system sounds like.

I am not against making your music suite your tastes as far as listening comfort, but man, if you just go by ears alone, you have no idea how much music you are either loosing or boosting, and making things all sound more the same, and for me, that is boring as hell. I want to hear differences and tone and detail, and true as possible those things, and when I want to customize, thats what EQ or tone controls or outboard processors etc do way better than trying to make your speaker be a one off equializer or your room a one off equalizer...

arent we all pretty much in agreeement that taming the speaker room interface toward neutral is what we want?

Measurments help us keep centered and understand our deviations......dont people want subs that actually do go low....pschoacustics can fool you with processing where a sub that does not go as low "sounds" like it does....

 

[A.wayne]

Depends on how you interp his measured response , not the speakers ....

Nobody is dissing measurements, but man, when the guy doing the measurements explicitly states the compromises of those same measurements as JA did, it is only logical to take those into account when attempting to interpret them. Taking said measurements as absolute is just crazy. Oh look, ugly graph, must be an ugly speaker. What? The guy just said the graphs were made in less than ideal conditions! It carries as much weight as a Wikipedia entry. Yes it is indicative but no it is not definitive.

 

[A.wayne]

Hello Micro,

I know you have mentioned shifting from the Aida's to X2 , could you describe the rest of your system , sorry if you have it listed i did not see ...


Regards ,

Steve,

I really understand you - even the soft dome tweeter of the Aida's is something very special. Sometimes I am missing it ... There is a freshness and airiness in it, that helped voices and transient sounds to sound natural that I can not find in the X-2's. I was also was listening to the Alexia, but is does not have the scale of the X-2's and mostly, the 95 dB efficiency your Lamm's like so much and I am appreciating. But it had a very nice treble ...

In Europe, during the middle ages, when people needed to ask for something to the Pope they send monumental embassies to Rome, with gifts, to draw attention to their causes. Should we organize a similar embassy to the Wilson Factory, in Utah, asking for a tweeter upgrade for the X-2's?

 

[JackD201]

Depends on how you interp his measured response , not the speakers ....

Kinda goes without saying That's my whole point. I just don't think this speaker or any speaker for that matter deserves to get slammed based on the output of a measurement process that is compromised, especially as compromised as this, as clearly disclosed by the guy who did them.

 

[treitz3]

Ed Zachary.

Tom

 

[Bruce B]

In-room measurements are much more important than "just" speaker measurements (as I have found out)!

No one knows how the XLF will measure in their own room until they've tried it!

 

[treitz3]

Then one also has to remember that what gear [along with the available power] used upstream from the speakers also plays a role.

Tom

 

[microstrip]

Spaeker measurements (especially frequency response) like all measurements are important to UNDERSTAND how much damage is being done to the signal. Now, of course, we dont know the ears and tastes and quirks of the mastering processes gear and speakers and blah blah and what is a reference anyway and blah blah, but,

dang it,

if you ignore measurments you end up with some really freaking strange additions or subtractions from the original recording, and at the speaker end, FR errors anywhere of a db or more are like huge % distortions of the original intent of the master engineer best bet of what your system sounds like.

I am not against making your music suite your tastes as far as listening comfort, but man, if you just go by ears alone, you have no idea how much music you are either loosing or boosting, and making things all sound more the same, and for me, that is boring as hell. I want to hear differences and tone and detail, and true as possible those things, and when I want to customize, thats what EQ or tone controls or outboard processors etc do way better than trying to make your speaker be a one off equializer or your room a one off equalizer...

arent we all pretty much in agreeement that taming the speaker room interface toward neutral is what we want?

Measurments help us keep centered and understand our deviations......dont people want subs that actually do go low....pschoacustics can fool you with processing where a sub that does not go as low "sounds" like it does....

Tom,

You are distorting the main perspective of this thread. I think I can say that no one is against taking measurements or showing them. What is being questioned is their interpretation, and mostly if a speaker failing to accomplish the results promoted by a well know and reputed school of thought can be considered a success or even excellent based just on listening opinions.

Your wording, using the word damage I highlighted in your post, suggests you already have taken a side. But IMHO, you must consider that, particularly in loudspeaker design, there are many design methodologies that will measure very differently and achieve excellent listening results.

 

[rockitman]

bad input (Poor measurement implementation or worse)=bad output (results)=useless measurements. It is really that simple.

 

[microstrip]

Hello Micro,

I know you have mentioned shifting from the Aida's to X2 , could you describe the rest of your system , sorry if you have it listed i did not see ...


Regards ,

My system is mainly Audio Research - CD8 , REF Anniversary 40 and REF Phono 2. Several power amplifiers having been landing in my room, but this affair is not yet settled. The one I liked more was the REF150, but the Aida's seemed to ask for more power. I am using a DartZeel NH108 with the X-2, a very good friend borrowed the REF150, as he wanted to listen to a well burn-in unit. Next time I will keep silent about the big difference after 600 hours.

One of the reasons I am listening to the X-2 is that I really loved the REF150 and the Aida's are 89 dB/W and the X-2 94.5 dB/W. But the decision is not yet taken.