Wilson Alexandria Speakers...Why not a bi-amp solution from Wilson for this chassis?

JackD201

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Splitting the XOs could be done blindfolded by David Wilson and Co. He must have his reasons. I hope Debbie will chime in.

Personally I enjoy having the option of split XOs so I can bi-amp. I don't need more than a pair of M1.2Rs but being able to strap in M2.2sfor midbass duty sure is nice. Wattage differentials are not as much as an issue as input sensitivity differentials. Even if the 2.2s are twice the power the hand off is seamless. The high impedance IS of the 1.2 and low impedance IS of the 2.2 are almost identical. Even if there is a big discrepancy adding a resistor for the bass amp inputs is easy. Then there are attenuators like those made by Scott Endler.
 

Steve Williams

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Splitting the XOs could be done blindfolded by David Wilson and Co. He must have his reasons. I hope Debbie will chime in.

Personally I enjoy having the option of split XOs so I can bi-amp. I don't need more than a pair of M1.2Rs but being able to strap in M2.2sfor midbass duty sure is nice. Wattage differentials are not as much as an issue as input sensitivity differentials. Even if the 2.2s are twice the power the hand off is seamless. The high impedance IS of the 1.2 and low impedance IS of the 2.2 are almost identical. Even if there is a big discrepancy adding a resistor for the bass amp inputs is easy. Then there are attenuators like those made by Scott Endler.

as they say, proceed with caution and use with your own risk. He has never split XO and only DW can say if he would do it and I bet no unless he does it across the board on that model rather than to do it custom for an individual. If you think I didn't ask about swapping tweeters you're mistaken as I personally asked DW at CES when he was giving comparing the Alexandria vs XLF

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ilk-Dome-Tweeter&p=83605&viewfull=1#post83605
 

Phelonious Ponk

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Any chance you'll be upgrading, Steve?

Tim
 

mep

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Dave Wilson has been adamant since the beginning that he doesn’t believe in bi-wiring/bi-amping his speakers. Great lengths have been gone through by Dave Wilson to set the crossover points and make sure the speakers work and sound the way he intended them to. The idea of letting people bypass the crossovers and trust them to follow the crossover points and slopes that he wants for his drivers is asking for disaster. People will tend to think they are smarter than the designer and they would experiment with their own crossover points and slopes and some would blow drivers and then ask Uncle Dave to pony up new drivers for free.

The other problem with letting Adam Audiophile muck around with electronic crossovers is that now Wilson speakers will no longer sound the way that Dave intended them to sound. This could cause a loss of sales due to some electrical dimwit mucking around with electronic crossovers and setting wacky crossover points and slopes and inviting his friends over to hear his *wonderful* Wilson speakers. In other words, this would be opening up the Pandora’s box of liability for Wilson Audio.

As for Tim’s response:

I think the time has come for high-end speaker manufacturers to begin building speakers that easily allow users to bi-pass internal crossovers and build active, multi-amp solutions -- based, of course, on manufacturer guidelines regarding crossover frequencies and maximum power per driver. I'm sure a speaker like the Alexandria has an excellent passive crossover network that gets in the way of the amplifiers' control of the drivers as little as possible. I'm also sure that, given proper electronic crossover and a separate amp for each driver in the system, "as little as possible" would get quite a bit littler. Would it be audible? I don't know. But the odds that it would be significantly more audible than half of the magic audiophiles hear every day are very, very high.
Tim

I think it’s dead wrong for the reasons I stated above not to mention that Tim couldn’t resist taking another cheap shot at audiophiles. So Tim, if you can’t trust audiophiles to hear the truth, why in the world are you going to trust them to set up electronic crossovers correctly and not ruin the Wilson house sound?
 

Steve Williams

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So similarly is "my"experience with manufacturers who make tube amplifiers and their choice of tubes. IOW who better can voice their amps in the manner in which they intended. My point is in reference to tube rolling and trying to outsmart the manufacturer. For this reason I don't tube roll other than one tube and that's my 12ax7 in which I use the Telefunken ECC803s. I have had long talks with Vladimir about this issue and I know the sound he pursues. So similarly with DW and his use of crossovers
 

andromedaaudio

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I personally dont like speakers that much with no crossover and individual amplifiers , i ve heard meridian and linn , meridian sounded very controlled and a bit lifeless .
If you biamp a speaker with a parallel crossover you dont change the crossoverpoint or shortcircuit the crossover .
If the manufacturer doesnt give the bi amp option ,( which would be no problem for wilson i think to do if they want.) they probably dont believe in it improving the speaker .
If the mtm module crosover is based in the woofer module , one should of course never mess or try to amplify the mtm module connections.
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
If the manufacturer doesnt give the bi amp option ,( which would be no problem for wilson i think to do if they want.) they probably dont believe in it improving the speaker .

in a perfect world this might work however the likelihood that DW or any speaker manufacturer will divulge their crossover points is never going to happen. That's why these passive crossovers are buried in the bowels of the speaker as they are proprietary in nature
 

Phelonious Ponk

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So similarly is "my"experience with manufacturers who make tube amplifiers and their choice of tubes. IOW who better can voice their amps in the manner in which they intended. My point is in reference to tube rolling and trying to outsmart the manufacturer. For this reason I don't tube roll other than one tube and that's my 12ax7 in which I use the Telefunken ECC803s. I have had long talks with Vladimir about this issue and I know the sound he pursues. So similarly with DW and his use of crossovers

You're probably right, Steve. I certainly don't think it would be advisable for Wilson, or anyone, to open that door without very specific instructions regarding where and how to crossover, but the gain in driver control would probably not be worth the loss of control the manufacturer would suffer and the number of people who would not follow instructions and muck the whole thing up. Probably best to leave well enough alone.

Tim
 

Phelonious Ponk

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I personally dont like speakers that much with no crossover and individual amplifiers , i ve heard meridian and linn , meridian sounded very controlled and a bit lifeless .

I can't imagine how good driver control could result in "lifelessness." You may not have liked something about the Meridians or the Linns, but I suspect it was something else.

Tim
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
Surely they would never expose their crossover secrets , but crossoverpoint mid tweeter ????? read the link its from the wilson page its 1,2 khz
half way the page , thats a very low crossover point by the way

http://www.wilsonaudio.com/product_xlf_tweeter.shtml

from the Wilson web site....

In all Wilson loudspeakers, the crossover assemblies themselves are wholly encased in epoxy, which serves two functions. One, it eliminates a possible source of electro-mechanical resonance, and two, it frankly preserves the proprietary nature of some of the technology which makes Wilson Audio crossovers unique in the audio world. Nevertheless, the crossover panels of the new Alexandria are a point of pride, and are now easily accessible and visible through a new removable glass panel.
 

Steve Williams

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I found it interesting in the speakers'specs that the X-2 is 94.5 db efficient whilst the XLF is 93.5 yet it requires a minimum of 7 watts per channel to drive whereas the X-2 Alexandria requires minimum of 15 wpc
 

Steve Williams

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:D cool

Is that the actual crossover that is visible or just the adjustment resistors ??

It's the adjustment resistors. He also provides different resistors for tubes vs SS amps
 

andromedaaudio

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Thats a question for dave :D
Impedance improvement maybe, and /or it has to do something with the improved bassextension but that would be far fetched
I found it interesting in the speakers'specs that the X-2 is 94.5 db efficient whilst the XLF is 93.5 yet it requires a minimum of 7 watts per channel to drive whereas the X-2 Alexandria requires minimum of 15 wpc
 

microstrip

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I found it interesting in the speakers'specs that the X-2 is 94.5 db efficient whilst the XLF is 93.5 yet it requires a minimum of 7 watts per channel to drive whereas the X-2 Alexandria requires minimum of 15 wpc

May be they lowered the impedance of the speaker, pulling more power from an amplifier than the previous version. Or they just found that the X-2's and XLF's are really better served with a minimum of 15W :)

BTW, I found that the impedance curve of the X-2 is one of best kept secrets in audio - never could glimpse a graph of it !
 

Steve Williams

Site Founder, Site Owner, Administrator
May be they lowered the impedance of the speaker, pulling more power from an amplifier than the previous version. Or they just found that the X-2's and XLF's are really better served with a minimum of 15W :)

BTW, I found that the impedance curve of the X-2 is one of best kept secrets in audio - never could glimpse a graph of it !

I'm hoping that Debbi will chime in and give us the answer
 

LL21

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Thats a question for dave :D
Impedance improvement maybe, and /or it has to do something with the improved bassextension but that would be far fetched

ACtually, i am not so sure of that...part of what drives some of us to crank the volume is the sense of fullness, dynamics...i have generally been one of those until the last 6 months when i completely recalibrated the sub and used an Auralex subwoofer isolation platform. It allowed me to turn the volume on the sub to 36 (up from 11)...but be pitch perfect in the room because the isolation platform stopped the absurd floorboard/wall reverb...

...and as a result, i just finished working for the evening, it is just before 2am so dont wish to disturb the neighbors...and the volume level is on 5 (out of 99) and the bass thump is real, very low and growls with enough bass kick you can still feel a soft chest thump/air vibration. I was never able to do that with the X1/Grand Slamms on their own or even with the sub calibrated before...

If the XLF is slightly higher impedance/friendlier and also can drive more deep punch/bass, then you may not need the extra juice and the need to crank the volume and 7 watts may work as well as 15 on the other speaker...its 'only' 3db anyway.
 

JackD201

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as they say, proceed with caution and use with your own risk. He has never split XO and only DW can say if he would do it and I bet no unless he does it across the board on that model rather than to do it custom for an individual. If you think I didn't ask about swapping tweeters you're mistaken as I personally asked DW at CES when he was giving comparing the Alexandria vs XLF

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...ilk-Dome-Tweeter&p=83605&viewfull=1#post83605

You must be thinking about somebody else Steve. Wasn't me :)

Like I said DW could do a split XO blindfolded if he wished, which andromeda is right in saying does not alter the XO points and slopes. So he must have his reasons. In my experience while bi-amping does change the sound it doesn't change the "house sound".

I do agree however with Mark (and DW) that horizontal bi-amping is not a plug and play affair. It's not much different from integrating a pair of powered subs into a system. Those of us who do use subs know how long THAT can take. There really is a danger of doing more harm than good. A lot of experimentation is required with speaker positioning to best smooth out the transition. Not an easy task with 700lb loudspeakers which will require changes in mid and treble module's mechanical time alignment settings for every change in the overall speaker position. I don't think DW ever intended his customers to get lost in set up rather than get lost in the music. While not recommended for the faint of heart, it is doable. In the end I think it is nothing more than a judgement call on DW's part. It can't be argued that the X series are the best selling 6 figure loudspeakers in audio history. Hard to question his judgement.
 

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