Wilson Audio Chronosonic XVX First Impressions

I just spent over six hours today listening to my friend's new Wilson Audio Chronosonic XVX loudspeakers. Consistent with being blown away by the Master Chronosonic + Master Subsonic system at Maier Shadi's demo in Santa Monica, and consistent with a couple of reports by people who auditioned at Maier's both the Master Chronosonic and later the XVX and preferred the XVX, I am here to report officially that I think the XVX is now my favorite conventional cone driver speaker system. I think I prefer the XVX even to my longtime favorite dynamic driver loudspeaker, the mighty Rockport Arrakis.

Prior to the XVX, my friend had the Alexx. The height alone of the XVX over the Alexx affords the system the height and scale and grandeur I always notice and appreciate from very tall loudspeakers.

I don't know why the XVX is an order of magnitude better -- next level better -- than the Alexx. But I am certain that it is.

I think the XVX is the first dynamic driver speaker of which I was very aware that you can hear seemingly almost everything at fairly low listening volumes. It doesn't need to be played loudly to be heard comfortably.

In much the same way that people like to applaud their digital playback systems by saying "it sounds like analog," dynamic driver loudspeaker aficionados like to say their cone speakers have "electrostatic-like transparency." Believe me, if most dynamic driver speakers had "electrostatic-like transparency" we would not need electrostatic speakers.

As somebody who loves electrostatic speakers I have always been aware that speakers of other topologies are one or two steps less transparent than electrostatic speakers. I feel like the XVX truly has "electrostatic-like transparency" -- at least credibly so, and more so than any other cone speaker I've ever heard.

Just like I felt about the Master Chronosonic the XVX gives one the sense of unlimited dynamic capability. There is a limitlessness and an effortlessness to the sound that I do not hear from other box speakers. Other heroically inert box speakers sound tightly wrapped or button-downed by comparison -- like some portion of the sound is trapped in the box and having trouble freeing itself. The XVX sounds open somehow -- a sonic presentation I associate with planar speakers, not with big box speakers.

I know, I know, I know. I am thinking and saying the same things you are: these are meaningless statements as you can't compare loudspeakers in different systems from fault-prone memory; you will never be able to hear an XVX versus a Rockport Arrakis, or an XVX versus a VSA Ultra 11, in the same room with the same associated components at the same time, etc., etc. I know, and I agree with you.

All I am saying is that if you put a gun to my head and told me I had to buy a dynamic driver loudspeaker system for my personal system and cost was not a factor. . . I would say take the gun away from my head. Then I would tell you I will order XVX + Master Subsonics.

Without intending to be coy, I couch this is terms of "the XVX is the box speaker I would I buy if I had to buy a box speaker for myself" rather than "the XVX is the best box speaker I've ever heard," because I cannot hear the Von Schweikert Audio Ultra 11 and the Evolution Acoustics MM7 and the Rockport Arrakis and the YG XV in the same room in the same system as the XVX + Subsonics. So it just does not make any sense to declare, and it is analytically defective to declare, that the XVX is the best speaker I have ever heard.

My view that if I had to buy a box speaker I would buy the XVX + Subsonics is a combination of what I heard from the XVX, what I vaguely remember from hearing these other other speakers in other systems, and my slight prejudice against ceramic drivers which I would be worried I might find uncomfortable over a long period of time. (I would worry the same about beryllium drivers and about diamond encrusted drivers.)

I have owned only planar loudspeakers my entire life. I literally couldn't bear to listen to Wilson Audio speakers with metal dome tweeters. I have never been a big fan of Wilson Audio speakers in general. But I thought I heard magic from Maier's demo of the Master Chronosonic, and my experience today proves that that inkling was correct.

I don't know how or what Daryl Wilson did to achieve it, but I am reporting that to my ears the XVX is a very, very special speaker. It is a stunning achievement in dynamic driver loudspeaker design specifically, and in loudspeaker design in general.

PS: Assuming they physically fit in Michael Fremer's listening room, I have no doubt that Michael will upgrade his Alexx to XVX. He might go in not wanting to upgrade, but after hearing these there is no way he's going to be happy without the XVX.

 

i own efficient large speakers (97db, 7 ohm load) that only have to power down to 35hz as the active bass towers handle the lowest octave. when i tried a set of 32 watt SET's (well respected) they did sound very good, but i found that my solid state amps were overall better for my personal priorities. later i got different solid state amps that even got closer to the best attributes of the SET, while bettering those earlier solid state amps. this was to my ears in my room and system.

my solid state choice(s) ticked all my boxes and made all the music more real to me. with excellent nuance and delicacy. others might have made a different choice.

my point is just that there is more than one way to find success, and it really comes down to preferences. i could have valued some things that the SET's did slightly better, to the degree that my mind was not open to the solid state alternative. no right or wrong to it. telling people something won't work, or they are not happy, is.....i agree.....silly.

 

Interesting. I do like the big Wilsons with subs. We just had our XLFs calibrated to the new Robert Kodas (originally setup with Gryphon), and they are now flat to 25hz and -5db at 20hz...but the sub helped in that regard playing below 38hz or so in parallel with the XLFs.

Interestingly, we had the X1s (95db efficient, 6-7ohms overall) and the XLF is 93.5db (4ohms overall)...isnt the XVX around 92db 4ohms overall so [in theory] around 3db less efficient?

I like XLF very much and I had Wilson Alexandria X1 Series 1 in my home ,
Wilson Alexandria X1 series 1 is 95db and the impedance curve average around 4-6 ohm.
New big Wilsons sensitivity is around 91db and the impedance curve average around 2-4 ohm .
4db less efficient plus 3db (half impedance) total 7db less efficient , numbers are not 100% accurate but are close

 

i own efficient large speakers (97db, 7 ohm load) that only have to power down to 35hz as the active bass towers handle the lowest octave. when i tried a set of 32 watt SET's (well respected) they did sound very good, but i found that my solid state amps were overall better for my personal priorities. later i got different solid state amps that even got closer to the best attributes of the SET, while bettering those earlier solid state amps. this was to my ears in my room and system.

my solid state choice(s) ticked all my boxes and made all the music more real to me. with excellent nuance and delicacy. others might have made a different choice.

my point is just that there is more than one way to find success, and it really comes down to preferences. i could have valued some things that the SET's did slightly better, to the degree that my mind was not open to the solid state alternative. no right or wrong to it. telling people something won't work, or they are not happy, is.....i agree.....silly.

Very interesting...you did actually trial the mighty ML3, I remember that.

 

I like XLF very much and I had Wilson Alexandria X1 Series 1 in my home ,
Wilson Alexandria X1 series 1 is 95db and the impedance curve average around 4-6 ohm.
New big Wilsons sensitivity is around 91db and the impedance curve average around 2-4 ohm .
4db less efficient plus 3db (half impedance) total 7db less efficient , numbers are not 100% accurate but are close

Helpful insight...thank you. Will bear that in mind if we ever [gulp] decide to consider the XVXs which are an even tougher load and lower efficiency than the XLFs let alone the X1 Series 1 which we also had in our home prior to the XLFs.

 

XVX is 90+ dB efficient but presents punishing impedance load so needs high current delivering amps. I drive mine with darTzeel NHB 468s. I visited Dave Wilson numerous times and never saw VTL 450s there. He had Siegfrieds but mostly used D’Agostino amps. Whoever wrote that WAMM owners are unhappy is silly.

Sorry, you are right , wilson used Siegfrieds (Tetrode: 650W, Triode: 330W) not VTL450.

I have listened to D'Agostino/wilson but it was not good. I think overally Wilson likes tubes more than Solidstate. the best Solidstate amplifier for my Alexandria was Vitus SIA-025 when the AC quality was good.

I am not sure but maybe Dave Wilson used dagostino for sub not main Speaker , if you remember one of best Sound in show 2013 was Wilson/VTL + Sub/Parasound.
250w Parasound solidstate amplifier for subwoofer under 38hz.

 

i own efficient large speakers (97db, 7 ohm load) that only have to power down to 35hz as the active bass towers handle the lowest octave. when i tried a set of 32 watt SET's (well respected) they did sound very good, but i found that my solid state amps were overall better for my personal priorities. later i got different solid state amps that even got closer to the best attributes of the SET, while bettering those earlier solid state amps. this was to my ears in my room and system.

my solid state choice(s) ticked all my boxes and made all the music more real to me. with excellent nuance and delicacy. others might have made a different choice.

my point is just that there is more than one way to find success, and it really comes down to preferences. i could have valued some things that the SET's did slightly better, to the degree that my mind was not open to the solid state alternative. no right or wrong to it. telling people something won't work, or they are not happy, is.....i agree.....silly.

There is nothing “slightly” different from a top SET and darTZeel amplifiers…even MF admitted this many moons ago in his ML3 review.

 

There is nothing “slightly” different from a top SET and darTZeel amplifiers…even MF admitted this many moons ago in his ML3 review.

'slightly' is your term. not what i said. the presentations are different, for sure. but the newer model darts (468) capture much of the SET magic in their own minimalist ss way.

 

Best to simply say “not my cup of tea“. That seems to not cause much offense and be the popular phrase this year.

I’m not sure why one would criticize someone else for simply reporting what people told him as “silly”. Is mentioning it in public what is silly, or are people actually questioning the report?

 

Very interesting...you did actually trial the mighty ML3, I remember that.

Mike had them when I visited. I consider myself very lucky to have been able to compare directly Lamm ML3 versus VAC 450 mono versus darTZeel 458 with Mike during that visit.

Mike preferred darTZeel 458, and I preferred VAC 450. But I came away with enormous respect for darTZeel 458. If I had to select a high power solid-state amplifier today, that would be my choice (or 468).

 

Helpful insight...thank you. Will bear that in mind if we ever [gulp] decide to consider the XVXs which are an even tougher load and lower efficiency than the XLFs let alone the X1 Series 1 which we also had in our home prior to the XLFs.

I was hoping you were going to order XVXs if you heard from them during your audition what I heard from them!

 

I am not sure but maybe Dave Wilson used dagostino for sub not main Speaker , if you remember one of best Sound in show 2013 was Wilson/VTL + Sub/Parasound.
250w Parasound solidstate amplifier for subwoofer under 38hz.

I think Wilson Audio uses only the JC1s for the subwoofers.

 

I was hoping you were going to order XVXs if you heard from them during your audition what I heard from them!

Yes, I could definitely sense that from our discussions and also from your own listening notes on them which I have enjoyed reading a few times. I definitely liked what I heard...that is without doubt. And what I heard had a deftness and image density/weight I found captivating in the mids...I did immediately suspect there were many reasons (one of them being perhaps the additional surface area of cones towards midrange) relating to Darryl's own sense of nuanced voicing which has won over many hearts in the last few years.

 

Mike had them when I visited. I consider myself very lucky to have been able to compare directly Lamm ML3 versus VAC 450 mono versus darTZeel 458 with Mike during that visit.

Mike preferred darTZeel 458, and I preferred VAC 450. But I came away with enormous respect for darTZeel 458. If I had to select a high power solid-state amplifier today, that would be my choice (or 468).

Good to know!

 

long term listening is a bit different to short listening sessions (for judging) and in my experience we can not get perfect sound from big full range driver loudspeakers (even very high sensitivity like 95db Alexandria) with low power tubes like Lamm ML3.
Forget what magazines say about matching of ML3 / Big Wilsons , those are only advertisement not real solutions.

Weak Timing/pace will bother our brain in long term when the power is not enough. even if we hear sweet emotional sound from Lamm ML3 (with Alexandria or any other full range driver) it does not mean the sound is perfect.
In my idea at highest level of high End we should not trade off dynamics/pace/timing for sweetness. If you pay for expensive big speakers then you should get perfect sound not weak result in dynamics.

If your big fullrange driver loudspeaker likes solidstate power then for highest performance I recommend emotional Solidstate Amplifiers like Vitus / Dartzeel / CH Precision M10 and ...

I always said low power tubes like Kondo / Lamm ML3 / Audiopax are good for horns like Living Voice Vox Olympian .
Using two Kondo 300b (bi-amp) or two Lamm ML3 (bi-amp) for main unit of living voice and using solidstate for subwoofer (under 60hz) is good idea.

 

long term listening is a bit different to short listening sessions (for judging) and in my experience we can not get perfect sound from big full range driver loudspeakers (even very high sensitivity like 95db Alexandria) with low power tubes like Lamm ML3.
Forget what magazines say about matching of ML3 / Big Wilsons , those are only advertisement not real solutions.

Weak Timing/pace will bother our brain in long term when the power is not enough. even if we hear sweet emotional sound from Lamm ML3 (with Alexandria or any other full range driver) it does not mean the sound is perfect.
In my idea at highest level of high End we should not trade off dynamics/pace/timing for sweetness. If you pay for expensive big speakers then you should get perfect sound not weak result in dynamics.

If your big fullrange driver loudspeaker likes solidstate power then for highest performance I recommend emotional Solidstate Amplifiers like Vitus / Dartzeel / CH Precision M10 and ...

I always said low power tubes like Kondo / Lamm ML3 / Audiopax are good for horns like Living Voice Vox Olympian .
Using two Kondo 300b (bi-amp) or two Lamm ML3 (bi-amp) for main unit of living voice and using solidstate for subwoofer (under 60hz) is good idea.

at one point i had my ML3's hooked up for two weeks straight. within it's design envelope it could bogie just fine. fantastic bass with the assist from my active bass towers. my room is large, so yes, i could drive it to a point where there was no more getty-up left. it could not scale anywhere close to my darts or the big VAC's. and the ML3's did not light up the far reaches of the soundstage like my darts.

i guess what i'm saying is that it is not a binary question, when running a modestly powered SET on a large dynamic speaker. they can work. but there are trade-offs. i might choose the ML3's for my system over many nice higher powered amps not named darTZeel.

 

You need this amp 400 watt class a at 0.5ohm the crowbar for reluctant speakers

 

at one point i had my ML3's hooked up for two weeks straight. within it's design envelope it could bogie just fine. fantastic bass with the assist from my active bass towers. my room is large, so yes, i could drive it to a point where there was no more getty-up left. it could not scale anywhere close to my darts or the big VAC's. and the ML3's did not light up the far reaches of the soundstage like my darts.

i guess what i'm saying is that it is not a binary question, when running a modestly powered SET on a large dynamic speaker. they can work. but there are trade-offs. i might choose the ML3's for my system over many nice higher powered amps not named darTZeel.

I understand your observations and they make sense. I’ve listen to the ML3s in one system for about 10 days. The room is huge. The speakers are 115 DB. There were none of the trade-offs or limitations that you describe in your particular system. It’s the best system I have heard and the most realistic sounding. In fact I would be very curious to know what it sounds like with the less powerful 18 watt ML2.

It all goes back to finding an appropriate match between amplifier speaker in room. The interesting aspect of all this is whether or not a particular speaker room choice restricts one in amplifier choices.

 

i own efficient large speakers (97db, 7 ohm load) that only have to power down to 35hz as the active bass towers handle the lowest octave. when i tried a set of 32 watt SET's (well respected) they did sound very good, but i found that my solid state amps were overall better for my personal priorities. later i got different solid state amps that even got closer to the best attributes of the SET, while bettering those earlier solid state amps. this was to my ears in my room and system.

my solid state choice(s) ticked all my boxes and made all the music more real to me. with excellent nuance and delicacy. others might have made a different choice.

my point is just that there is more than one way to find success, and it really comes down to preferences. i could have valued some things that the SET's did slightly better, to the degree that my mind was not open to the solid state alternative. no right or wrong to it. telling people something won't work, or they are not happy, is.....i agree.....silly.

There again, with all do respect ML, your problem was not the ML3s, it was your selection of preamplifier…your preamplifier selection simply strangled the Lammies…

vbw,
a

 

You need this amp 400 watt class a at 0.5ohm the crowbar for reluctant speakersView attachment 99330

Interesting! Question...not being a techie, I had always understood that max power to Class A output was usually around 4x-5x. So 650 watts max consumption would be around 150 watts or so Class A into 8ohms. And doubling into lower impedance does happen in Class A...but usually it is the opposite. Even as total output doubles into lower impedance, Class A output typically HALVES as it goes down into lower impedance. Again, no techie here, but that was always my understanding?

Would this amp really be able to keep driving to 400 watts pure Class A into 0.5 ohms? Wow...btw, which amp is this?

In the case of the Robert Kodas, there is a high bias switch so you can take it from standard 150 watts Class A into 8ohms into 230 Watts pure Class A into 4 ohms (the setting we use as advised by Robert Koda)...but that is because the High Bias switch is turned on. Even the Gryphon Mephisto I thought was 175 watts pure Class A into 8ohms and might maintain that into 4ohms, but did not think its Class A power output would continue to double (only its total output which does indeed continue to double all the way down to 2800 watts into 0.5 ohms and apparently burst of some 4,000 - 5000 watts at peaks). Again, no techie...thanks for any insight.

 

I understand your observations and they make sense. I’ve listen to the ML3s in one system for about 10 days. The room is huge. The speakers are 115 DB. There were none of the trade-offs or limitations that you describe in your particular system. It’s the best system I have heard and the most realistic sounding. In fact I would be very curious to know what it sounds like with the less powerful 18 watt ML2.

It all goes back to finding an appropriate match between amplifier speaker in room. The interesting aspect of all this is whether or not a particular speaker room choice restricts one in amplifier choices.

Now imagine that speaker with big SS amps…
It is not all personal taste…some systems simply sound more real than others.

All Hifi roads do not lead to Rome…even in this highly subjective hobby…