Wilson Speakers & Reviewers

I too have the Max 2's and they were a real PITA to set up. Lucky for me I knew the hassle expected, as I have had WP's before(and still do), and knew what I was getting into in regards to placement. My experience with Wilsons is that for them to sound their best, placement is CRITICAL. I spent a lot of time with the Maxx's to optimize placement, and due to the weight of them (as opposed to the WP's) on a carpeted floor, it was a difficult task. That being said, once I found the "sweet spot" for them, I am very happy.

Agree that set up is critical for these speakers, but didn't think it was a huge deal to do despite the fact that dealers take courses and charge you to come out and expertly set them up.

The manual that comes with the speakers is well written and detailed on the matter of set up and if you have a friend with a laser level/range finder as I did, there is no big problem getting the angle of the head unit correct as well as the distance to the listener's head within a centimeter or so.

At something like 450 lbs. per speaker, believe me, they don't move around once they are set up!

I haven't heard a lot of speakers that better them but would love the opportunity to listen to them on the same system using a couple of speakers I have heard that are very, very good, including the Magico S5 and the Vandersteen 7.

keithahughes: I don’t buy on opinion, I just don’t want to be odd-man out....

As someone who used to defend Wilson, I was getting knocked-down in forums. So I went on a search and came to the same conclusion as ’gpgr4blu’ above. Compared to other brands, Wilson’s freq. response was not accurate and tonal balance out of whack.

(2) others above -’mzkmxcv’ and ’tutetibiimperes’ echo these thoughts.

It seems people who like Wilson are simply not aware of other brands -like Emerald Physics, Spatial or PureAudioProject horns. Or Tekton. Or Devore O-series, or, or , or....

@jonnie22 - " ...I just don’t want to be odd-man out...." this is what I was referring to.  Unless you are afraid to accept your *own preferences* as valid on their own, why on Earth would you care about being "odd-man out"?

Did you miss my acknowledgment that Wilson has a "house sound"?  No speakers have a *flat* frequency response - none - and each has a particular sound based on the trade-offs each make, and their priorities. 

"It seems people who like Wilson are simply not aware of other brands -like Emerald Physics, Spatial or PureAudioProject horns. Or Tekton. Or Devore O-series, or, or , or.... "  yet another attempt to dismiss other's ***PREFERENCES***  as merely ignorance. Why are you so afraid to accept that some people like Wilsons *because* they sound as they do?  Why the need to denigrate others as ignorant rubes?  Were you bitten by a Watt/Puppy as a small child?

Yes, I was bitten, as a WP-6 owner. And as I remember (the 90s and 2000s), the back pages of Stereophile were LOADED with people selling their Wilson’s.

I reported what I heard -in line with others here, but you refuse to acknowledge that.

Yes, other opinions matter, just to make sure I’m not hearing things. With so many variables in our systems, it's the right thing to do.

@jonnie22 - I don't take any issue with you reporting what you heard, just with reporting what you *assume*, yet cannot possibly *know*, i.e. that "... people who like Wilson are simply not aware of other brands...".   Such statements simply demean people who have, indeed, heard many, many brands, and still prefer their Wilsons.  You don't like them, fine, no problem, many don't.

We'll just have to agree to disagree on the subject of making one's own sonic preferences contingent upon other's opinions.  I'm afraid the concept of "making sure i'm not hearing things" doesn't make sense to me in this context.  I hear what I hear, that's what is real to me.  I can't perceive what *you* or anyone else perceives, in the way you perceive it, but even should my preferred sound drive the audiophile masses screaming from my listening room in horror, it would have no affect on my perceptions, and certainly wouldn't make my perceptions *wrong*.  In the context of personal enjoyment, perceptions cannot be wrong, by definition.  To me, that's the right thing to do.

YMMV