A brutal review of the Wilson Maxx

hi,

Live is live, I spend as much time as possible there. Audio reproduction is audio reproduction a distant second IMHO. But to keep trying to find that which is close, that's the fun of the chase, isn't it ?

good listeing

Larry

I have remembered this reviewer from many years ago in the S. Calif. area where I was raised.At the time he was using the top of the line Sound Lab A-1's I beleive with a SOTA Subwoofer which I can't recall,But the sound quality was very accurate and extremely musical in its recreation.
It was obvious he spent a great deal of time matching the ELS's with proper tube gear as well ,and you walked away from his show room Spellbound to say the least.

The difference is sound resulting from the choice of microphone, its radiation pattern and physical placement is several orders of magnitude greater than the difference in sound between a well designed first order crossover/time aligned speaker and an equally well designed higher order/non time aligned speaker. I'm not saying that phase accuracy doesn't add to sonic realism, but that it's drawfed by arbitrary decisions made during the recording process.

Onhwy61,I cannot debate your statement as to recording equipment, etc. I know there are HUGE differences.
However, I would like to add that if you take a fairly close miked (on good equipment) recording of individual or groups of individual instruments, you can readily hear a difference in the final presentation played back on different speakers and/or designs.
I have tried this with sax, clarinet, flute, strings and acoustic guitars. By using the same recording (hence, placing the speakers on equal footing for direct comparison)I have noticed substantial differences in how the speakers in comparison handle harmonic structure and overall accuracy of tone.
Of course, I guess one could argue room effects due to radiational patterns of the speaker, equipment interface or whatever but they're substantial differences in the presentation.
It's amazing how drivers out of phase suddenly sound out of phase.
With the absence of any standard's, I guess one has to go with what they perceive as the most realistic, hence all the designs, etc. That's perfectly ok with me. Free enterprise is a wonderful thing and I for one would never want to hinder it. However, my thoughts do evolve around trying to find the most faithful reproduction based on what meager comparisons I can derive.

I wonder what would be the best way to confirm Onhwy61 and Bigtee's copmelety different view on Microphone selection and placement. Say if you close mike instruments like Bigtee suggests IN a anechoic chamber and play back in two different philosophy systems (time aligned, phase coherent, 1st order cross over designs v/s say wilson's), How would be the comparision then? Or Record with same close mike set up in a properly design hall and play it back again with two different systems in the SAME hall, how would the two systems sound. Or the question is which one would sound more realistic in both options? I would think the former one would sound closer to reality.

I do agree that very good recording using right mikes, right technique (like Mapleshade for example) does make a huge difference ( That is why Mapleshade recordings still sound good in as Mapleshade says in $50 boom box) as but colored system would be still evident if this recording is played back on these two systems.