Does Wilson Audio Know What They AreDoing?

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#61
SY said:


Only if the drivers are flat to several octaves past their crossover points. They rarely are, hence speakers with first order electrical crossover rarely show an acoustic first order crossover.
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Ayup. I think Thiel is one of the rare designers using first-order electrical and acoustic crossovers. Of course, his speakers are simply *stuffed* with parts.


Francois.
 
#62
Sorry Bratislav, I should have made it more clear about whom I was referring to with the selling bit. I am referring to the orion web site. I need more then an individuals own web page to convince me of the merrits of a speaker, especialy when he is trying to make money from it.

Someone stated that some companies have great results from using an 8 inch for the mids. I would like to know which company is manufacturing a three way speaker using an 8 inch mid other then pro audio systems.

This is a quote from the Orion site.
And there is an aspect to the ORION that might be of particular benefit to apartment or condominium dwellers who are concerned about disturbing their neighbors by transmitting large amounts of low frequency sound and vibration through the walls. Thanks again to the dipole radiation characteristic, if you listen from the sweet spot at your customary volume level, then compared to a box speaker at the same volume level, your neighbor will receive 5 dB less and hear the bass only half as loud, if at all.
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Could someone explain this quote to me. How is it that the spl in a room will be 5 db down. Those walls must be increadibly large to stop a wavelength produced by the Peerless subs. All I ask is that you give me scientific evidence, not it must be true Linkwitz said it, or it's magic.

I am going to Calgary on business soon and I will contact one of the people from his web page and try to get a listen. If he agrees I will give you my honest opinion when I get back.
 
#63
Re Evidence:

I have heard both models (I liked the smaller one better) and they are indeed good speakers, but I have heard better ones as well so far. But I could definitely live with a pair of them.

1st order acoustic crossovers:

I know that Thiels are amongst the better ones regarding temporal accuracy. But I doubt that it is possible to have first-order acoustic slopes (the maths tell me this). I think they use some kind of gradual rolloff and some EQ-ing.

Active analog-computing or DSP solutions definitely have some advantage when it comes to temporal accuracy.

Regards

Charles
 
#64
B4 said:
I define inferior as anyone who does what Wilson does, I'm sure he is not the only one doing this. If the recording company and the musician go through the trouble to set levels of each instrument at different frequencies to get musicality, I expect to listen to a speaker that will reproduce this. Any speaker like the Wilsons that charges $20k plus and can't give you that is a joke. Maybe his cabinets or his baffle techniques are not as good as we have been led to believe. It is curious that I saw so many flat response speakers using just wood. Is Wilson just using inferior components (as it appears) or are they doing it intentionally.

I am fascinated to find out why anyone claiming to be a designer and be so successful could produce such a piece of junk.
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From what i understand, the vast majority of Wilsons are bought by studios - a large enough number that everyone in here most likely owns albums or movies mastered on Wilsons.

I'm not a Wilson apologist - his secrecy of materials and crossovers, i believe, is marketing hype. But i do believe that he's an extremely talented engineer. Listening to Wilsons and studying them has taught me a lot.

Here's a speaker very highly regarded by music professionals (who listen to them daily to earn their bread - not on their sofa with a glass of wine and a purdy lady) that does not pass a square wave and is not perfect in terms of on or off axis response (there's a reason they come to your home and set them up - they're very picky about placement).

That makes me think that Wilson is not all hype - but that the usual yardsticks of amplitude and time (not that people generally attempt time alignment) and not the complete picture. Someone mentioned dynamics before - I haven't auditioned every high end speaker out there, but the dynamics on the Watt/Puppy are incredible. I've heard them track a well recorded orchestra from forte to piano in an instant. It was loud, yes, and quiet, yes - and the decay was very convincing. Convincing enough that whenever i think about Wilsons i think about that moment.

How do we achieve realistic decay? Low amounts of stored energy is the place to start - is that why all the secrecy about materials and components?

What about dynamics? I've heard single driver (time perfect of course) speakers that had incredible amounts of midrange detail -sweet, musical - but everything was compressed. Where are the dynamics? It takes a whole lot of driver to handle a powerful transient - or something as complex as an orchestra swelling - w/o distorting or compressing. (I'm sure many would say that single driver speakers are the best for dynamics - that's just my limited experience.)

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I don't think Wilson makes the best speakers in the world - i'm not sure you could say that about anyone - but he certainly does makes some of the best speakers in the world. I agree with people who say they're overly analytical - but still i know when i sit down in front of a pair i'm going to have an excellent musical experience.

Peace.
 
#65
phase_accurate said:
Active analog-computing or DSP solutions definitely have some advantage when it comes to temporal accuracy.

Regards

Charles
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As with all things, DSP is useful so long as one applies it wisely. Just because you can specify an arbitrarily small transition band in a digital filter doesn't mean it's a good idea. Sure, you can be out of one driver and into the next within a quarter octave, but you'll pay the price in off-axis ringing even though the filters might sum up perfectly on axis (and that's only if the drivers are identical). A reasonably short FIR can hit maximum attenuation about a half-octave away, so it's not as if you're taking a real hit by relaxing the specification.


Cheers,
Francois.
 
#66
As with all things, DSP is useful so long as one applies it wisely.
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This accounts for about everything in engineering I think !!
Well balanced engineering always has its merits over deigns that take just one detail to the extreme.

The analog path to transient perfection would be the use of subtractive crossovers (i.e. analog computing). Their advantage over DSP is that they are real-time, don't have the HF restrictions of DSP and that they can be built quite cheaply. But they can never achieve the same slopes like even a very relaxed FIR - and their FR has humps that eat up power and driver excursion. The steeper you make them the more overlap you get - accompanied by higher humps.
Asymmetric 1st/2nd, 1st/3rd and symmetric 2nd/2nd are about the highest orders of subtractive crossovers that make sense.

So you have to pick your poison.

Regards

Charles
 
#68
From what i understand, the vast majority of Wilsons are bought by studios - a large enough number that everyone in here most likely owns albums or movies mastered on Wilsons.
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Being used in a studio means little. I can remember when the little Yamaha NS-10 was alsmost the standard in studios. Many rather dismal disks are still the legacy of those studio 'standards'. I'm not convinced that the Wilsons are used by very many studios. Of all the studios I have serviced, I have never seen a pair being used. This is on the west coast, however. Different parts of the country may be quite different.
 
#69
newfinish, some years ago I heard the Maxx in a high end store in Vancouver. I can unequivocaly say that it was one of the worst sounding speakers I have heard at any price. The store kept them for a short time never to re-appear, I think I know why.
 
#70
B4 said:
Sorry Bratislav, I should have made it more clear about whom I was referring to with the selling bit. I am referring to the orion web site. I need more then an individuals own web page to convince me of the merrits of a speaker, especialy when he is trying to make money from it.

Someone stated that some companies have great results from using an 8 inch for the mids. I would like to know which company is manufacturing a three way speaker using an 8 inch mid other then pro audio systems.

This is a quote from the Orion site.


Could someone explain this quote to me. How is it that the spl in a room will be 5 db down. Those walls must be increadibly large to stop a wavelength produced by the Peerless subs. All I ask is that you give me scientific evidence, not it must be true Linkwitz said it, or it's magic.

I am going to Calgary on business soon and I will contact one of the people from his web page and try to get a listen. If he agrees I will give you my honest opinion when I get back.
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Dipole radiation simply decreases the overall power response; the intensity of the sound produced follows the cosine of the angle off-axis. At 90 degrees of axis - the sides of the sub - there is no sound at all, compared to (approximately) the full amount of sound radiating from a monopole.
 
#71
B4, did you hear them at Sound Plus?

I remember my shock at how bad they sounded when I heard them and this was with the Audio Research mega amplifiers and many hours of tweaking the 'speaker set up.

Head ache inducing is the best way I can describe the Wilson sound.



T.D.
 
#74
Thanks 454Casull,

I didn't know he was talking about a 90 degree response. So I guess the neighbor best put his bed 90 degrees of the orion baffle, or lose some sleep.


your neighbor will receive 5 dB less and hear the bass only half as loud, if at all.
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I find this hard to believe, never the less it's not a compelling statement to make by him.
 
#75
B4 said:
Thanks 454Casull,

I didn't know he was talking about a 90 degree response. So I guess the neighbor best put his bed 90 degrees of the orion baffle, or lose some sleep.



I find this hard to believe, never the less it's not a compelling statement to make by him.
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I suggest you spend a bit more time on his site and think about the theory behind his comment. This is how the math on dipole radiation falls out.

Because you do not understand this is not an acceptable reason to make somewhat derogatory, ignorant comments. And enough of the "spoon feed me the answer." attitude.
 
#77
better ....?

phase_accurate said:
Re Evidence:

I have heard both models (I liked the smaller one better) and they are indeed good speakers, but I have heard better ones as well so far.
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Charles,

I know speakers are highly subjective item, especially specimens in this price range (how can one compare say Pipedreams and Utopia Be and decide which one is "better"?), but I'd really like to know what would you considered 'better ones' ?
I have heard speakers thet did some things better than Evidences (stacks of ESL 57 for example have still unmached midrange as far as I'm concerned), but none that I would consider better overall.

Bratislav
 
#78
B4 said:
Sorry Bratislav, I should have made it more clear about whom I was referring to with the selling bit. I am referring to the orion web site. I need more then an individuals own web page to convince me of the merrits of a speaker, especialy when he is trying to make money from it.
Click to expand...

Are you for real ? "Trying to make money from it !!!???"
Have you checked how much were pair of Beethoven Grands (Linkwitz's commercial offer, widely heralded as grounbreaking design and speaker of the year even for magazines like $tereophile) ?
Linkwitz is charging measly 300 bucks for plans for Orion that include test CDs, two PCBs for active crossovers at many more items. That is ridiculously cheap. How much money do you think he's making from these ?

As far as individual's own web page, Orions are not commercial item, so you won't see many reviews. Still, Glenn Strauss from Sensible Sound thought they are the finest speakers he has ever heard, and Peter Azcell from Sensible Sound agrees. Both praises from magazines that don't get one advertizing cent from Linkwitz.
Bit let me not waste your valuable time anymore (and mine) : listen to Orions if you can, with open mind.
From what I've seen it looks like you've made your mind already.
Too bad.
 
#79
I even heard the rockport at 150000$ a paire and still didn't convince me to fork the money with brinks to get them.
they use audiotechnology and dynaudio esotar tweeter.they were dynamic,detailed,awsome look,but no stage,image,or feel of harmonics,just loud.all this was controled with VTL electronics,tube amp 200 watts mono blocks,pre amp etc...
I feel that the new electronics of today are just detailed but no warmth.
 
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