Wilson Alexia

Cyril,

What a coinkidink!! Jeff, E, and I will be auditioning the Alexia this Saturday also.. It will be paired up with AR Ref150, we will report back..:D

Dewey...let us know what you think. I will do the same. Thx
 
Cyril,

Have fun and please keep me in mind. Since I already have the "required" D'Agostino gear, I'm interested in your opinion. I am considering Alexia for another room. A room with enough space to do them justice. I have a few other speakers in mind but the Alexia are certainly on the "short" list.

Will do Joe.
 
Ah ha! In dealing with my own room issues it just occurred to me that the reason I thought there may have been a problem with the Alexia's I heard at The SHOW may have been due to room acoustics and not something wrong with the speakers themselves. No wonder so many speakers sounded lack luster to me there. I bet if the rooms were better that instead of walking away thinking that my speakers bested everything there was there, that it would be much more of a mix with some being bested by my speakers and some being on par and some besting the snot out of my speakers in all ranges. I did hear a couple of astonishingly nice bookshelves though. I'm guessing that obviously the rooms were better for bookshelf speakers rather than full range towers. Those rooms at the hotels were fairly bad acoustically, but still better then the room I'm dealing with. Underneath all the nasty anomalies I was hearing, I could still tell that the Wilson Alexias have excellent staging. I could also tell by design that they are not meant to be put in the average room of a home. The room has to be made to specifically fit them in order to get good performance from them.
 
Spending time and a little money on a room, can pay larger dividends than a single component change. The key (I have found) is not to over do it. You can make a room too "dead" sounding. It's a delicate balance. Start with a few pieces and then gradually make some additions. The big bang theory of room acoustics (going crazy with panels) rarely works.
 
Spending time and a little money on a room, can pay larger dividends than a single component change. The key (I have found) is not to over do it. You can make a room too "dead" sounding. It's a delicate balance. Start with a few pieces and then gradually make some additions. The big bang theory of room acoustics (going crazy with panels) rarely works.

Unless I had tens of thousands of dollars to spend on panels there is no way I could make the room I'm dealing with dead. You are totally right though. I'm doing some experiments to see what I may need. Fortunately, I have found some panels that are reasonably priced and even though the room is a wild echo chamber, I don't think I will need much, maybe 2 to 4 panels to accomplish my goal. I'm not after perfect, just calming down the room. I live in an apartment and they are real skiddish about putting anything on the walls. I can get away with using those removable things 3M has and perhaps small nails (not too many) if I am really good with drywall putty afterwards, but that's about as far as it goes. Things like toggle bolts and such are out, aka: lease cancellers. Fortunately, I also found some stands for panels. While I find the stands a bit on the pricey side for what they are, it beats eviction. I don't like music played loud personally so they have no problem with me having my gear. I've been there a year and have had not one problem even when I use my VPI RCM which is louder than what I play my systems at. (Of course, I only use the VPI RCM on weekends during the day, but it still echos because of the room).
 
Cyril,

What a coinkidink!! Jeff, E, and I will be auditioning the Alexia this Saturday also.. It will be paired up with AR Ref150, we will report back..:D

You're stickin' with the 1960's fridges, eh? :p

Also trying to find a place that has some Focal Utopias laying around to fire up... not an easy task.
 
You're stickin' with the 1960's fridges, eh? :p

Also trying to find a place that has some Focal Utopias laying around to fire up... not an easy task.

Check with Carl at Apex Audio in Denver. He usually has something in the Utopia line set-up.
 
I would say something, yet I think my thoughts might be a little biased. For some reason I tend to prefer Wilson Audio over all others.... ;)

That's a great start Debby. Can you tell us more :scholar: I really liked the Alexia when I heard them.
 
I would say something, yet I think my thoughts might be a little biased. For some reason I tend to prefer Wilson Audio over all others.... ;)

Nah, ya think? Why would you think that?......oh yeah, look at that.:lol: LOL! I wish I could have heard them in a better room. I feel I was missing something hearing them at The SHOW. I was catching their staging ability, but not much else due to the room acoustics I believe. I couldn't afford them anyway even if someone gave them to me, plus I don't have the space for them and I don't play music loud anyway. I'm more than happy with my Paradigms and even they look at me saying, "is this all you got"? ~Eric
 
Check with Carl at Apex Audio in Denver. He usually has something in the Utopia line set-up.

I found a spot with the Scala's... we're going to check them out (they have some Kharma stuff at the Focal place, too).
 
This week I got an opportunity to audition Vienna Acoustic The Music series (the dealer made a very attractive offer) and Raidho D.1 The D.2 should be in about 2weeks. It will take some time for me to get back there but before I buy that is one speaker I will have to hear before I jump.
The Vienna Acoustic sounded very good and it does have the mid range speaker which is adjustable from the main body of the speaker (like the Alexia) which I think is a good thing. At that price point I personally would choose Dynaudio C4.
Yesterday I got back back to my Wilson dealer. I wanted to recall my memories of the Alexia's. Hadn't heard them for almost two months. the dealer had just hooked up an new Ayre amp 180watts a side. They were playing at reasonably quiet level. A level that you could easily have a conversation and not feel like you are competing with the sound system.
The sound was clear and crisp. I was impressed the first time I heard them, I was impressed again but differently. These speakers are going to be very hard to beat.
The fun is in trying. What a great ride.

I am primarily a HT guy my two channel listening is done via headphones and I'm pretty much done with tubes I'm back to SS.
 
We will give you our truthful no BS assessment :D

Dewey...any thoughts you want to share on the Alexias paired up with the ARC Ref 150s? Here are my thoughts on the D'Ag and Alexia combo which I posted in the other thread on the the demo at Fidelis in case you did not see them:

Well folks, I just got back from this demo and I can see what all the fuss is about. The caveats are that I was not sitting in the sweet spot and the room was a bit small for the Alexias (I believe) but the D'Agostino stereo amp and preamp with a Bricasti front end and Transparent cabling all terminating in the Alexias was quite a combo. There were 20 people or so smushed in a small room so that and not being in the sweet spot prevented me from being emotionally engaged with the music. Plus it was Peter McGrath of Wilson playing samples of his excellent recordings but pieces of music not familiar to me that also kept me from being really swept away. But here's what I heard and it was all very impressive:

1. Crystal clear/transparent midrange. Resolution on these babies was out of bounds
2. Pristine and extended highs (in contrast to earlier Wilsons which were a bit peaky for my taste, the soft dome tweeters on the Alexias were just right)
3. Bass was extended and punchy. I think there was a bit too much bass-room interaction because I think on bass heavy music, the bass was not as tight as I would have expected and maybe a tad blurring of resolution as a result
4. When you add all of the above, musical timbres were spot on (vocals, piano, horns, percussion, etc... all sounded natural and accurate)
5. These speakers are dynamic as hell. And I am sure the D'Ag stereo amp had a good hand in the delivery of macro dynamics as well
6. The speakers definitely presented images within the stage that were full bodied (3D in the sense of meat on the bones)
7. Overall staging I did not get to fully experience properly again because I was not sitting in the sweet spot

Overall very impressive combo. Fit and finish on both the Wilson and the D'Ag gear is right up there with the best.

For any Alexia owners on AS congrats. For all you D'Ag owners (Joe and Shane and others :D), congrats as well.

Both Dan D'Agostino and Peter McGrath were super nice guys and they know their sh*te that's for sure :D

Hope this gives you a decent sense of what it was like being there. Here's a crappy iPhone pic of the set-up:

View attachment 2031

And finally, for anyone in the New England area who has not dealt with Fidelis, Walter Swanbon (founder/owner) is a very good guy and eventhough I have not had any dealings with them (yet :D), I would heartily recommend him and his team at Fidelis.
 
Dewey...any thoughts you want to share on the Alexias paired up with the ARC Ref 150s? Here are my thoughts on the D'Ag and Alexia combo which I posted in the other thread on the the demo at Fidelis in case you did not see them:

Cyril,

My apology, I cannot at this time really give you my review of the Alexia. I didn't think the room we were in really do the Alexia's justice, but at this time, it didn't impressed me enough to replace my Futura. The equipments we auditioned with as follow... VTL pre(forgot which model), ARC Ref 150, 4 stacks DCS Paganini, AMG V12 TT, and Transparent Cables.
 
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