I just heard the Wilson Alexandria XLF's Wednesday


My local high end audio shop hosted its annual "Music Matters" open house where reps from their prime product lines demonstrate their latest wares. In the past I've been introduced to many products that were either just reaching the market or still in prototype stage (e.g., the Magnepan Mini's).

In one room we had Peter McGrath of Wilson, Dan D'Agostino with his new $50K/pair monoblock amps, a Meridian rep with a Sooloos front end, and John Atkinson of Stereophile, who had some great 24/96 music files he'd recorded himself.

Two demos were of music Atkinson had recorded with minimal miking--a small orchestra and pianist playing Rhapsody in Blue and a 9-person vocal group with organ accompaniment.

This setup produced the most realistic reproduction of music I've personally heard. I am a subscriber to the Seattle Symphony and attend live concerts there monthly. It's obvious to me that these live performances have--in addition to the music--a sense of room energy that's consistently lacking in audio reproduction. NOT THIS TIME! The Meridian/D'Agostino/Transparent (Opus)/Wilson signal chain produced a completely fleshed-out, live-feeling presentation. A sonic hologram if you will. The presentation was transparent and resonance-free, linear, extended, but most of all, live-sounding.

In fact, the very next demo I went to was of Audio Research pushing the new Wisdom Audio $95K flagship panels+sub system, and it sounded artificial by comparison. On its own I'm sure the Wisdom is an excellent speaker, but following the twice-as-expensive Alexandria XLF it was a complete letdown.

Anyone who has an opportunity to hear the Alexandria XLFs should give them a listen just to see what can be done. For me it completely re-defined what can be done with musical reproduction and makes me regret not setting out to become a millionaire when I was young so I could afford a pair (plus the D'Agostino amps) today.

BTW, in all previous Wilson demo's I've heard (Sophia 2 & 3, Maxx 2 & 3, Alexandria X-2, Watt/Puppy 7, Sasha W/P 8), they always sounded decidedly better--more musical, liquid, resolving, real-sounding--with tube electronics. Not so this time. The D'Agostinos are so neutral and so good at driving the speakers that all you think about is the music and the holographic presentation.
johnnyb53

Showing 7 responses by johnnyb53

Jfrech:
What dac where they using?

The used the Meridian touchscreen Sooloos as the user interface and media library. I'm pretty sure they fed the Sooloos digital output to a Meridian Source 600 controller, and from there directly into the D'Agostino monoblock amps.
The D'Agostino Momentum mono's are the closest thing to perfect amplification that I've heard. It's easy to forget you're listening to electronics, without euphonic colorations on one hand or clinical sterility on the other. I've heard them with the Sashas and the Alexandria XLF. Before the D'Agostinos I always liked Wilsons with tubes (e.g., Audio Research Signatures and VTL Siegfried). The D'Agostinos did it for me even better than those.

06-04-12: Lloydelee21
I have spoken with people who compared the XLFs on ML latest Ref, D'Agostino monos and the Gryphon Mephisto and it seems those who were there preferred Mephisto significantly. My sense is that the Gryphon is more delicately nuanced while being a match or more than a match in sheer power.

I don't doubt that either. I've heard several amps with Wilsons, including VTL, ARC, and Ayre, as well as D'Agostino. But I certainly haven't heard every amp, and I've never heard the Gryphon Mephisto. The Mephisto monoblocks are also more than double the price of the D'Agostinos. They must be really something. Class A with zero global feedback? Hell yeah!

Still, for $50K the D'Agostinos ain't too shabby. :)
^^^

Yes, there's nothing like the best recorded source with the fewest generations of copies and mixdowns between the event and the playback medium. The first time I heard a Sheffield D2D was on a portable Zenith record player. In 1975 the stereo shop I worked at hosted a Marantz clinic for measuring and plotting amps and receivers for frequency response, power output, and distortion. The engineer was Reice Hamel, who had recorded several great live albums including Time Jones Live at Caesar's Palace and Buddy Rich's Keep the Customer Satisfied. After the shop closed he took the store staff out to his mobile van for a demo of his traveling gear. Mostly he had a bank of 8" full range JBL speakers powered by little Crown D-75 amps. The source was a 4-track stereo Aiwa reel-to-reel--not a Tandberg, Tascam, or Revox. The sound was a direct mix off the multi-track master and it simply blew us away.

So I know all about that. I've been going to the Wilson demo at this open house every year since 2006. They always play a mix of recordings, sometimes including vinyl, but almost always John Atkinson is there with a 24/96 or even 24/192 recording or two that he's done with minimal miking. So I heard these Alexandria XLFs with a variety of material including 1st-gen copies of meticulously recorded material, and all played over state-of-the-art electronics and cables.

Taking all that into consideration, that XLF rig is the best reproduced sound I have ever heard, period. True, I haven't heard Focal Grand Utopias, top line Magico, or YG. But of everything I've heard, and allowing for a wide variety of source material quality, the XLF is a stunning speaker by any measure.
Hi Lloydelee,

No, the only big line source of note I've listened to were some Magnepan 20.1s augmented by a pair of JL F212s. it was an excellent sounded system, especially for a combined list price of $25K, but they were still not XLFs. I would love to hear some of those. The dealer two doors from the Maggie dealer has MLs, but I don't think they have Statements set up for auditioning.

I've never seen/heard current Genesis speakers; ironically they're made in my home town.
^^^
I'll poke my head in my local ML dealer, Magnolia, and see if they have any Statements set up.

A couple months ago I went there and heard some SF Cremona Ms, and they sounded wonderful. But the most amazing thing was that they were sourced and powered by Marantz SA8004 and PM8004, respectively. Those are unbelievable components for the money.
TAS XLF review articulates what I sensed when I heard them; I was listening to greatness. I'm sure the $200K would get good results from Focal, Sonus Faber, or Magico as well as Wilson. I've only heard the Wilsons and they're certainly the best I've ever heard.