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First Listen – Wilson Audio Alexx floorstanding loudspeaker

First Listen – Wilson Audio Alexx floorstanding loudspeaker

In truth, there aren’t many places to hear a top-end loudspeaker in the UK. Very few of the dealers in the country have the space, the budget, or the clientele to handle loudspeakers costing £100,000 or more, and the opportunities to hear such speaker systems in the wild are usually limited to public shows.

The prestigious KJ West One in the heart of the affluent central London area known as Marylebone is a rare exception, and an ideal venue for the first UK outing of the new £103,000 Wilson Audio Alexx. This new top-end loudspeaker from the range – replacing the long-standing MAXX line – is effectively an amalgamation of what Wilson Audio has learned to date, with a few hints of what’s to come with the upcoming WAMM flagship. And, in a way, this is that rare type of loudspeaker that features both ‘trickle up’ and ‘trickle down’ design criteria in almost equal measure: the Alexx learns from the Sabrina and Alexia below it as it does from the Alexandria XLF and WAMM above, but it also brings new improvements of its own.

In basic terms, the Alexx uses a vertical ‘MTM’ (midrange-tweeter-midrange) layout in the loudspeaker’s upper section, although this is not a conventional MTM or D’Appolito geometry. The 25mm soft-dome ‘Convergent Synergy’ tweeter with the latest version of Wilson’s own rear-wave chamber design is flanked by two midrange units; the top model being a 146mm upper-midrange cone used in the Sabrina, the lower a 179mm cone from the Alexandria Series 2 specifically for the lower midrange. The bass cabinet continues this concept, with a both a 267mm and 312mm woofers. The tweeter enclosure is fully sealed, but both midrange units are ported, and the bass cabinet has the option of front or rear porting, using a deceptively simple port cover that doubles up as a logo. This enables the Alexx to fit in far smaller spaces than its predecessors, and makes for a slightly less demanding installation.

The improvements also extend to the adjustments of the upper sections, with micrometer-precision adjustment of the two midrange and tweeter modules. Wilson first used this alignment of the upper modules – which Wilson calls ‘aspherical propagation delay correction’ – in the Alexandria XLF, but the system has been further refined in the Alexx. Wilson suggests this allows for precise alignment of the time-domain with respect to the listener position and room dimensions; the fine-tuning of loudspeaker position is still paramount, but a further level of alignment tuning is possible with the Alexx that is not available with other models. And, because this twin stair-step adjustment is built to lock in place, the loudspeaker – once set in place – retains the rigidity of a fixed speaker design.

, First Listen – Wilson Audio Alexx floorstanding loudspeaker

Wilson suggests this is a loudspeaker that can work with amplifiers delivering 50W or more, and in the context of the KJ West One demonstration, that figure was ably exceeded thanks to a set of D’Agostino Momentum amps, with Vertere and dCS front ends, a top Audio Research phono stage, Artesania equipment supports, and best-of-breed Transparent Audio cables, this was a slice of true high-end royalty.

 

KJ’s lower floor demonstration room is possibly best described as ‘challenging’; the ceiling’s too low, the room dimensions are not ideal, and often sounds best with its large sliding wooden doors opened and the listeners sitting in from the next room. As a consequence, many good loudspeakers showcased in that room have not quite lived up to potential. They have often sounded good, but they can sound a lot better in a more appropriate environment (like the owner’s listening room).

The Wilson Alexx, however, lived up to a lot more potential than most, making a sound that gave a true sense of what a seriously good loudspeaker can sound like. This is possibly because the loudspeaker manages to combine the finesse needed to tease out those subtle micro-dynamic cues taking place in a recording, while simultaneously being able to unleash the dogs of aural war. You quickly learn on an almost atavistic level just how important that is in reality – an orchestra playing fff is an extremely loud sound up close, but within that powerful maelstrom of sound, you are capable of taking in some remarkably quiet nuances taking place at the same time: like hearing the keys of a woodwind instrument clicking and clacking even in the midst of some very dynamic – and very loud – playing. This comes entirely naturally in the real world, yet is almost always compromised to some extent in the audio domain. The Alexx is one of those rare loudspeakers that can do both, and both extraordinarily well.

, First Listen – Wilson Audio Alexx floorstanding loudspeaker

Peter McGrath of Wilson Audio is a consummate demonstrator, especially as he often uses his own outstanding recordings. He flew over to help install and introduce the Alexx, and played a combination of some of his latest recordings and both file-based and CD-based commercial tracks to an invited audience of the media and prospective customers. Peter played a recording of Haydn’s Nelson Mass that would have sounded wonderful on a clock radio, but through the Alexx made me want to join the Navy… of 200 years ago. And passages of powerful electronica bass – such as ‘Electrified’ by Boris Blank (Yello, anyone?) – had such energy and motive force, people jumped when the bass kicked in.

The Alexx is kind of ‘Sabrina Big’, if you like – all the things the Sabrina does with music sometimes get lost in the drive to deliver more linearity, more transparency, and more detail. Alexx demonstrates that there needn’t be a trade-off, and manages to bring greater bandwidth, power handling, dynamics, detail, and transparency to the table, yet does so without pushing the inherent enjoyment of the Sabrina out of the equation. This is the kind of loudspeaker you can use to play beautifully recorded subtle acoustic tracks to your audiophile buddies one week, and enjoy a full-on AC/DC thrash with your beer-and-BBQ friends the next, and get a lot out of both listening sessions. The impressive thing is it did all that in a room that was not giving the Alexx free rein to show what it can really do.

I’ve heard tales of when the Alexx was playing at its very best, with an almost identical system in another store in America. Music was played, tears flowed, more music was played.

I can believe that about the Wilson Alexx. It’s that good!

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