One of the benefits of being a reviewer is that, of the large number of products that pass through my listening room, occasionally there are those that I really would like to see take up more permanent residence. One of these was Wilson Audio Specialties’ Alexia loudspeaker, which I reviewed in December 2013. “Its clarity, its uncolored, full-range balance, its flexibility in setup and optimization, and most of all its sheer musicality, are, if not unrivaled, rare,” I wrote, and concluded: “If I were to retire tomorrow, the Wilson Alexia would be the speaker I would buy to provide the musical accompaniment to that retirement.” Nothing I subsequently heard disabused me of that dream, though a couple of other speakers, in particular Vivid Audio’s Giya G3 and KEF’s Blade Two, joined the Alexia on my bucket list.

Then, in spring 2017, Wilson announced a Series 2 Alexia. On the surface, the new speaker looks identical to the old, with its 8″ and 10″ paper-cone woofers loaded with a 3″-diameter port on the large cabinet’s rear, and a 7″ midrange driver and 1″ silk-dome tweeter, each in its own adjustable module atop the woofer enclosure. (See my December 2013 review for a detailed description of the original Alexia.) However, the price has risen from $48,500/pair in 2013 to $57,900/pair for the Series 2, and there are many improvements. The original Alexia was designed by the late David Wilson working with Vern Credille, Wilson’s lead acoustic and electrical engineer, and mechanical engineer Blake Schmutz; the Series 2 is the result of much development by Dave’s son Daryl, who is now the Utah company’s CEO. In particular, some of the technology developed for Wilson’s limited-edition magnum opus, the WAMM Master Chronosonic, has found its way into the Alexia Series 2. Because of all this, I felt that a full review would be more appropriate than a Follow-Up.

Last February, Wilson’s Peter McGrath visited to set up the Alexia 2s in my listening room. Such service is not really a reviewer’s perk—when anyone buys a pair of Wilson Audio speakers, the retailer will install them and do the sort of fine-tuning McGrath performed in my room.

The Series 2
I asked Peter McGrath precisely what changes had been made in the Alexia to create the Series 2.

“The two bass drivers remain the same, but the port has been moved to the center of the enclosure so that both speakers launch the back wave in exactly the same way,” he explained. “Although the bass enclosure’s footprint is only about 1” different, the increase in the internal volume is significant, at around 11%. Also, while the front baffle of the “Series 1” was vertical, it’s now angled back about 3–4°, and that gives better time alignment between the upper woofer and the midrange driver. The internal bracing of the low-frequency enclosure is also improved.

“The midrange driver is the same in both speakers, but the midrange enclosure has a full 26% increase in internal volume, because of the way we reworked the venting system. The tweeter is now the same Convergent Synergy Mk.5 tweeter we used for the backload of the WAMM Master Chronosonic. The crossover points are very similar, but there have been some modifications, the result of which is that the low impedance dip is nowhere near as severe in the Series 2 as it was in the ‘Series 1.’ The efficiency of the two remains within a dB.

“There are a number of other things. Access to the resistors is totally different: you can just pull a plate off and make changes without having to get out the tools. The Aspherical Group Delay time-domain adjustment of the tweeter now has a far greater level of resolution—you can move the tweeter in ¹/₃₂” increments, twice the number of adjustments as before.

“The spikes and diodes are more substantial than they had been on the first Alexia. And then, on the top plate of the woofer enclosure, the block where all the resonant components of the upper modules couple via the spikes is made out of a material called ‘W Material.’ This is a [mineral-impregnated resin] that we developed for the WAMM. . . . [I]t is far more absorptive of resonant behavior. However, we can’t paint it, which is why it is not colored the way the rest of the speaker is.”

Setup
As discussed in this audio clip, Peter McGrath followed much the same setup procedure described in my review of the original Alexia. Having adjusted the position and tilt of the tweeter and midrange modules for the height of my ears in my listening chair and their distance from the speakers—the exact settings are detailed in the manual’s “Propagation Delay Correction” table—he rolled each speaker back and forth and from side to side on its wheels until he was confident they were close to their optimal positions. Then, using “So Do I,” from singer-songwriter Christy Moore’s This Is the Day (CD, Sony 5032552), and listening to each speaker in turn, he moved the enclosures in ½” steps in both planes, and adjusted their toe-in until the sound of each Alexia 2 was to his satisfaction. It was time for some critical listening.

Listening
With the Alexia 2s driven by Lamm Industries M1.2 Reference monoblocks, the ¹/₃-octave bass-warble tones on Editor’s Choice (CD, Stereophile STPH016-2) sounded powerful down to the 25Hz band, with the 63, 50, and 40Hz warbles a little higher in level than the bands above them, the 32 and 25Hz warbles exaggerated by the lowest mode in my room, and the 20Hz warble only faintly audible. The half-step–spaced tonebursts on Editor’s Choice spoke cleanly and evenly throughout the bass and midrange regions. When I listened to the woofer enclosure of an Alexia 2 with a stethoscope, all surfaces were relatively inert. The midrange enclosure, too, was well damped, though on the sidewalls and rear panel I found some low-level modes between 600 and 900Hz, these an octave higher than the modes I’d found on the Alexia “1”—which suggests improved bracing.

The dual-mono pink-noise track from Editor’s Choice sounded smooth and evenly balanced, though with some exaggeration of the very lowest frequencies. With the earlier Alexias I’d found that if I moved my head slightly above or below the axis where the sound was best, I became aware of a narrow band of brightness. This didn’t happen with the Series 2s, and it wasn’t until I stood up that the pink noise began to sound colored, acquiring a hollow quality. The central image of the noise signal wasn’t quite as narrow as I hear with top-ranked minimonitors like the BBC LS3/5a or KEF LS50, but it was stable, neither wobbling nor splashing to the sides at any frequency.

NEXT: Page 2 »

COMPANY INFO

Wilson Audio Specialties

2233 Mountain Vista Lane

Provo, UT 84606

(801) 377-2233

www.wilsonaudio.com

ARTICLE CONTENTS

Page 1
Page 2
Specifications
Associated Equipment
Measurements
Jason Victor Serinus August 2018

Click Here: Joao Cancelo jersey sale