New WAMM

[f1eng]

I nearly bought a pair (quad?) of the originals in the mid-90s.

http://www.audiosalon.com/brands/wilson-...ory-media/
http://www.stereophile.com/content/wilso...ker-system

Here is the new one

http://www.audiosalon.com/brands/wilson-...ronosonic/

[Pim]

The old ones look a bit like your Goldmunds. Did you buy them at the same time after a comparison or are they younger?

[f1eng]

The old ones look a bit like your Goldmunds. Did you buy them at the same time after a comparison or are they younger?

I was earning a good salary and hate frequent upgrades so I decided to do a thorough evaluation for a choice to last me for a long time.
I listened to a lot of highly rated speakers, and the WAMMs were at the (then, now retired) Wilson distributor for France. I had been going to get the Wilson Grand Slamm but the WAMMs were used and therefor only about half price, or £65k or so. They were frequently quoted as the best speakers available in english language press.

They were pretty impressive, particularly in room shaking bass from the 18" units in 2 wardrobe sized enclosures. The dealer was also the Goldmund distributor and had both Apologue and Analogues on demo.
I already had a Goldmund turntable and CD transport but had never heard their speakers. In fact I (as an ex-vibration and noise research engineer) became more impressed by their approach to transducers than electronics after hearing these speakers. They had a clearly better instrumental timbre than the WAMM, and the bass was clean and clear without boominess or overhang (rare IME).
In the end I was considering the Apologues or B&W Nautilus but the Epilog was announced so I waited to audition that. In the end I preferred the simple Epilog 1 to the Nautilus, by a small margin and ordered a pair (and the Epilog 2 bass box unheard which became available quite a while later and made a smaller improvement that expected).
So, yes, it was at the time I listened to the WAMM that I discovered the virtues of Goldmund speakers and ordered the Epilogs. Overall my speaker search took about 2 years and I didn't seriously consider a change again for the next 15!

[Pim]

Looks like Wilson are on some sort of a SAM quest. With the difference being Wilson adjusting the speaker to the amp and cables:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/wilso...bVFmA16.97

Quote:

"Transit time can be significant when you're talking about this critical degree of time resolution, and can be ascertained using propriety techniques," he said. "In the low frequencies where many solid-state amplifiers have very close alignment, a vacuum-tube amplifier may lag by about 50 microseconds. With the WAMM's adjustability, that variable can be normalized. If we know a particular amplifier's "time profile", we can derive the appropriate custom alignment. We've looked at six different amps so far, but we are just getting started."

One pair of WAMM P2 prototypes will eventually be permanently mounted at one end of a small, narrow padded room in the Wilson factory, with a permanently affixed microphone at the other end. Here, when essential timing information is not supplied by manufacturers, Wilson Audio will measure an assortment amps and/or cables and determine their timing profiles. In cables, of special interest is the delay time in various ranges, eg, the high frequencies relatives to the upper midrange to the lower midrange and to the bass.

I fully understand that time alignment between the different frequencies can be important. But then again when you're at a concert  you're most likely further away from the artists so what you hear live will be more miss aligned then what's coming from your speakers.

[yabaVR]

Looks like Wilson are on some sort of a SAM quest. With the difference being Wilson adjusting the speaker to the amp and cables:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/wilso...bVFmA16.97

Quote:

"Transit time can be significant when you're talking about this critical degree of time resolution, and can be ascertained using propriety techniques," he said. "In the low frequencies where many solid-state amplifiers have very close alignment, a vacuum-tube amplifier may lag by about 50 microseconds. With the WAMM's adjustability, that variable can be normalized. If we know a particular amplifier's "time profile", we can derive the appropriate custom alignment. We've looked at six different amps so far, but we are just getting started."

One pair of WAMM P2 prototypes will eventually be permanently mounted at one end of a small, narrow padded room in the Wilson factory, with a permanently affixed microphone at the other end. Here, when essential timing information is not supplied by manufacturers, Wilson Audio will measure an assortment amps and/or cables and determine their timing profiles. In cables, of special interest is the delay time in various ranges, eg, the high frequencies relatives to the upper midrange to the lower midrange and to the bass.

I fully understand that time alignment between the different frequencies can be important. But then again when you're at a concert  you're most likely further away from the artists so what you hear live will be more miss aligned then what's coming from your speakers.

Isn't it funny that Wilson is adressing time alignment of speaker cables and others are still discussing sound differences of cables 
Now that gives some reason of speaker/cables matching, does it?

I don't know what you mean by more miss aligned? Sure all frequencies travel at different speeds but that's what gives us locationability and differentiation of instruments. If you are sitting further away in a concert you will hear the artists more in a sense of a whole atmosphere then single instruments (speaking of classical concert). There can not be any miss alignment though as the continuity of each sound isn't broken.

If you play the live recording of this special concert later at home you will most likely hear more details and single instruments because the microphones were close and aligned to the instruments. But then comes the timely miss aligned signal processing (digital & analogue) into play what makes it sound less natural as the live performance you heard before in the concert hall.

gui

[f1eng]

Sure all frequencies travel at different speeds

Really?
I had never heard that before.
AFAIK the speed of sound is dependant on temperature and humidity but not frequency.

[f1eng]

Looks like Wilson are on some sort of a SAM quest. With the difference being Wilson adjusting the speaker to the amp and cables:

http://www.stereophile.com/content/wilso...bVFmA16.97

Quote:

"Transit time can be significant when you're talking about this critical degree of time resolution, and can be ascertained using propriety techniques," he said. "In the low frequencies where many solid-state amplifiers have very close alignment, a vacuum-tube amplifier may lag by about 50 microseconds. With the WAMM's adjustability, that variable can be normalized. If we know a particular amplifier's "time profile", we can derive the appropriate custom alignment. We've looked at six different amps so far, but we are just getting started."

One pair of WAMM P2 prototypes will eventually be permanently mounted at one end of a small, narrow padded room in the Wilson factory, with a permanently affixed microphone at the other end. Here, when essential timing information is not supplied by manufacturers, Wilson Audio will measure an assortment amps and/or cables and determine their timing profiles. In cables, of special interest is the delay time in various ranges, eg, the high frequencies relatives to the upper midrange to the lower midrange and to the bass.

I fully understand that time alignment between the different frequencies can be important. But then again when you're at a concert  you're most likely further away from the artists so what you hear live will be more miss aligned then what's coming from your speakers.

Isn't it funny that Wilson is adressing time alignment of speaker cables and others are still discussing sound differences of cables 
Now that gives some reason of speaker/cables matching, does it?

I don't know what you mean by more miss aligned? Sure all frequencies travel at different speeds but that's what gives us locationability and differentiation of instruments. If you are sitting further away in a concert you will hear the artists more in a sense of a whole atmosphere then single instruments (speaking of classical concert). There can not be any miss alignment though as the continuity of each sound isn't broken.

If you play the live recording of this special concert later at home you will most likely hear more details and single instruments because the microphones were close and aligned to the instruments. But then comes the timely miss aligned signal processing (digital & analogue) into play what makes it sound less natural as the live performance you heard before in the concert hall.

gui

For me, no modern recordings are likely to be phase coherent (ie time aligned) since they are mixed from loads of microphones, often each at different distances from the instrument being recorded (with the musician moving too) and each microphone picking up a bit of sound from other instruments.
It is amazing that these multi-track recordings sound much like anything at all, and in fact I have always preferred simply miked recordings which were the only thing one could do years ago.
My own recordings use only 2 microphones, what I lose in poorer signal-to-noise is more than made up for by a more realistic recording overall IME.

To be honest, if time alignment was genuinely as important as some imply all multi track recordings would sound absolutely dreadful since none of them are even remotely time aligned.
The recorder used, analogue or digital makes a really tiny (negligible) contribution to time alignment compared to microphone position.

[Pim]

I listened to a sound bite of one of Dave Wilsons recordings a few weeks ago. It's not my kind of music at all but even through my laptop speakers it was easy to hear this was a great recording. So if his recordings are that good he must be onto something. it would be interesting to find out how he records and whether he keep time/phase in mind with the recordings as well.

[f1eng]

http://www.soundkeeperrecordings.com

This is the sort of recording quality I aspire to in my amateur efforts.

IME the quality of the recording is far, far more important than the quality of the hifi system and quite disappointingly variable.

Sadly most of the recordings with the most convincing SQ I have heard are of music I have little desire to listen to

I am also a big fan of Wilson recordings and speakers.

[Duomike]

Have some experience with time alignment. My Duos in stock form are very bad in that regards. Tweeter is way ahead of midrange and bass around 2ms behind the mids. Built some
wooded blocks which I have put on the woofer and put the tweeter on top. This allows me to move tweeter back in small increments. Once properly aligned the large Duos image almost like mini monitors and through a very wide and deep sounstage. Have demoed this to some of my audio buddies. Played some music in aligned position, hit pause, moved tweeter back in its original position and hit play. takes people less than 5 seconds until they say moved them back. Difference is VERY obvious!

Bass similarily important. Often heard comments by people who listened to some a antagardes and noticed bass is lacking behind. They heard the 2ms delay!

Wilson Audio is one of the very few companies who understand the importance of time alignment. No clue why other manufacturers are so ignorant in that regard.