Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site


In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: My new “New” listening room, 2024
Post Subject: I have written about it years agoPosted by Romy the Cat on: 5/23/2024
 Yes, I am familiar with “large Wilsons,” starting with Grand Slam and up. Since I have long had 4 ML2s and bumped with them, the bumping configuration of large Wilsons has always interested me. I do not like the smaller Wilsons, but the large Wilsons are remarkable in terms of sound reproduction. I wrote about it years back in my Wilson's Thread, but here is a brief summary. You for sure want to drive the top of large Wilsons by ML2; you simply will not find any better amplifiers out there. It should be the production before ~2004-2005 as then ML2s were not good anymore. ML2s are slightly lazy in terms of dynamics, and here is when super contrasty large Wilsons do a very good job and the very excessive prose that Wilson ask for them is very much justified in my view as large Wilson's are unique and accomplish many things that no other speakers can.  When we go to Wilson's bass, then, it is a very different story. It is wonderful for a single box, but it is topological dishonesty. Per the investment of a pair of large Wilsons and a pair of good-sounding amps to drive them, the bass that you can get out of them is not worth it. You might have an incredibly lucky room and with this proper positioning of the speakers you might have a very decent result, but it is a rarity. Still, no matter what you do, the quality of base you can get from large Wilson’s not on a pair of quality of higher range might get from large Wilsons and vintage ML2. Trust me, Wilson's know it, and they are perfectly capable of making the right decisions by selling products, the SCUs that the idiot-reviewers will move from storage facilities to UPS. ML2 is not a good amplifier to drive large Wilsons at the bottom. ML1 is not even remotely matching of quality of bass to ML2. ML2 uses indirectly heated output tube which cannot work with plate current and after you get 18 watts it drops dead instantaneously. To drive Wilson base you need to have if not solid state (which mostly never does bass properly) but something like ML3. The matter here is not in absolute power but an ability on amplifier very gently to enter plate current mode and force the power when Wilson’s port begins to create noise. I have never heard of ML3 in a situation where I would be in the position to express my opinion about it, particularly about its bass. I have a lot of concerns at ML3 came after they reduce expressivity of post 2004 ML2. I also have some designed disagreement with ML3, for his creme de la creme I feel alarm could go for more sophisticated solution what he did in ML3.  

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site