by Anthony H. Cordesman

Let me be clear from the start. The Wilson Maxx is one of the best speakers I’ve ever auditioned, and if I had the money and were not a reviewer, I’d buy it. It does virtually everything extraordinarily well; it allows you to get the best out of your components; it works in real-world listening rooms without dominating them; and it provides great musical pleasure along with great musical insight. At the same time, at $38,000 a pair and counting, the Maxx should do everything well. A single significant fault in any speaker costing more than $10,000 is inexcusable.

Of course, you get great dynamics and deep bass. An expensive speaker weighing 400 pounds a side has no right to sit anywhere in the listening room unless it can be spectacular. The Maxx earns that right without strain. You can throw any sonic spectacular at it, and it will give you just as much energy and sonic impact as the source material permits — and it will not add euphonic touches of coloration. At the same time, you get exactly what’s on the recording — which is not always an act of mercy in the sonic-spectacular world. Musically, "spectacular" often means loud, and far too often this turns out to be musically lousy.

Where the Maxx really shines, however, is in reproducing musical nuance, and its superiority here is hard to describe — particularly with words that are at best devalued coin in comparison to actually listening. What struck me most about the Maxx after listening to hundreds of diverse recordings was how deeply it allowed me to listen into the music, how often it compelled me to actually pay attention and listen for the pure pleasure of it, and that this occurred with so wide a range of music.

With proper set up, timbre is exceptionally neutral. Bass is exceptionally musically natural, tightly defined and controlled without losing life and energy. The midrange is sufficiently revealing so that no coloration emerged on male or female voice, and strings, woodwinds, and brass sounded realistic and coherent. The soundstage is as natural and three-dimensional as the recording permits. Low-level detail and dynamics were as excellent as the ability to reproduce loud passages, and the harmonic integrity of music was similar to that sound you hear from the best electrostatics and ribbons, as was overall transparency.

At the same time, the Maxx is not a demanding or fussy speaker in terms of recording quality. It doesn’t make any given recording sound better than it is, but it is remarkably free of the colorations that reinforce the problems in bad and mediocre recordings and make them sound worse. This ability to consistently get the best sound out of an extremely wide range of recordings is also the reason why I have emphasized the phrase musical nuance in praising the Maxx.

Many of the nuances that distinguish the sound of High End equipment are of comparatively little aesthetic value in terms of perceived musical realism. Often you trade new sonic colorations for old, and one musically unnatural — or at least questionable — sound for another. The real question in comparing different equipment is almost never, "Can you hear the difference?" The answer is almost always, "Yes." Unless nuance can meet the test of being musically accurate, it is a waste of money. More than that, nuances that don’t meet this test almost always lead you to start unconsciously favoring recordings that are enhanced by a given coloration, and you start choosing your other components to match. The thing about the Wilson Audio Maxx that really matters to me, then, is that the hours, weeks, and months I spent with this speaker consistently made the listening experience seem more musically real. The Maxx gets countless little trade-offs in sound quality musically right, and preserves an overall sound balance that is remarkably neutral.

This kind of performance, however, is something you ultimately have to hear for yourself. The most a reviewer can do is give you the motivation to close this magazine and go out and listen for yourself. Now, let’s talk about how serious that motivation should be. The answer is easy if you have the money. The Maxx is not only intensely musical, it is beautifully made, and finished like an Aston Martin. For a speaker of its mass and sound quality, it is also not visually obtrusive. Its beauty is of the form-follows-function variety. The chief merits of its visual impact lie in "techno-awe." No one is going to call it pretty, but any one who sees it will know you are a serious audiophile.

"Techno-awe," however, goes far beyond the Maxx’s visual profile. The enclosure is a molded polymer that has immense mass and ability to resist vibration, and a great deal of complex internal bracing. Packing 400 pounds of enclosure, speakers, and crossover into a package 63 x 17 x 22 inches allows Wilson Audio to create an extraordinarily well-damped speaker and rigid surfaces for mounting the drivers. This almost certainly contributes to the fact the Maxx is one of the most transparent speakers I have ever heard, and has extraordinary low-level resolution — rivaling the best ribbon speakers in this respect.

The drivers are custom-made to Wilson’s specifications. The Maxx boasts five drivers per speaker: a 12" and 10" woofer, two 7" midranges, and a 1" inverted-dome Titanium tweeter, all superbly crafted. The crossover is also beautifully made, with top-notch components and wiring.

The Maxx is not perfectly time- and phase-aligned, but its D’Appolito driver configuration and crossover give it a coherence and precision that outperforms anything I’ve heard from speakers that tout first-order crossovers and superior time and phase alignment.1 The depth and realism of the imaging and the stability of image size and placement at different levels of loudness are truly outstanding.

The Maxx is also unusually efficient, with a rated sensitivity of 92 dB at 1 watt per meter. Wilson says it can be driven with a minimum of 7 watts. Well, I wouldn’t go for 7 watts, but then, I’m not a single-ended-triode fan (unless it’s matched to a suitable horn speaker), but you can get away quite nicely with a 25-watt triode tube amplifier, but only if you are willing to give up the damping and power you need in the deep bass.

The Maxx has a nominal impedance of 8 ohms and a rated minimum of 3. You can hear the value of every increase in power and bass control in an amplifier. The Maxx deserves the very best amplification. It is a joy on organ recordings with true deep fundamentals, and bass viol and drum are equally excellent.

Wilson specs this speaker at 20-21,000 Hz frequency response at —3 dB. No in-room measurement can really assess such a specification, but the overall timbre and deep bass extension and control of the Maxx are superb, and the measurements I performed with the Tact 2.0 and a professional one-third octave RTA were as good as any I have obtained.

You can also fine-tune the Maxx to your listening position and taste, which is another reason I find it difficult to talk about the sonic colorations in this speaker. The vertical angle of the tweeter and midrange unit can be adjusted precisely to suit the height of your listening position. There are other adjustments, as well. Set-up is critical, but Wilson Audio has an excellent training program to help dealers choose the right placement so the speaker will produce a soundstage that is almost holographic in its precision.

A word about compatibility. You are unlikely to have amplifier load problems, though, as I said, the speaker deserves high-powered amps for the most dynamic music. But you will certainly hear the colorations in your other components more clearly. This speaker masks almost nothing, including the sound of cables and interconnects. I recommend a speaker cable that is capable of providing really tight and powerful low bass.

I have found that this is the area where the interactions between speaker cables, amplifier, and speaker are particularly audible and often go beyond the subtle. The better the speaker, the more audible these interactions are. I normally use Dunlavy and Kimber Select speaker cables, and some minor problems showed up with both. These are extremely good products, but the Dunlavys do not provide quite the control I’d like, at least in terms of mid-bass tightness. The Kimber Selects come closer to ideal performance, but don’t have quite the ultimate in deep bass extension. This showed up more clearly with the Maxx than with other speakers I’ve auditioned, and after checking around, I tried the Transparent Reference XL Series.

The synergy between the Wilson Audio Maxx and Transparent Reference XL Series is impressive and occurred with my reference Pass X600, an older pair of Krell 200 watt mono amps, my small home-built triode tube amp, and the Plinius 250A. The Transparent Reference XL interconnects added an extra touch of transparency (although the Kimber Selects were possibly a bit more faithful in timbre).

Now, does the Maxx have some limitations? Of course. They produce the same kind of focused soundstage as any other speaker that is not a dipole or that lacks rear-firing drivers. As a result, the sound has a touch less air and is slightly less open, and the soundstage does not seem as large. Some other top speakers have a bit more apparent upper-octave air (although usually at the cost of less accurate timbre). The best ribbons offer a different and sometimes superior sounding detail and transparency, although not consistently better or more musically realistic. Some ultra-efficient horns have a touch more apparent dynamic life. A few speakers provide more of the deepest bass — although not necessarily with more accuracy.

Let me close where I began. The Wilson Maxx represents the best mix of sound qualities I’ve heard so far in a speaker small enough to be practical in my listening room. It is the most musically accurate speaker I’ve yet heard, on a wide range of recordings. Above all, at the end of a hard day, it provides a touch of magic in the night.

Manufacturer Information

Wilson Audio
2233 Mountain Vista Lane, Provo, Utah 84606
Phone: (801) 377-2233
http://www.wilsonaudio.com
Source: Manufacturer loan
Price: $38,900/pair

John Nork Comments

To purloin the punch line from an otherwise forgettable car commercial, this is not your father’s Wilson loudspeaker system.

Like many grizzled audio scribes, I have closely monitored the evolution of Wilson Audio speakers over the years. My first substantive contact with a Wilson design occurred way back in 1987 when I reviewed the original Wilson Audio Tiny Tot (Watt) in these pages. The Tiny Tot has proven hardier than most of its larger brethren, and survives to this day in its sixth iteration.

Wilson has also focused on larger full-range systems, starting with the venerable (and venerated) Wilson Audio Modular Monitor (Wamm). It too exists today, in its seventh incarnation, with a price tag of $225,000.

Irrespective of these differences in scope and design, there has been a discernible "family sound" to the past Wilson products I have auditioned. To be fair, this is true (to a greater or lesser extent) of all long-standing High End loudspeaker companies. Such organizations are often guided by a single visionary architect who has specific (sometimes idiosyncratic) ideas of how the Perfect Speaker should operate. Like reviewers, designers have their own "listening biases" that guide them in their work and cause them to focus on certain aspects of reproduced sound. One can often extrapolate from a designer’s past products to future offerings. Not this time.

It is not semantic hyperbole to say that I was stunned when I first heard the Wilson Maxx. Although reviewers routinely transcend human limitations and approach products with absolutely no pre-existing bias, I fell short of that ideal on this occasion. Given the sonic disparity between the Maxx and past Wilson models, one might expect a radical shift in design criteria. Based on the product documentation and extensive discussions with designer David Wilson, that does not seem to be the case. The Maxx flaunts its 400-pound cabinet, fashioned from ultra-dense, damped, rigid, low-vibration materials. A robust knuckle-wrap test on the cabinet leads only to pain, not aural artifacts. The expected Wilson obsession with banishing spurious resonance is very much in evidence in the Maxx. Like AHC, I have no doubt that the extremely low "noise floor" of the Maxx contributes mightily to its noteworthy neutrality and redoubtable resolution. The system is virtually free of the "drivers-in-a-box" sound that drove so many of us to dipole screen speakers in the past.

In my experience, Wilson Audio speakers have tended toward the analytical/"neutral" pole of the sonic continuum (as opposed to the romantic/"musical"). Some would describe them as ruthlessly revealing. Others would say they exaggerate (or at least highlight) flaws in ancillary components and source material. Given David Wilson’s professional recording background (where everything on the mastertape must be heard), this is understandable, perhaps even laudable. I found the Watts to be invaluable tools in my own recording work. When it came to the deceptively simple act of listening to music for pleasure, though, they could be a bit relentless.

"Relentless" is a word that I would never apply to the Maxx. Given proper set-up and associated equipment, the Maxx is unfailingly smooth and natural, no matter how hard it is pushed.1 Unlike the older Watts, it is marvelously easy and enjoyable to listen to for extended periods of time. Like AHC, I never grew tired of listening to music on the Maxx. It was always an enjoyable, enriching experience. Such long-term musical satisfaction is perhaps the most daunting task for an audio component. The Maxx succeeds with aplomb and distinction. It serves the music well.

The spectral balance of the Maxx is nearly ideal. The harmonic balance of music is very well conveyed. The timbre of a wide array of musical instruments is convincingly lifelike (e.g., trumpets and French horns, acoustic guitars, violins and viola, piano and harpsichord).

In my listening room, though, there were some mild frequency aberrations. First, although bass quality was excellent, the quantity was a bit excessive. This was particularly true of the deep bass. Perhaps surprisingly, this is a common problem with today’s super-speakers. It’s almost as though the designer needed to aurally boast that his creation can forcefully re-create the subterranean depths of music. As a result, the listener receives ongoing reminders of this prodigious accomplishment.

To be sure, judicious augmentation of deep bass can be musically enjoyable, even exhilarating. It is ultimately distracting, though, in that it is not an innate part of the live musical experience. At live acoustic concerts, the listener’s attention is rarely drawn to the bass the way it is in many audio systems.

The Maxx also exhibited minor elevation in the middle bass in my listening environment. However, bass definition was so good that this was not a significant problem.

At the other end of the frequency spectrum, the Maxx is slightly deficient in high-frequency air (as AHC reported). The top end is exceptionally smooth in-room, but a bit reticent and polite. When coupled with the mild low-end emphasis, the result is a subtle (but most un-Wilson-like) richness or ripeness. Compared to live music, the Maxx can sound ever-so-slightly dark on occasion. Please be aware that I am describing a rarefied tonal phenomenon here, not something overt or intrusive.

Still, just as I would never apply the word "relentless" to the Maxx, I certainly would not describe the past Wilson designs I have auditioned as "rich." The Maxx represents a significant departure in speaker "voicing" for the company, even though the objective design criteria appear unchanged.

The midrange of the Maxx is extremely good. It does lack that last bit of aliveness attainable with the finest ribbon and electrostatic systems, however. At their best, these designs can suggest the live experience in this area a bit more convincingly than the Maxx does. In isolated ways, they are more "transparent" in the broadest sense of the term (i.e., they allow certain musical characteristics to emerge with less imposition by the speaker). They also are beset by other problems that do not mar the Maxx.

The dynamic range of this speaker is awesome. Even now, after many hours of listening, I’m not sure which is more impressive, the Maxx’s surprising skill at the quiet end of the dynamic continuum or its effortless ease during music’s loudest passages. The former is often impaired in large-scale speakers. In terms of the latter, the Maxx is one of the few speakers I have heard that undergoes no qualitative or character change when taxed by demanding musical fortissimos played at concert-hall volumes. Impressive, indeed.

Like AHC, I found the soundstage of the Maxx first-rate. Stage depth and width are bountiful. Image placement (even during densely congested musical passages) is precise and natural. Although certain dipole designs have more va-va-va-voom bloom, the Maxx’s soundfield is more accurately and distinctly rendered. In addition to CDs and albums, I relied on my own recordings in arriving at this judgment.

Although the Maxx does not spotlight flaws the way some past Wilson products have, it does demand associated components of requisite quality. Every change I made in my reference system was clearly audible through the Maxx. It is a high-resolution device that will sound no better than the links preceding it in the audio chain. Although the Maxx presents a challenging low-impedance load at certain frequencies, I attained glorious results with the superb Audio Research VT200 tube amplifier. Like AHC, I also experimented with a variety of cables. I too found that the Maxx worked exceptionally well with the Transparent Reference XL cables.

The Maxx is a beautifully crafted product. Every aspect of its finish and construction is superb (right down to the machining of the woofer port and the alignment block). Many non-audiophiles visiting my home remarked on the gorgeous finish and obvious quality of the system. Perhaps this should be commonplace with components of such cost, but that is not always the case. I have had other similarly priced speakers over the years whose build quality pales next to the Maxx. All too often, extravagantly priced High End audio components are exercises in engineering genius, mated with poor production skills. The result is a wonderful laboratory concept that falters crossing the threshold into product reality. With the Maxx you get superior design and execution, in a fully realized product that sets an enviable standard of excellence.

This is not to say that the aesthetics of the Maxx will be universally appealing. The speaker is of the futuristic roboto-pod look that has always characterized the company’s wares. Although some will be captivated, those with pre-Jetson (as in George) dÈcor may vigorously balk.

The Wilson Maxx is not an "exciting" speaker. Other than the slight bottom-end heft noted above, it does not draw attention to itself in any way. Rather it "simply" passes along the majestic beauty of music. In this sense it is an eminently natural loudspeaker system. Even jaded long-term audio critics like AHC and JN found sanctuary in its musically consonant sound. Tellingly, we both derived many hours of genuine musical fulfillment from the Maxx. It is a superior speaker system in every sense.