I know this goes against the grain but as beautifuly made as Wilson speakers are they just don't sound like real music. If anyone ever saw Dave Wilson make his presentation at CES you would be convinced that there is nothing better, his presentations were masterful. I would make the argument that they are the ultimate marketing company in audio & for that I respect them. I don't question the price as he pointed out it is a custom made bespoke product & if you're successful enough to afford them & you get pleasure from owning them then its no one's business how you spend your money. All I can say to the newer guys in the hobby is you don't have to spend anyware near this kind of money to get world class sound & don't let what these reviewer's have to say by working on your insecurities influence you, most of them can't hear any better then you can.

"A triumph of technology over reason"

Don't know why so many people raging about the price, it's not for casual consumer. The flagships are not really intended to be sold at volume and make profit from, more like showcasing their technologies and driving new development which later on will be passing down the to normal consumer line like the SabrinaX they just rolled out.

A work of art. Absolutely beautiful speaker. The passion just bleeds through.

I'm doing some overtime tomorrrow..... won't pay for a pair of these HOWEVER, the thought of these speakers will help me through the shift. Many thanks for sharing.

My consumer dream product.

owning these is gods way of saying you have too much money give some to the poor and buy a nice $30,000 pair instead lol

Jesus, for $329 thousands i can hire a band to my living room and watch a live concert.

What kind of Marketing Gimmick is this ?. The components used in this speaker are Scan-Speak 32W/4878T11 Revelator Woofer + Scan-Speak 28W/4878T-01 Revelator Woofer + Scan-Speak 18M/4631T Revelator 7" Midrange + Scanspeak Illuminator 12MU/8731T-00, 4" Midrange + Scanspeak Revelator Tweeter . Just cant believe someone pays $330,000 for this marketing gimmick . You could rather look into companies like Vivid audio , B&W Nautilus , ATC , Rockport , Magico ... who design and manufacture their own drivers and everything else and the sound speaks for itself . Thats why you can see even in this manufacturers own youtube channel they have disabled comments .

For $329 they are going to sell a ton of these. Wish I hadn't bought my Panasonics. I'd be all over this.

How can know that Wilson Audio Specialties have gone crazy? When they make speakers that even Michael Fremer himself cannot afford :)

WELL I am glad it’s only $329k because as he said, $350k would have been way too much...

329000 dollars? Did I understand well?

Sometimes I get the idea that a lot of criticism of audio products at this, or even quite a bit less, price range, comes from a place of 'sour grapes' from the criticizer. While Wilson is definitely not my favorite high end speaker brand, I had several chances to hear these correctly set up, and they are pretty f'n impressive. We listened to a wide variety of music, and they reproduced all quite well. From reproducing a full orchestra, with seemingly correct scale, in a huge (3D) soundstage. To being able to reproduce the sound of a triangle, properly placed in back of the orchestra, with proper attack / decay, even when the orchestra is playing fortissimo. Then to hear a lone singer playing a guitar, with the voice coming from the correct height, placed at center stage and correct distance from the mic. Where even though the speakers are 6' tall, they completely disappeared in the room, and all that was there was a guitar and voice coming from between the speakers, and nothing sounding like it was coming from the speakers. Then to hear a jazz quartet, where you can hear every breath into the sax and the sound of the sax keys. Or the sound of the drum stick actually hitting the cymbal and not just the sound of the cymbal istelf, or the pianist muttering to themself while playing. I attend (or at least I did before Covid-19) classical, jazz and rock concerts in all size venues on a pretty regular basis. I grew up in a musical family (my uncle was a jazz pianist who played with Harry James. People like Buddy Rich, Louis Bellson, Rosemary Clooney were always at his house hanging out). So, I think I have a pretty good idea what real music sounds like. And these top level Wilsons due a pretty good job at creating a facsimile of real music. I've also had a chance to hear some of the best professional speakers at one of the best studios in Southern California, and while they can do some things incredibly well, they just can't reproduce the huge soundstage and 3D image that high end speakers can .

For that price, it better have auto-adjust for things like humidity, temperature, air pressure, and AC power fluctuations.

I notice the 4 inch mid is a Scan-Speak illuminator driver, from their flagship range. BUT, unfortunately, the lower mid driver (above woofer assembly) and upper mid (on top) are only from Scan-Speak's Revelator range. They are good drivers but for OVER $300K would you not think Illuminators all round would be in the customers best interest???????? I know they have done work on the magnet structure but for $1/3 Million dollars they could have started with Scan-Speak's best product. I see the new Larsen 9 (by way of one example) manages to use all Illuminator drivers (4 x woofers) for under $15k, just to give an idea of how penny pinching you know who are being. I am astounded,...... flabbergasted in fact.

Great video! The wilson designer needs to size his omega speedmaster moon watch a bit better and take out a link. It might create less microphonics when listening! Besides this is awesome stuff!

Wow! Absolutely stunningly beautiful speakers. I see the XVX speakers as the acme, the zenith, and the pinnacle (did I forget any?) of speaker design. They’re winding their own caps now too? Every single set of spkrs will be extremely tightly matched as I know they are of course anyway, but now with caps most likely within 1%, if not 0.5%, if not even tighter tolerance. I assume they bought the machining from Jensen, as I know they stopped their production of caps as of recently? Anyway, those are definitely some of the most amazing speakers I have ever seen. Thank you very much for the vid, Michael! Always much appreciated. 🎶🔊🙂

What are the resell values? 25% after a year or two?

All I have to say is there are guys out there ACTUALLY PUTTING their money where their mouth is and BUILDING these things and guys just whining about the cost... KUDOS to WILSON who cares how they market! It’s a RISK it’s what we do !

The people who can afford these speakers and will buy them will enjoy listening to music through them and won't at all be concerned by the bitter comments. I'll probably get these to review. It would be fun to invite one of you to my listening room to hear them and post a video of your reaction.

Gorgeousness! Sadly you could buy 2 of my houses for 330k. Out of my league but to those that can afford it I applaud you!

I find the ambition of this great company quite overwhelming.

Sorry for my ignorance, but the contrast between the supercar-like body and the traditional look of tweeter, midrange and woofer hits me. I mean, you can buy million dollar watches, but if your priority is to know what time is it few bucks are enough. If your priority is music quality you surely appreciate a nice dress, but you prefer spend less money with the same "musical" components or the same money with higher quality "musical" components. There are companies that found the way to tilt and direct their cabinets' parts in a more traditional and cheaper way (Vienna Acoustics Klimt the Music for example) with a great result. As a music lover, I don't need a structure made of high technology materials able to cross the tracks and the skies cause this strucure just have to stay a long time in the same place in my listening room.

As a designer of major studios and critical monitoring systems, I am continuously stunned to speechless on the nonsense from the consumer electronics industry. Yes indeed, these speakers have an impeccable finish together with glorious mechanical engineering. Visually, this is what people see, of course...and given the gallons of ink spread across the pages of glossy Hi-Fi magazines, and of course - we all believe what we read -(!) the speakers sound "visually" acceptable to the ears. The eye tricks the ears. Interesting to hear comments on phase and time alignment. All vitally important issues, and rather is more important than ruler flat line frequency response curves, that once highly accurate time alignment is achieved, this will contribute to accuracy in frequency response...but to include the SUM of the two speaker arrays in a L - R stereo array. At $300,000 USD +, this pair is in dangerous territory. For those in the know, it has serious competition in the highly elite world of professional systems that find their way into the ultimate studios of the world. $ 300,000, more or less, will purchase a pair of speakers, each with a weight in the range of 450 Lbs / 205 Kg. But, the story does not end there. These systems will be mounted within the truly massive “boundary layer” wall mounting system that is mechanically isolated from the studio control room. Think here in terms of 5 to 7 Tons, 10,000 Lbs / 4545 Kgs. Mechanically we now have an acoustical system with a mass of: 450 x 2 = 900 Lbs / 410 Kgs + the Boundary Layer iso wall system at 10,000 Lbs / 4545 for a total of: 10,900 Lbs / 4945 KGS. Next the electronics. Unlike the speakers mentioned in this exhaustive video, with its passive Xover weighing in at 45 Lbs / 20.45 Kg, today’s most highly evolved systems will be tri or quad amplified. There is so much that can be accomplished in the digital DSP world that is impossible to achieve in the completely obsolete world of passive crossovers. This company wished to achieve “time alignment” in the physical domain through the physical alignment and offset between the various drivers. The pity is, the entire array of mid and HF pistons are naked dome drivers operating in a vertical column. When one is seated or standing “off axis” the complex and most erratic acoustical combining between the sections in both the vertical and horizontal is most disappointing. This off axis energy has erratic lobing. It is this combined “sloppy” off axis frequency response that contributes to the “room curve” where the on axis power response does not match the overall power response. The better approach is to (i can hear it coming “ouch”) to horn load the mid and HF sections with “wave guides” that optimize (stabilizes) the off-axis power response. Then, with the ability in the digital domain to manipulate and offset the transfer function at the crossover frequency along with the ability to achieve pin perfect phase accuracy at both the crossover frequency while observing and optimizing the “off axis” sum response a truly coherent sum between the two arrays in stereo mode will result in a dimension that is impossible to describe, for it must be experienced. (and as well all know, L/R stereo is far from perfect and is only an illusion) This conversation in the $300,000 range expands into the world of safe power handling. Will the $ 300,000 system in this video operate safely with peaks at or near 135 dB SPL (per enclosure) for over 6 hours? What is the Low Frequency power compression down at 30Hz and below? The real torture specification, that this system would fail, is what is the output in Acoustic Watts for each section on a Long Term Average Basis? Almost no professional maker of speaker systems today discusses Acoustic Watts for it quickly reveals the serious power handling limitations. Even less known, is the performance usually for the woofers, that being “Large Signal” and “Small Signal” power response VS frequency. Visually appealing indeed they are....unique. As for fidelity.... a few years ago, I was in San Francisco with the manager for one of the worlds leading major international music stars. The giant Wilson Audio system was in a large suite. The manager stood at the back of the room for his first demo, approx 25 feet back, with maybe 30 people seated in the room. Mr. X found me in deep conversation with one of the world’s leading studio designers. Mr. X was excited with what he heard. So Mr. X and I returned to the demo suite. This time we sat about 12 feet back from the array in the first row. Within the first 2 to 3 bars, Mr. X turned to me with an astonished (not happy) scowling crunched-up look on his face. “Why did we sit here” he asked. I asked Mr. X, “Where do you sit in the studio’s control room during a recording session”? Mr. X got the message. He kept his check book in his pocket. Later he spent far more with our organization . . . that included our cement mixer (yes there was that 10,000 Lbs / 4545 Kg mounting system) superlative electro-acoustics and speaker systems that created a sound stage that one can only dream about. BTW.... the cost to physically develop the isolation and mounting system for such an elaborate and sophisticated speaker array, runs far less that spending $30K, $40K or more for exotic speaker cables. 2 x mono block $ 100K or so amplifiers to run the speakers shown in this video? Nuts! Active crossovers with sophisticated DSP and 6 or 8 channels of amplifier power will pull less than $ 100K out of your wallet. And how does it sound? Yes...it has “that” . . . that being one does not really talk about the “sound” at all. One talks about the dimensions of music, the spatial depth, the ambience and the feeling one experiences. 20 years later, playing the same recording for the 1000th time, Mr. X still hears and experiences something new on each playback. How much does this cost: “priceless” but over time affordable when professionals are creating the experience based on engineered science, art and a love of music.

Is the bass drivers a dipole configuration the carbon fibre box he said was for the crossover so I can't see them not being dipole

I do like the smaller systems they make!

Crazy.... Even if I won a million dollars my Harbeth’s aren’t going anywhere. 😎

$329,000? I'm laughing so hard I almost peed my pants. "Above 350 is too stratospheric." Bwahahaha. But $329k is just right! This is comedy gold. And to top it all off, they're completely hideous!

I have no one in my life but I have my turntable its their for me

how bout making a cheaper speaker, instead of more and more expensive stuff

Adrian from Audio Excellence!

Two questions and then my analysis. The WAMM Master Chronosonic has a rear-firing midrange, will this XVX also have that? The WAMM comes with 2 Master Subsonic subwoofers as part of a packaged system, will this XVX have a similar subwoofer package? I'm only being honest when I say that I find the market positioning of this product to be awkward. If we look at Wilson's product line, 4 products exceed the 6-figure price mark, qualifying in my mind as end-game reference: WAMM Master Chronosonic, Chronosonic XVX, Alexandria XLF, and Alexx. The XLF used to be the be-all end-all flagship, until Michael Fremer shat on it in the Alexx review. So we can safely rule out the XLF now; the Alexx is cheaper and better. Then why not just go with the Alexx and be done with it? Because Alexx is Daryl Wilson's project, and as talented and well-mentored as he is, Daryl Wilson is no Dave Wilson. Dave Wilson's name itself has gravitas associated with it. So if the WAMM Master Chronosonic represents Dave Wilson's last ditch effort at assaulting the state of the art, the final project he oversaw and placed his stamp of approval on, that goes a long way in justifying its existence and price. Alexx of course, was developed alongside the WAMM, during a time Dave Wilson was still alive and able to give feedback, criticism, and praise. The Chronosonic XVX was not able to enjoy this developmental process because of Dave Wilson's untimely demise. So basically the XVX is a cutdown boot-legged version of the WAMM Master Chronosonic. But isn't that Alexx's role? A cutdown, shorter, less expensive product that had the benefit of be co-developed alongside the WAMM itself, father and son. Oh, I know! The XVX represents the son learning from the father's finished WAMM (because if you remember, the WAMM took too long and the Alexx was released first), and now he can bring a more refined version of the Alexx incorporating more elements of the WAMM. Great story, but does it fulfill that role? Nope. 109k and 329k is simply too big of a price disparity. 145k probably should've been the price of this supposed Alexx Series 2. The XVX is in no man's land. Listen, I wish Wilson Audio all the best, I truly do. But look at what happened to Thiel Audio after Thiel died. Look at what happened to Bohlender Graebener when its founders died. I really don't want Wilson Audio to follow that trend, and I'm rooting for Daryl, John, Peter, Vern, and the whole gang. But Michael Fremer is going to have to write one hell of a piece in the XVX review to preserve the Wilson product line and prestige. Being slightly better than Alexx and slightly worse than WAMM is simply not good enough. People buy stories, not features. Anybody seriously considering the XVX can most likely afford the WAMM. We're not talking W-2 employees here, we're talking high-rollers who don't bat an eye at 7 figure furniture. The WAMM being a 6 figure furniture that also happens to produce state of the art music? That's an easy sell. I don't know how much of Dave Wilson's technical knowledge, fanaticism, and passion passed down to Daryl. Hopefully a lot. But one aspect of the business Daryl absolutely needs to work on is Marketing and Positioning. Good luck again! - Leo

Scale aside, I wonder how different is the XVX's presentation with its new alnico midrange drivers compared to the WAMM

Drivers look like Scanspeak and SB Acoustics.

The covers look like this threatening turret guns.

$150.00 for the book the Wilson way!

My favorite watch, the Omega Moon. Shows he is not a snob, wearing a $2000 watch instead of a $500k tourbion. lol Love to audition those speakers.

Audio Jewelry. Yes they sound amazing, But you can have equally amazing or very nearly as amazing for one tenth or MUCH less of the price. Magico to me represents state of the art. While their top models are incredible, there middle range sits at the sweetspot for price and state of the art performance. I have felt for some time that the financially privileged “High-end” brigade have lost the plot. This industry has lost reason to a bit much greed. They still don’t get why their industry has shrunk so much. It’s because so few people can afford this fantasy Island stuff and see through the marketing. It does not take a Sheik’s fortune to have great sound. Its up to the reviewers at Stereophile and Absolute Sound to focus a lot more attention on real world solutions that sound amazing. I love Michael Fremer. He is funny, witty, and highly intelligent. He is very musically inclined and has a great ear. I also love Jon Valin’s insights. I have great respect for John Atkinson. We look to these guys to find the surprisingly awesome sound at surprisingly affordable prices.

Yeah I am not sure you guys even understand underhung vs overhung. Lets be honest you didn't develop this scan speak did... Yes they are amazing but you only bought the drivers.

I am pretty sure that people who buy them are likely not concerned about the comments indeed. But I am also pretty sure that they represent the exception rather than the rule of the general public who would like to enjoy a good audio experience. It's like saying: you can't afford a Ferrari? Well sorry, a good driving experience is not for you.

Something I'll never get to experience...like the lifestyle of a 1 percenter. Beautiful work, albeit for those that can purchase it. Yes, let's keep it under $350K, more than that is just too expensive.

Those isolation platforms are IKEA $20

all this effort then forget to use sealed cabinet, no sound engineer ever said that ports did not come with compromises.

$329,000... and he says it with a straight face?! 😂😂🤣

He sure likes to say the word “iterate.” “Design” or “create” would probably be more appropriate in the context.

a lifestyle piece

Is that per pair?

Monster of a design. No taste whatsoever. Surely they can learn something from an Italian design perspective. Star Wars come into mind.

Wilson Audio bought their own capacitor farm. Your marketing department would be laughed out of MIT but they would take your money. They took it from Jeffrey.

I see ScanSpeak drivers there. I guess you can make something similar, if you are veeery experimented in woodwork and acoustics.

Without the use first order crossovers or DSP you can't get perfect time coherence by driver alignment alone. The real question is does it matter? Is the human ear sensitive to time alignment? I say no except a possible image focus enhancement. But angels dancing on the heads of pins has never been that important to my idea of sonic realism.

Still not worth the money the price is ridiculous you guys are a joke in my opinion

I’ll stick with my watt/puppy 8s and watch subs.

I just heard these in my opinion they are over price over designed and it sounds like the guys who build these things don’t listen to live music! IMO

speakers is too ugly lol I wouldnt have them even if i could afford them, I'd find something cheaper thats less than $30K for the whole system lol.

money cant buy style or good taste. and ugly is ugly and in this case butt ugly...

If they dumped the VTL amps and preamp with the Chinese made mother boards and used gear like Pass Labs or Bryston or truly great tube gear like Air Tight, the system would sound a hundred times better. The thick white envelope gets the air time and political thumbs up in the audio world. Just look at stereophile or the absolute sound method of operation.

Come on guys! It simply HAS to be said. This is ridiculous, as is the WAMM. At the end of the day these are still just cones-in-a-box. At the end of the day half of the frequency range comes down to one overworked dome tweeter. If you want expansive, realistic reproduction of music in your home, you need line-source planars. Rebuilt Apogees, SoundLabs or Magneplanars, if on a budget. Cones-in-a-box, no matter how many silly tweaks are made, no matter how much they cost, cannot compete with big planars. There I said it. It was my duty. Flame on.

for the happy few, 392000 really!

6:24 is this the worst sales pitch ever?! Someone is apparently willing to give USD330,000+ to get it shipped to Asia but not having a flat or house tall enough for these beasts?! LOL Once I heard a one of the biggest yacht dealers in Monaco saying that when considering purchasing a yacht, one should never go over 10% its net worth meaning that potential owner of 5mil yacht should have at least 50mil in a bank (not including stocks, bonds, real estate etc.). Such jacht can be chartered over the year when owner is not using it and after paying all expenses and annual maintenance, owner still may eventually get some money back before deciding to sell it to someone else (or die). Thinking from the same perspective, it would be reasonable to say that for the hi-end audio gear, such percentage should be rather half of that, around 5%. Considering these speakers price and given that is just one component in someones audio chain, a prospect customer should be at least USD10mil+ well-off in cash to get them in his/her home without doubt of being utterly insane! But since this is completely insane industry with even more insane customers - such calculations should be dropped at the very beginning.

I'd rather have Bose than these

Cuanto humo

Total snake oil. No speaker system is worth over $100,000 - not even close. Diminishing returns sets in at about $10k. I can guarantee you a pair of B&W 803 D3s would sound just as good as these.

Genelec makes better speakers.

They are not attractive speakers.

The world's first snake oil speaker... I bet my Focal Aria 926 will sound much better than this ugly beast...