Does Anyone Not Like Wilson Speakers?

[jimtranr]

I never owned a Wilson speaker system, but in 1982 heard the initial iteration of the WAMM driven, IIRC, by Classé electronics at Garland Audio in San Jose. It impressed me at the time as a system capable of "big", detailed, and dynamic performance, but ultimately sterile in its communication of music. How much that had to do with the speaker system/electronics interface, I can't say.

I'd worked at Garland from 1977 to 1980 (John G. had hired me away from a labor relations job), and in 1979 took, at Dave Wilson's request, a pair of Maggie Tympani 1Ds to his home in Marin County's Terra Linda to demo them in a not-quite-large-enough living room that required a fair amount of panel twiddling to get them to "lock in." Dave and his wife listened intently to a number of recording tracks, and I recall that he was quite impressed with the 1Ds' midrange. But after the demo concluded, I returned to San Jose with the 1Ds in my station wagon. He was looking for more "whomp" in the low end...something that showed up in the WAMM when I heard it in 1982.