 Wilson
Audio Specialties Sophia Loudspeakers
For a certain breed of audiophile,
Wilson Audio loudspeakers represent everything that's wrong with the industry. Their
speakers are unabashedly expensive, unconventional, and feature an attention to detail
that goes far beyond reason. After all, who on earth would machine a port tube out of
solid stock?
David Wilson, that's who.
And whether or not you agree with the necessity for such
fanaticism, one thing is obvious: if it didn't have that level of persnikitude, it
wouldn't be a Wilson product.
And that doesn't come cheap.
Which makes it all the more surprising that the first
Wilson speaker that I have fallen completely in love with -- out of all the ones I have
lived with and reviewed, and the ones I have auditioned at shows, and Wilson's Provo
production facility, and even David Wilson's home -- also happens to be the least
expensive in their current line.
Let it be said, however, that the Sophias -- a Wilson
product to the core -- earned this distinction through the application of the company's
usual values, not from trying to tone any of them down.
It's hard to imagine that even the most cynical audiophile
could fault Wilson for that.
It’s better to be looked over than overlooked
The Sophia bears more than a passing resemblance to the
WATT/Puppy's cabinet shape -- although the Sophia's cabinet is a single enclosure rather
than the two-part assembly belonging to its venerable stable mate. But don't let the
family resemblance fool ya -- the Sophia's enclosure is anything but derivative.
Wilson has always advocated the use of advanced materials
in cabinet construction and the Sophia is no exception. The speaker's sides and bracing
are composed of what the company dubs "M" material: a composite that consists of
cellulose-fiber matrices bound in phenolic resin. Sheets of the resulting material are
laminated into the speaker's chassis panels.
The cabinets’ woofer baffles and bases are assembled
out of Wilson's "X" composite, which exhibits even greater rigidity. This is the
latest iteration of the mineral-loaded methacrylate material that the company has been
refining for many years. After the cabinets are assembled, they are rubbed down, primed,
spray-painted with automotive lacquers, and clear-coated. The resulting finish is
spectacular and deep (many colors are available).
Now Wilson's critics are probably crowing at this point
that all of that hand labor is the reason the speakers don't cost $2500, but the process
doesn't just make 'em pretty (which they are), it makes the cabinets phenomenally dead
acoustically. Could the company skip all the finish work? Sure, but the cabinets would not
sound the same -- and then the speakers wouldn't be Wilsons.
As is the company's custom, the Sophia utilizes the same
Focal inverted-dome tweeter Wilson has used in its home-theater speakers. The tweeter's
titanium diaphragm is coated with "tioxid 5," a damping deposit said to
"remove" the metallic sound many audiophiles object to in metal-dome tweeters.
The tweeter also employs a foam surround, dual magnets, and a rear-radiation damping
chamber.
The midrange driver is a 7" Scan-Speak paper-cone
design that has been grooved with a radiating pattern, as has been the dust cap. These
grooves are filled with a damping material.
The 10" long-throw aluminum woofer is reflex-loaded
(the Sophia has a 3"-diameter aluminum port on its rear panel -- actually, there's
also a 1" port back there for the midrange driver).
The Sophia's crossover is potted and, therefore, a mystery.
Wilson ain't talkin', either -- the company will only say it is constructed of
high-quality parts. You'd probably have guessed that from the sound, anyway.
The Sophia has a single pair of custom speaker terminals on
the rear panel. The speaker sits firmly on elaborate (and impressive) spikes -- long a
Wilson trademark.
It is better fun to punt than to be punted
I actually had the Sophias for a while before I set 'em up
-- which was driving me crazy, I might add. The delay was caused by the fact that I wanted
to experience the same sort of set-up procedure that any other customer would, and it took
Wilson Audio rep, Peter McGrath, a while to make it to New York. A lot of audiophiles get
upset when they read of visiting audio celebrities setting up gear for reviewers, but
Wilson has insisted that personalized set-up be part of the company's regular way of doing
business from the beginning, when David Wilson would personally set up every pair of WAMMs
he sold. If you buy a pair of Sophias, your dealer (who has probably been trained by
McGrath) will do the honors -- and you won't have to wait six months, either!
Here's the Wilson method of speaker location discovery: The
customer sits in a comfy chair and the setter-upper (SU) stands against the wall he or she
is facing. While talking, the setter-upper takes half steps out from the wall, while the
customer listens for the SU's voice to lose its chesty, near-boundary affect, at which
point the SU marks that point on the floor with masking tape. The SU then walks further
into the room, continuing to speak -- at some point the SU's voice loses clarity and
develops a hollow tinge. That spot is marked, too.
This creates a band running from one side wall to the other
in the front of the room. Now the SU -- starting first from one side wall and then the
other -- repeats the walking and talking process within that band, marking the two points
where his voice "clears" and where it goes "swimmy."
This is particularly useful if your room is not perfectly
symmetrical (mine isn't). It gives you two zones of optimum sound -- the next task is to
determine where within them the loudspeakers will function best.
The SU now lays out a grid within the two zones. Playing a
recording of a solo instrument or voice through one channel at a time, the SU will move
the speaker grid-by-grid forward and back (and then side to side) until the perfect
combination between clarity and tonality is achieved. The process is repeated on the other
side of the room.
The usual result is a wide isosceles triangle that
encompasses the two speakers and your listening chair -- possibly with the speakers
further apart than you would have ever placed them by "eye" (certainly true in
my listening room where the Sophias ended with a staggering 9’ hole between 'em). The
next step is to toe the speakers in, and the Wilson way is to point them straight toward
the listener's ears so that only the speakers' faces are visible (no sidewall should be
visible).
I have gone through this process four times now and each
time it has resulted in wide, deep, tonally correct sound. I once heard David Wilson refer
to it as "eliminating the room from the equation," but it seems to me to do the
opposite -- to identify the room's contribution to the sound and then work within its
limitations to allow the speakers to do the best job they can. But whether you see the
room as half-full or half-empty, the process works extremely well.
Facts are better than dreams
Once Peter McGrath and I had the speakers tuned in, we got
right to the important part of the afternoon: listening to music. Peter always brings
along a passel of great-sounding discs -- some recorded by him, others commercial releases
I've never heard. We started with one of Peter's own discs, a piano recital by Emanuele
Arciuli honoring Thelonious Monk. Arciuli commissioned 19 composers to set variations and
ruminations on the great jazz pianist's "Round Midnight," considered by many to
be jazz's national anthem. The stylistic span of the treatments is immense -- as you might
expect when you consider that the arrangers ranged from hip jazz icons like Fred Hersch
and Uri Caine to contemporary classical giants like Milton Babbit, John Harbison, and
Frederic Rzewski.
Initially, however, I found it impossible to concentrate on
either Arciuli's astonishingly powerful playing or the wonderful music he had
commissioned. I was agog at the concert-sized Steinway that had suddenly materialized in
the center of my listening room! (Hmm, a 9' Steinway would just barely fit
between the speakers. Coincidence? You be the judge.)
And I don't use the word materialize casually. The
sound was brilliant, ringing, and solid -- I could all but feel the hammers striking the
strings, and I could (or at least, it sounded as if I could) actually hear the
tones strike the lid and bounce off it straight at my listening chair.
And yet, I've heard this kind of all but physical sound
before, especially from the Wilson WATT/Puppy Vs -- what was new to me in a speaker the
size and cost of the Sophia was the remarkable cohesiveness of the sound. From the highest
string overtones to the lowest fundamentals (and even the resonance that surrounded each
note), the sound was all of one piece.
But it was not homogenized. The Sophias perform a
trick I have almost never heard a loudspeaker pull off: they recreate spatial information
so uncannily realistically that I could have sworn I was hearing the spacing of the
individual string clusters that created each note. Now, I've heard speakers and systems
that soundstage holographically before, but it has always been "holographically,
considering that it's a reproduction of the real thing." The combination of the
effortless physicality of the sound and the sense of real space, depth, and breadth in the
reproduction of Arciuli's playing eliminated that sense of "being there once
removed" to an astonishing degree.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial
reasons
Lest anyone assume I was assembling a
"cost-no-logic" audio system, I should hasten to point out that the components I
had paired the Sophias with, while certainly not inexpensive, were far from extravagant:
Musical Fidelity's Tri-Vista stack of SACD and integrated amp, connected with Shunyata Research
Aries interconnects and Constellation Series speaker cables -- a system that
essentially matches the cost of the speakers.
However, while Peter McGrath seemed happy with the sound we
were getting, he proposed a shocking -- scandalous by audiophile standards, even --
notion. "Got any great-sounding cheap gear?"
"I bought the Linn Classik I reviewed," I
replied.
"Perfect! Let's hook it up to 'em," Peter urged
me.
I couldn't just then. I was too entranced by what we were
hearing to change a thing, but I promised I would try that very combo before writing a
review.
Even if you believe that the speakers are the most
important article in any high-resolution audio system, that seems far too unbalanced an
approach to consider serious. Yet, when I followed through on my promise to Peter, I was
amazed at what I heard.
The 75Wpc CD player/tuner/integrated amp drove the Sophias
with authority and finesse. The bass was deep, the midrange sang like a bell, and the top
end was clear and extended -- maybe it didn't have that same level of microtonal precision
(or that preternatural sense of tones in space) as the Musical Fidelity/Shunyata combo,
but it was completely satisfying. In fact, if an audio store had convinced me to spend
$15,000 on a system by combining the Linn, Shunyata Constellation speaker cables, and the
Sophias, I would quite likely thwart their long-term upgrade strategy by staying right
where I started. I could work very hard and pay a lot of loot for only incrementally
better sound.
That is, if I weren't the kind of obsessive audiophile that
I am, that's how I might react. But I am picky and I do love what the Sophias do
when paired with products of similar pedigree, so I reveled in the sound of the Tri-Vistas
again after being so completely amazed at the doughty little Linn.
Good taste is better than bad taste
The Tri-Vista SACD
player, for instance, revealed just how air-like and extended the Sophia's upper
frequencies sounded, especially when playing DSD-mastered SACDs. The grainlessness of
SACD's upper regions is a continuing source of delight for me, especially on such superb
recordings as Telarc's recent celebration of Hovhaness (Mysterious Mountain; Hymn
to Glacier Peak; Mount St. Helens; Storm on Mount Wildcat [Telarc SACD
60604]) by Gerard Schwartz and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. "Love Song
to Hinako," the andante movement of Hymn to Glacier Peak gestures a
duet for flute and oboe that soars above the plucked strings like a sigh. On the Sophias,
it was rendered with a purity that never failed to prickle my skin with goosebumps.
Not that the speakers couldn't deliver true power. The roar
and clatter of the full orchestra that recreates Mount St. Helen's full-bore eruption was
delivered without compression or limits -- and that with an amplifier that delivers far
less than the 1kW that Musical Fidelity's Antony Michaelson now reckons
"sufficient" for high-resolution reproduction! (Now that he's marketing the
1000W kW amplifier, that is.)
Just as I was preparing to write about the Sophias, I
received two discs that showed different areas where the speakers excelled. The first was
Carla Bley's new CD, Looking For America [WATT/31 CD], which, huge fan that I am,
immediately became the most played disc chez Wes.
The centerpiece of Looking For America has to be the
22-minute-long "The National Anthem," a distorted fun-house mirror reflection of
"The Star Spangled Banner." The piece was recorded in October 2002 and it
reflects the darkening national mood as the country careened toward war and the debates on
the country's future actions turned rancorous. Yet, "The National Anthem" is far
from dark or bitter; it is supremely American music -- full of the same refiner's fire as
the work of Charles Ives, who himself smelted the country's zeitgeist into a
uniquely Yankee art.
"The National Anthem" is pure Bley -- it is
buoyant and full of energy, marching along to a martial beat laid down by the phenomenal
Billy Drummond and motored by Steve Swallow's burbling bass bottom end. Upon this
rock-solid foundation, Bley adds her colors: some bright trumpet splashes from Lew Soloff
and crew, a generous dollop of buzz-saw trombone (Gary Valente out in front of a
four-chair section), and the seasoning of Wolfgang Pusching and Andy Sheppard fronting a
sax section. Add Bley's own piano, daughter Karen Mantler's organ, and Don Alias'
percussion and the sound opens up to a scale few jazz artists can even conceive these days
-- and the band takes our venerable anthem places it never dreamt of, I'm sure (including
cameo appearances from "O Canada" and the opening theme from Also Sprach
Zarathustra).
In places, Bley features the familiar melody with the
reverent hush of a grateful citizen, in others the piece metastasizes into something
disturbingly dark and frightful -- but it always sounds recognizably present. As
usual, Tom Mark and Steve Swallow have mastered the disc to present that astounding power
and impact that only a jazz big band can deliver -- and it's a sound that few speaker
systems can deliver without reaching a point where they just can't get that last bit of
dynamic range out of the enclosure.
Not the Sophias, however. They delivered everything -- from
Drummond's rim shots to the brass choir's most extreme tutti with remarkable ease
and grace. Live? It sounded better than live -- I've never seen the band in
a venue with a PA that could deliver its sound without distortion or limitation. It
sounded as immediate as a microphone diaphragm's perspective (actually, even better than
that, since Gary Valente has been known to shred microphone diaphragms with his immense,
immediate sound). It was sound that seemed to have no limits.
The other disc that kept jostling Looking For America
out of the Tri-Vista's drawer was a rough mixdown CD of the Persuasions' new recording of
classic R&B songs, slated to be released by Chesky records in September. I was present
at the recording sessions and watched the group stand in a circle about five feet back
from the centrally located microphone and sing a diverse program of great songs. I,
of course, was seated a lot further than five feet away from the group, so what I heard in
the church those days was far different from what I hear now on the disc. But the
essential warmth and humanity of those five fabulous singers comes through the recording
with a fidelity that seems even truer than the sound I heard from 30 feet away.
More realer than the real thing? Perhaps that's not conceptually possible, but I believe
the disc is truer than what I heard from where I was sitting -- and, at the same time,
merely a different expression of that same truth.
And what did those microphones capture? A sound that
transmuted five voices into one seamless whole that encompasses a huge range of tones --
an alchemical reaction that converted the pain of human experience into wisdom and
comfort. It caught the urgency of Jerry Lawson's throaty tenor, Jayotis Washington's
sublime falsetto, Jimmy Hayes' fat-bottomed bass chops, and all the lovely harmony you
could pray for.
For the length of a CD, it captured as much of heaven as we
could ever ask. At least, that's what I heard through the Sophias -- and I didn't have the
heart to hear it any other way.
I don’t know very much, but what I do know I know
better than anybody
I didn't have any speakers on hand that remotely begged to
be compared to the Sophias, but I'm not sure that's even germane. I have heard speakers
that bettered the Sophias in one particular area or another -- I think the Dynaudio
Evidence Temptations went considerably deeper with even greater impact, and I have heard
Wilson's own WATT/Puppys and Grand SLAMMs capture even more skin-tingling transient
sparkle. I could also probably root through my memory palace and find tiny areas here and
there where other speakers actually bettered the Sophias (although not by much and,
probably, not without considerable qualification).
I'm not even saying that the Sophia is the best loudspeaker
I've ever heard (although I have certainly run that thought past myself a time or two
during the audition period). I'm simply saying I've never heard a speaker that combined
the Sophia's considerable roster of strengths with so few ticks checked off in the weaknesses
column. It doesn't do anything egregious to the sound and it does so many things so
darn well.
Further, the speaker never succumbs to the Frankenstein
syndrome -- you know, where the bass is wonderful, but not cut from the same cloth as the
midrange or high frequencies. The Sophia's sound is continuous and cohesive. It's
remarkably satisfying -- and thrilling as all get out.
A pair of the Sophias cost almost $12,000. There -- that's
my biggest criticism. But name a loudspeaker that comes close to the same performance
that's cheaper. I can't. In fact, most speakers I like almost as much cost
considerably more.
If, like me, you can't afford 'em, that thought probably
won't offer a lot of comfort. However, if you can afford to contemplate buying a
pair without weeping -- say it means driving the same car for an extra year or two, or
spending a vacation at home rather than in Cancún this year -- I can certainly think of
worse things than buying a pair of Wilson Sophias.
Not buying them, for instance.
...Wes Phillips
wes@onhifi.com
Wilson Audio Specialties
Sophia Loudspeakers
Price: $11,700 USD per pair.
Warranty: Five years parts and labor.
Wilson Audio Specialties
2233 Mountain Vista Lane
Provo, Utah 84606
Phone: (801) 377-2233
E-mail: was@wilsonaudio.com
Website: www.wilsonaudio.com
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