Sonic Succession
The new Chronosonic XVX speakers from Wilson Audio Specialties provide clarity that is the stuff of legend and legacy.
THE WILSON AUDIO SPECIALTIES WAMM Master Chronosonic loudspeakers occupy the very top rung of the audio-perfectionist ladder, and listeners who have experienced a pair of the US$850,000 giants might rightly regard them as the finest-sounding speakers in the world. The crowning achievement of the company’s late co-founder and industry veteran, Dave Wilson, the WAMM (Wilson Audio Modular Monitor) set the bar for an only slightly more earthbound flagship created by his son and design successor, Daryl Wilson.
At US$329,000, the Chronosonic XVX employs much of the same technology as the company’s original masterpiece, including the 10.5- and 12.5inch woofers, critical crossover components and connectors, but features all-new seven-inch drivers with Alnico (aluminium, nickel, cobalt) magnets for the critical mid-range frequencies, the accurate reproduction of which is a Wilson signature.
A four-inch upper mid-range driver and a one-inch silk-fabric tweeter reproduce higher frequencies with transparent ease, while another tweeter firing from the rear replicates the ambience of the recording venue. Atop the main cabinet are four smaller modules containing a single driver each, stacked in a novel array that can be adjusted to optimise sound, depending on listener distance from the speakers, seat height and acoustic variables of the room.
The benefits of such precision are uncanny realism, microscopic detail and an ability to place life-sized instruments and voices within the room. Part of the realism is from Wilson’s enclosures. Made from proprietary composites engineered to be sonically and mechanically inert, they eliminate resonances and other distortions typical of cabinets constructed of wood, aluminium or medium-density fibreboard.