It’s kosher
To hear pure ambience, I played an Allen
Sherman cut, recorded at a party some 50 years ago. “Sir Greenbaum’s Madrigal”
(Now That Sounds Kosher; Shout! Factory DK30336) reeks of atmosphere. You are
transported to an intimate club, swept up in the laughter. You picture the cast
of Mad Men, skinny ties and martinis and too much cigarette smoke. That’s just
the space around Sherman. His New York Yiddishe bocher voice, with a bit of a
rasp, enters your room, his plump presence merging wholly formed with height,
depth and width commensurate with the actual person. The speakers implore you
to close your eyes, to savor the experience. The word ‘uncanny’ pops into your
head. The Alexia is doing things, it, well, shouldn’t hard rock, too, was
well-served by the speakers. Reissued to mark its 40th Anniversary, Nuggets
(Elektra/ Rhino 8122797112) is one of the greatest compilations ever, even
though (or because) it focuses tightly on obscure 1960s garage rock. One of the
standouts is ‘Open My Eyes’, a young Todd Rundgren fronting Nazz, and
delivering a riff to challenge ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’.
It opens with piano followed by vicious,
relentless fuzz-tone and whiny Fartisa organ, a juggernaut of
proto-psych-metal. Through the wide-open aperture that is the Alexia, the song
acquires majesty even greater than its devotees imaged. It’s like seeing David
Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia in Super Panavision after a 12in TV, then a standard
so inimitable so faultless, so warm and personal and heart - tuggingly
magnificent that it is one of my Desert Island Discs. “Manhattan” from Ella
Fitzgerald Sings The Rodgers & Heart Song Book (Verve 537 258-2) features
woodwinds and strings as lush, seductive and joyous as any to be found behind
Sinatra, Cole or Martin.
Back
view shows connections of lower-to-upper sections, rear-firing port, midrange
vents and access to crossover elements. Concern for finish extends even to the
back panel
Via the Alexias, a liquidity and an
opulence emanates from the speakers, the music possessing a silkiness that
contrasts with Ella’s crystalline vocals, recorded with such lucidity that
every minuscule, fleeting quaver – this woman is the antidote to Piaf – is
detectable with a pay-off in unparalleled authenticity. I’ve played this song
so many times that I sometimes worry if I have the musical equivalent of OCD,
yet still the Alexias uncovered evanescent wisps of sound so fragile that the
orchestra should have swamped them.
A misnomer then?
Curiously, in addition to being a name
favored by royals, ‘Alexia’ is also a brain disorder which affects the victim’s
ability to read, also known as ‘word blindness’. But thank goodness for this
amusing misnomer: otherwise, I would have to declare this speaker as ‘perfect’.
And we all know that perfection simply cannot exist. Right?
The verdict
Having spent 25 years listening to ‘small’
Wilson, I recognized the Alexia instantly as the compact model Dave was
destined to design. Why? Because it is literally – a scaled-down XLF, the
latter embodying the current evolutionary state of his philosophy since the
first WAMM. It is to the XLF what Ferrare’s 458 is to the F12, what Le Serre
Nuove is to Ornellaia: a half-pint miracle. Say ‘hello’ to my new reference.
Sound quality: 90%
Lab report
Wilson Audio Alexia
Wilson Audio claims 90dB sensitivity for
the Alexia which accords very well with our measured pink noise figure,
averaged for the review pair over the range 400 Hz to 20 kHz, of 89.8dB.
Although this sensitivity isn’t particularly high for a system of this size,
very low impedance is used to help attain it. Wilson Audio claims a nominal
impedance of 4ohm with a minimum of 2ohm at 80 Hz but our measurement recorded
an even lower minimum of 1.8ohm at 85 Hz. Impedance phase angles are quite well
controlled but even so the EPDR (equivalent peak dissipation resistance) falls
to a scary 0.9ohm at 65 Hz. This makes the Alexia the toughest Wilson Audio
speaker to drive that we’ve measured in recent years – the Alexandria XLF’s
minimum EPDR, for instance, was a much more amp-friendly 1.7ohm, and the Sophia
3’s 1.6ohm.
Frequency response errors, over the same
frequency range, of 
3.6dB and 3.9dB respectively are modest for a passive speaker and the on-axis
frequency response trend (measured at the height of the top edge of the
midrange enclosure) is essentially flat in trend, with only the mildest of
presence band depressions. Pair matching was a little less impressive at 1.4dB. Above the audible range the response extends to beyond 40
kHz, while our diffraction-corrected near-field bass measurement showed the
response to be a creditable 35 Hz (-6dB re. 200 Hz) – payback for the good
sensitivity and that very low impedance. Just an in the Alexandria XLF, the new
soft-dome tweeter displays a high-Q resonance at around 15 kHz in the
cumulative spectral decay waterfall and some low-level modes are also visible
in the low treble. KH
The
forward response is extremely extended (bass and treble) and essentially flat
in trend
Cabinet
resonances are well controlled. There is just a hint of treble dome breakup at
15 kHz
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Specifications
§ Web:
www.wilsoaudio.com
§ Price:
$74,250
§ Impedance
modulus min/max (20 Hz-20 kHz): 1.8ohm @ 85 Hz – 9.7ohm @ 20 kHz
§ Impedance
phase min/max (20 Hz-20 kHz): -46o @ 57Hz – 34o @ 3.3 kHz
§ Pair
matching (400 Hz-20 kHz):  1.4dB
§ LF.HF
extension (-6dB ref 200 Hz/10 kHz): 35 Hz / >49 kHz/ >40 kHz
§ THD
100 Hz/ 1 kHz/ 10 kHz (for 90dB SPL/1m): 0.2% / 0.5% / 0.3%
§ Dimensions
(HWD): 1353 x 387 x 537mm
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