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Wilson Alexandra XLF speakers £200K who is crazy enough to purchase ?
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Disbeliever is new, and apparently unaware (till now) that there is gear out there that costs as much as a nice house.
The thing that kills me is that most people complain about the inevitable demise of this hobby. I say hats off to all those who have spent not only $200K on speakers, but atleast that much on floor space, room treatments, amplification, source(s) and cabling as well.
The point most seem to miss that it is not necessary to spend £200K on monster speakers in domestic surroundings to obtain accurate sound or as Quad say " closest approach to the original sound."
Surely you jest.
QUADs are great, among the best, for string quartets, lute songs, etc.
Not at all "the closest approach" for large pipe organ, or large orchestra pieces or even very dynamic grand piano.
I have heard nearly all the QUADs (just not the newest taller one), and I helped set up a pair of Alexandria IIs and helped dial them in, and measured a remarkably clean 95 dBA/slow weighted from 20 feet away on some electric blues I was pleased to learn Peter McGrath carried around with him.
Not with QUADs do you get that.
Some people, and not just Yanks, have large rooms they want to fill with undistorted realistic sound.
That doesn't make them "Crazy." And I am sure Cee-Lo agrees!
JM
I once owned a pair of Quad 57s. Great mid-range, great mid-range, great mid-range. Sold them w/i a year.
I found the 57 unlistenable due to the beaming effect. Had the 63's for a few years but lacked bass, etc subs could not fix. Unfortunately Quads never met their advertising slogan " closest approach to the original sound" TLS box speakers are the best for me. do not like planar speaker either.
Edits: 08/16/12
The beaming effect also bothered me. The Quads have a narrow sweet spot, something not often mentioned in discussion.
Today I heard a pair of B&W CM8s at a local sound shop. Nice speaker but I can't say it wowed me. I might drag my a/d/s 1230s there for a shootout. If the CM8s win, I suspect it won't be by much.
I am not saying Quads give the "closest approach to the original sound"only that they use this ad. slogan , which is what some of us are trying to achieve with mch SACD. I used to have Quad ELS and found they would never integrate properly with a sub to give a good accurate bass performance when needed . I do not like subs at all with any speaker and prefer floor standing TLS speakers unfortunately the very best ones have to be custom built but still cost a hell lot less than £200K.
Edits: 08/14/12
You merely asked a question that implies that one must be "crazy" to spend $200K on a pair of speakers.
I still think £200 K is a crazy price for a pair of speakers to use at Home, maybe if you own a Castle.
should immediately ban the production of all Rolls-Royce, Aston-Martin, Bentley and Lotus motorcars on the island. £300 K is a crazy price to pay for a car.
Unless of course the owner can prove he or she owns a castle.
That will fix 'em!
I dont think anybody can just walk in and buy a Rolls. Dominique Lapierre, the famous author of the book 'City of Joy' once tried and failed, I hear.
Cheers
Bill
and stack inventory of that model to the ceiling?
Anyone with cash can buy a Rolls. Just look at all the rappers, pimps and ball players that drive them.
The stupid British Government does not know which day of the week it is, could not deport known terrorists because they got the dates wrong also supports them & family with Houses & benefits due to corrupt EU Human rights act No wonder Britain has such a huge deficit can not stop wasting money..Furthermore allowed Rolls & Bentley to be bought by the Krauts who are laughing all the way to the Bank.
After all, did not some of the airplanes that bombed London have BMW engines?
What goes around comes around, tee hee.
BTW: the famed BMW logo represents the spinning propeller of a WWI German fighter plane.
JM
BTW: the famed BMW logo represents the spinning propeller of a WWI German fighter plane.
That's urban myth.
In my book BMW stands for Bavarian Murder Wagon , serves me right for buying two, had to take Dealer to Court unfortunately could not take very arrogant BMW to Court, but in the end I made them change both warranty & service methods , but of course eventually they reverted back again to their bad ways. Germans are laughing at the stupidity of the British all the way to the Bank, they have won the economic battle our roads are full of German cars homes full of Bosch domestic appliances etc.
so anyone that wants them and is NOT purchasing them at your price just MIGHT be "crazy"!
"One this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" - Michael McClure
Edits: 08/12/12
The (insured) shipping, import duty, and VAT might raise if from $200K to £200K.
If the shipping and insurance was 5%, import duty was 10%, add 20% VAT and you're up to $277K, or about £177K.
I don't really know what the actual rates are, just guessing. I do know some countries charge 100%~500% import duties on items like this.
I don't know the precise numbers but generally stuff imported from the US costs the same in £ as it does in $ numerically.
I noticed that on Eminence woofers sold in the UK.
Even minus that stuff the exchange rate calculator just checked sez 200,000.00 GBP = 312,600.62 USD.
So, $200,000 sounds a LOT better than the GBP price. I screwed up and got it wrong in my first post about who might be crazy.
Crazy!
"One this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" - Michael McClure
...bought a McClaren F1 for $1M and doesn't care what us working stiffs think anyways?
Cheers,
Presto
Company = Wilson Audio
Model = Alexandria XLF
Best to get it right, Disbeliever.
Regards,
Geoff
I had a look behind the speaker and there is some interesting engineering going on.
Typically we see a trickle-down effect with ideas tested and proven in the statement products getting a guernsey on the cheaper models in the manufacturer's range. Although it has not been stated, I am sure we will see the silk-dome tweeter in the big Alexandrias used in their other models.
You can see the back of the XLFs in the link below.
Regards,
Geoff
I find it remarkable, so here I am, remarking, that even people within the audio hobby are fast to disparage ultrapremium-priced audio gear. As you just did, with the epithet "Crazy."
I don't know whether you think that the XLFs are poor value for money--or even a "ripoff"--or just that normal people should not need a loudspeaker of the XLF's capability. And that really doesn't matter.
If people looked at it at least semi-objectively, I think that such expenditures are as defensible as many other modern luxuries.
What does a large heated indoor swimming pool cost? I see those mentioned in the real-estate ads.
If a successful person had a racing yacht as a hobby, would you say he was crazy? It's hard to get a racing yacht, (a yacht, not an open dingy) for under $200,000, equipped.
How about fishing boats? Sure, you can dangle a line off a home-made raft a la Huck Finn, but a serious saltwater fishing boat can easily run over $200,000.
Boats (unless you are retired, and live on the water) get used 10 to 20 times a year (at least up in New England). A good stereo will get used 200 times a year or more.
The sales figure I quote above may be out of date, they could have sold more pairs of XLFs than that, or, that was the big batch of pre-orders from the fans who wanted an upgrade.
I know someone with a pair on order.
Ciao,
John
I get the sense Wilson could cut the crap and just slap a 2 million dollar tag and those babies and we'd be listening to you defend the price, saying that a private beachfront home at Tahoe can go for 150 million dollars or that someone may pay 400 million for a converted hotel/condo unit in New York.
I'm for a free market and all, but as a consumer, who are you to step on my idea of crazy?
At some point, we all have our 'crazy' line.
Do you have one?
By the way, Larry Ellison's $400 million into sail boat racing....crazy.
Not only wrong, but insulting.
I helped Peter McGrath assemble and dial-in a pair of Alexandria IIs. By my semi-educated estimate, there was more money spent on the frame that provides for the fore-and-aft adjustments and rake angles for the midrange and tweeter modules than is spent on many entire loudspeakers costing more than $5,000 a pair. Precise machining like on an old-fashioned German camera, and first-class paint in places that nobody who didn't help put the speakers together will ever see.
Seeing as the shipping weight of the crates was 2,250 pounds, and given that brick-and-mortar audio stores need substantial margins to stay in business, I'd say that what Wilson charges its dealers is fair.
But then again, I don't blink at pipe organs that cost over $1 million or even more. Nice things cost money.
I am not even driven crazy by Pichon-Longueville 1982 at $1400 a bottle.
I just can't afford it.
JM
As an audio enthusiast, the OP felt the cost of a product had passed the 'crazy' point.
It's arbitrary.
He's right, your are right....all with our without the need for apologizing for the 'fairness' of the cost of Wilson, Harbeth, or other products.
Producers of things are free to charge what the market will bear - this was a case of the OP thinking how 'crazy' prices have gotten within his own hobby.
Like I said, make them 2 million dollars, no difference to me.
No crazy point for you? No point at which you think the hobby may be skewing away from its base?
At some point out there, the value/Stockholm Syndrome point exists for most.
There are apologists for 5,000 dollar shoes, 30,000 dollar purses and 300,000 dollar watches, too. No problem, just don't pretend we are talking "value" since "nice things cost money." One doesn't validate the other.
Since you helped set up a pair of Alexandria II's, I will give you credit for having an idea of their perceived value - so, will ask in a different way: At what price point would have said, "Peter, no effing way!" $3 million? 6 million? A billion? No personal line in the sand? Only "whatever they get is fair?"
_
On a side note, I do resent some wine prices. They have been skewed by an avaricious culture of consuming labels rather than appreciating the product, with China consuming more '82 Petrus each month than was ever made in total.
Wine pharisees are a pox upon the hobby. At least have the class to know what you are swilling, fellas.
You should be able to afford Pichon-Longueville. The market has been overrun by dumbasses who drink as they are told.
Some idiot who can't tell Cisco from Cheval Blanc (who happens to have a daddy on the Politburo) who makes a show of ordering the most expensive thing France can send is not part of the hobby, to me.
Wasted juice.
At this point, we deserve the Hardy Rodenstocks and Randy Kurniawans of the world.
I think that (at the time) $165,000 for a pair of Alexandria IIs was reasonable, in that applying the usual metric on retail price versus direct manufacturing cost, the dollar amounts seemed plausible.
Specifically: $165,000/pr. (retail price includes delivery of more than a ton of freight, literally, and one to two days of setup by a factory representative) equals $99,000 dealer cost. 20% of $165,000 equals $33,000, which is the ESTIMATED direct cost of the two loudspeakers and their crates.
On the $66,000 difference, Wilson has to keep a mid-sized factory open, pay all overhead, pay salaries and benefits for 48 employees, print catalogs, maintain a website, pay for US and foreign trade shows, pay for magazine advertising, and hope for a decent profit for the owners.
I was told by an authority (Ken Kessler) that in retrospect, due to inadequate cost accounting and very inadequate cost controls, QUAD lost money on every ESL 57 and 63 ever sold, which positioned them for takeover. I don't blame Dave Wilson for wanting to avoid that fate.
I think that the Alexandria II and the XLF are reasonably priced when viewed as "build-ups" of the smaller loudspeakers in the line, keeping in mind that when you scale up anything from a Quonset Hut to a boat, as the linear dimensions increase, costs go up not by the square but by the cube--this is known as the "Size Effect."
At what point would I say that the XLF cost too much? I think anything over $225,000, given that the bass module has 14% more capacity than the A-II's, and that the new tweeters might not cost more than the old ones (even though there is the NRE cost to amortize over a run of what might not be more than 100 pairs).
Other things? I have a problem with two-ways that cost more than $20,000, especially if you can tuck one under one arm. I have trouble with tube amps based on designs more than 40 years old but which cost more than a nice little Acura car. I have problems with phono cartridges that cost more than $65--for me. Other people can spend what they want.
I do not have a problem with a decent French or German violin's costing more than $25,000 based more on the way it plays rather than provenance.
I wear a watch I bought for $20 at Target that is made by the Coleman lantern and icebox company. But I lack fashion sense, viz. the leaping-bass(I think) shirt I was wearing when JA surprised me by taking a photo and then publishing it.
I have a real problem with a duplicate original of Munch's "The Scream" costing more than $100,000,000.
Cheers,
JM
Thanks
I will open a reasonably priced pinot noir in your honor this evening!
And I will open a reasonably priced bottle of.......
Ripple
Boones Farm
Annie Greensprings
Thunderbird
MD 20/20
Wild Irish Rose
....for you.
Choose your poison ;)
My Brother-In-Law and his brother have a bottle of Pagan Pink Ripple that has become a surprise goof gift that they give back and forth at very irregular intervals in the guise of a much more appropriate gift.
As a long time connoisseur of the chemical I have openly threatened to drink that sucker if ever left in the room alone with it.
Nah, not a drop in sight. I used to be quite a big fan of the stuff back in the day. Red Ripple, Panama Red, and a handful of "Reds" (Seconal) would fix me up for the evening, but that was then .....
... these days I'd have to pay a visit to the closest "fortified wine" store in order to find some. Table wine from one of the local wineries is as close as I've been able to get for the past thirty years.
People are just pissed off that Mr.Wilson can sell 195k speakers and they can't.
...that certainly is part of it...
all the folks who regularly come out the woodwork to fault the highest performance gear? Most likely who have never actually heard the item in question.
I'm sure they know better. :)
... well-to-do people are free to spend their money on whatever they wish. They don't need my approval or anyone else's.
I know a couple that spent a quarter-million dollars on a kitchen remodel and neither cooks. However, they wanted a show piece to match the rest of their house. I think the contractor, cabinet and appliance makers were all very happy to accommodate them.
Perhaps the well to do should check with the community to see if that money could be put to better use. Feeding the needy everyday seems more worthwhile than one guy enjoying a 200k system all by himself.
Bill
bill, you spout heresy on this forum. the old adage about cocaine, is appropos in this situation: " buying the wilson alexandria xlf is god's way of telling you that you have too much money".
as to checking with the "community" re putting the money (spent on the wilson) to better use, well, i am in your camp; it would not be useful to drift further into the political realm.
oh yes, no doubt the wilson alexandria xlf is a most wonderful speaker.
How could the system cost 200k when the speakers alone are 195k.
That kinda cash can buy me alotta tickets TO live performances of the London Symphony,,Berlin Sym,,Vienna Sym,, Boston Sym,, NY sym,,,And dinner for my squeez,,
But the wealthy(certainly not me) can buy all that you described and the Wilson speakers also(plus a Ferrari, etc. - have you ever noticed that the Ferrari owner probably owns five or more cars in the six figure range?). They don't have to make such decisions on limiting their buying unless they choose to. And those who aren't wealthy make other decisions.
> > Perhaps the well to do should check with the community to
> > see if that money could be put to better use.
Question - where does one draw the line on having others approve of a person's purchases?
I'm solidly middle class here in America, but if you compare me to most of the 7 billion people on this planet, I'm wealthy. Your position raises all sorts of interesting questions as to how such things are decided.
Back in 1990, Congress imposed a 10% luxury tax on things like expensive boats and cars. In the first year of the tax, one-third of boat companies went out of business. When it was over, the congressional Joint Economic Committee reported 25,000 workers had lost their jobs building yachts, and 75,000 more jobs were lost in companies that supplied yacht parts and material.
No new money was raised for the government's good deeds. Tax revenue was worse due to the lost jobs. Foreigners who had purchased American yachts now bought them outside the US. The results were so obvious that the tax was repealed after only three years.
The law of unintended consequences awaits any time the well intentioned decide they know best as to how to run the lives of others.
and I certainly would not buy it, as I believe that planar speakers
give a much more realistic musical presentation than any box speaker,
no matter how good said box speaker might be.
And planers aren't ugly? Kind of the pot called the kettle black isn't it Mike? I'll pass on both.
I think you missed the point too, it's the sound that matters most.
loaded their tweeter with an awful diffractive baffle.
That way the sound matches the looks! :)
Bass is supposed to sound big. 6.5" is not a woofer size.
and imho the sound quality you get from a good planar far exceeds the
sound quality of the best box speaker. And it isn't even really close.
But ... as usual ... ymmv.
Yes planar speakers do certain things very well. I have heard most of them and I still prefer good box speakers to a planar any day.
To each his own I guess Mike. I haven't heard a planar I'd have in my room yet, even for free.
Planar speakers are unable to deliver the accurate bass you get from Transmission Line Box speakers and look not so good.
As an acoustic music fan, I care only that my speakers be able to
reproduce accurately the sound of an acoustic string bass. Every
planar speaker I've owned can do this. Which is not to say that a
good sub would not be an improvement, but I've never seen the
necessity for one.
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