Floorstanding loudspeakers — Wilson Audio Chronosonic XVX

The Chronosonic XVX is a multi-way floorstanding loudspeaker designed by Daryl Wilson at Wilson Audio, and the maker calls it a new category of speaker that sits alongside the WAMM created by his father, David Wilson. It borrows technology from the WAMM Master Chronosonic, including that model's woofers, and Wilson says the design brief removed constraints of price and practicality. The pair price was USD 329,000.

Key specs that matter

Seven drivers are fitted to each speaker. A 10.5 inch and a 12.5 inch woofer with paper pulp cones handle bass. The upper array follows an MTMM geometry with two 7 inch QuadraMag midrange units, one 4 inch upper midrange and a 1 inch silk dome tweeter, and a second 1 inch tweeter fires to the rear. Wilson rates sensitivity at 92 dB at 1 W, 1 m and 1 kHz and the response at 20 Hz to 30 kHz within 2 dB as a room average. The impedance is 4 ohm nominal and falls to 1.6 ohm at 326 Hz, and at least 100 W per channel is required. Height is 187 cm without spikes, width 42 cm and depth 84 cm, and each speaker weighs 310.71 kg, with a combined shipping weight of 768.84 kg for the pair.

Engineering and use context

The QuadraMag midrange uses a composite cellulose and paper cone driven by AlNiCo magnets, and David Wilson completed its design before his death in 2017. The front tweeter belongs to the Convergent Synergy Mk 5 family. More disparate materials go into this cabinet than into any earlier Wilson model - X-Material for the outer panels, S-Material for the midrange baffles and spike plates, the newer V-Material for the woofer top plate and the platforms of the alignment system, and carbon fibre for resistor mounts and the crossover housing. The upper modules hang on a gantry of machined aluminium and stainless steel, where a Micrometer mechanism moves each one in small increments so that driver arrival times can be matched to the listening position, with adjustment steps that Wilson places in the range of two millionths of a second. Crossovers use AudioCapX-WA capacitors, application-specific parts made in-house. A Cross-Load port, first seen on the Alexandria XLF, can vent to the front or to the rear by moving a removable aluminium plate. In the WilsonGloss programme the base options include Quartz, Carbon, GT Silver and Galaxy Gray, plus upgrade and pearl finishes at extra cost.

Pairing

A load with such a low impedance minimum needs an amplifier with a very stiff power supply and high current capacity, although the high sensitivity means large output levels do not require extreme wattage. Wilson offers the Subsonic subwoofer with the ActivXO crossover as a matching low-frequency extension for this model.

Alternatives

Wilson Audio also builds the WAMM Master Chronosonic, a taller floorstander at about 220 cm.