The Alexx V Room

Two Wilson loudspeakers from opposite ends of the range, in one room, on Burmester power. Hearing them in the same space on the same afternoon is the most useful comparison available to anyone still deciding how much loudspeaker their room actually needs.

The Alexx V

The Alexx V weighs a thousand pounds a side and carries the twin 10.5-inch woofers developed for the WAMM program. That is the detail worth pausing on: the bass drivers in this loudspeaker were engineered for the WAMM Master Chronosonic, which sits two rooms away and costs several times as much. Wilson’s range is not a series of separate designs but a single body of research applied at different scales, and the Alexx V is where the WAMM work becomes available in a cabinet a real room can hold.

A pair of Wilson Submerge subwoofers extends the system below what the Alexx V covers on its own. Wilson builds them to integrate with their own loudspeakers rather than as general-purpose bass boxes, which is what allows them to extend the Alexx V without the handover between cabinets becoming audible. A subwoofer that announces itself is a subwoofer that has been asked to do the wrong job.

It is also the arrangement used two rooms away on the WAMM, at a different scale, so the thinking is consistent across the range rather than applied only where the budget allows it.

The Sabrina V

The Sabrina V weighs a hundred and three pounds and is the loudspeaker most people buy first. It is not a compromise version of the Alexx V — it is Wilson’s answer to a different question, which is what the voicing philosophy sounds like when the cabinet has to be small enough to live in an ordinary room without dominating it.

Set against a thousand-pound floorstander in the same space, on comparable amplification, the honest question stops being which is better and becomes what the difference is actually worth in your room.

Burmester power

The amplification follows the same logic of range. The 909 MK5 is Reference Line and has anchored the top of Burmester’s catalogue since 1990 — a design that has been revised rather than replaced for over three decades, which is unusual in a category where flagship models turn over every few years.

The 956 MK2 descends from it through the Classic Line, bridged to mono at the Berlin factory. Classic Line is Burmester’s accessible entry, and the 956 MK2 exists to carry the house sound down the range without pretending to be the 909. Running both in one room makes the same point the loudspeakers do, one tier lower.

The 077 Reference Line preamplifier sits ahead of the Alexx V system.

Digital and vinyl

Digital arrives by Linn Klimax DSM on one system and dCS Bartók APEX on the other — two different houses answering the same question about conversion and streaming, which makes that comparison available too. A Linn Selekt LP12 handles records.

Why both loudspeakers in one room

Because the step between them is the decision most Wilson buyers are actually making, and it is almost never possible to make it properly. The two are usually in different rooms, in different shops, or in different cities, heard weeks apart on different electronics. Here the room, the treatment, the mains and the seat are constant, and the only variables are the loudspeaker and the amplifier tier behind it.

The systems in this room

• Wilson Audio Alexx V loudspeakers — twin 10.5-inch woofers from the WAMM program
• Wilson Audio Submerge subwoofers
• Wilson Audio Sabrina V loudspeakers
• Burmester 909 MK5 Reference Line monoblock amplifiers
• Burmester 077 Reference Line preamplifier
• Burmester 956 MK2 Classic Line power amplifier, bridged to mono
• Linn Klimax DSM streamer and DAC
• dCS Bartók APEX DAC
• Linn Selekt LP12 turntable

Hearing it

This is the room for anyone choosing their first Wilson, and equally for anyone who owns a Sabrina and wants to know honestly whether stepping up is worth it. It is also the natural next room after the WAMM, because it shows where that engineering ends up once it has to fit a house.

The Alexx V Room is in the Scottsdale showroom. Walk in during business hours, or book ahead if you want both systems set up and the time to move between them properly.