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-   -   Wilson Thor Hammer (https://www.audioaficionado.org/showthread.php?t=31176)

JCR 04-13-2015 08:26 PM

Wilson Thor Hammer
 
Any body have experience with the Thor Hammer? While i have Sonus Faber Aida, i am thinking of replacing my 6 rel sub with two Wilson Thor Hammer instead.

Thoughts, feed back? Whould this be a worthwhile upgrade?

Thanks, Jacques

audioguy3107 04-13-2015 08:30 PM

Jacques - I've heard the Thor Hammer and it sounds awesome, it's a fantastic subwoofer. That being said, it would be hard for me to believe that it would be that much better than 6! REL G-1. I'm a huge REL fan, especially for a 2 channel music system. What type of frequency response do you get on the low end in your listening room? 6 REL G-1s must sound incredible.....good lord......how much more bass do you need?

- Buck

Still-One 04-13-2015 08:36 PM

My dealer has a pair of Thors Hammer's in the main listening room. I must say they are very large. I considered ordering one and installing it on its side in between my speakers. :D

JCR 04-13-2015 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by audioguy3107 (Post 692128)
Jacques - I've heard the Thor Hammer and it sounds awesome, it's a fantastic subwoofer. That being said, it would be hard for me to believe that it would be that much better than 6! REL G-1. I'm a huge REL fan, especially for a 2 channel music system. What type of frequency response do you get on the low end in your listening room? 6 REL G-1s must sound incredible.....good lord......how much more bass do you need?

- Buck

Hey Buck,

not sure of the exact frequency response in my room. It is not so much that I want more bass, but rather thinking if I could get "better" bass it could improve the system. One Thor Hammer is roughly the side of 3 REL G1 stack on top of each other like I have.

While I love my Aida, the one think I love about Wilson speaker in general (or even my older Wilson Watch Dog subwoofer) is the bass extention and harmonic richness which in turns impacted the whole spectrum.

The 6 REL in my system brings the air, soundstage and dimension to the rest of the system that I have come to love so much, but the funny thing is there main impact is not in the sub 35Hz which I am cutting the REL today, but it is on what they do to everything else above 35 Hz!

So my thought was that seeing how important the subs are to my system if I was to improve on them, everything else would follow. And well, quite frankly a wet dream would be to drive the Thor Hammer with my MC2KW while using my REF 750 on the Aida! :yes:

But on the other end to your point the REL are already very good so I would not want to pay that much more money to get more or less the same thing I am getting today with my REL setup... hummm:scratch2:

Any of this make any sense?

JCR 04-13-2015 08:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Still-One (Post 692131)
My dealer has a pair of Thors Hammer's in the main listening room. I must say they are very large. I have once considered ordering one and install it on its side in between my speakers. :D

Yeah! I have seen pictures of setup with the Thor Hammer in the middle and it does look amazing! The few times I eared them I was always impressed with the system playing but it is too long ago with too many different variable compared to my current setup...

Charles 04-14-2015 10:22 AM

Jacques, I own a Thor. Go to "community" and view "Charles System". IMO, it is by far the best sub on the market. Two Hammer's would be perfect for your system. In addition to absolutely incredible sub sonic extension, they are great woofers and should blend superbly with your Aida's. Hammer's are highly efficient. They rarely need over 600-800 watts. I use a MC601. This amp drives the sub to huge excursions on sub sonic material and serves to limit the available power so that it is not over driven. Power Guard accomplishes this. I wouldn't want a 1.2kW on the sub because it would probably overload before the amp clipped. Again this is a highly efficient sub. On virtually all material you will not require much over 30 watts using 2 of them. If you are using 2 Hammers your power requirements will be much less than mine. I would suggest if you stay with REL that you add another sub to each side as I mentioned to you in the thread about the purchase of your new MC2KW's. This 3 subs per side arrangement is not much better output wise than 2 subs per side. You might be surprised at how much better your system would sound if you added another sub, but truthfully, 2 Hammer's are the way to go for you. You want the ultimate and therefore 2 Hammer's are what you want. No conceivable low frequency could overdrive them and they are absolutely superb "woofers" as far as blend is concerned. This system would qualify as an ultimate system, IMO, exceeding anything I could think of.

2fastdriving 04-14-2015 10:28 AM

I saw them demo'd at rmaf with xlf's. They certainly are efficient, because they were being driven by a parasound a21! Considering the equipment in the demo was worth a half million or so, using such a "cheap" amp for the thors was impressive. That system was incredible!

audioguy3107 04-14-2015 10:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JCR (Post 692137)
Yeah! I have seen pictures of setup with the Thor Hammer in the middle and it does look amazing! The few times I eared them I was always impressed with the system playing but it is too long ago with too many different variable compared to my current setup...

Jacques - This is a really hard call to make on products like this, with low bass output of the magnitude you're talking, it would be really difficult to "picture" which setup would perform the best in your room. That being said, your RELs retail for $5000 per sub which puts you at $30,000 of subwoofer with your present setup. According to a review I read, the Thor's Hammer retails for $21,000, so two of those would put you at $42,000. I agree with the above posters about how great the Wilson subs sound......but you have to think that in regard to low bass output, how much are you gaining by switching different brands and spending just a little more $$$$? You're talking about augmenting the absolute lowest octaves and the question is whether shifting to a different brand would gain you much if anything. You also have to take into account that different models and designs WILL interact differently with your room, so unless you were able to do some sort of in home trial, you're taking a chance that it's possible the Wilson's could be worse in your space than they would be elsewhere. I guess my take home message is that unless money is totally no object to you I wouldn't do an equipment switch (and I'm not calling it an upgrade since I don't consider Wilson subwoofers an upgrade over RELs in your configuration) without some sort of in home test. Bass can do funny things to rooms and unless you're totally unhappy with the bass you're getting now, you'd be taking a chance that possibly could turn out worse than you have now. You just don't know how the Wilson's would interact with your room/dimensions/volume until you get them.

- Buck

JCR 04-14-2015 07:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charles (Post 692234)
Jacques, I own a Thor. Go to "community" and view "Charles System". IMO, it is by far the best sub on the market. Two Hammer's would be perfect for your system. In addition to absolutely incredible sub sonic extension, they are great woofers and should blend superbly with your Aida's. Hammer's are highly efficient. They rarely need over 600-800 watts. I use a MC601. This amp drives the sub to huge excursions on sub sonic material and serves to limit the available power so that it is not over driven. Power Guard accomplishes this. I wouldn't want a 1.2kW on the sub because it would probably overload before the amp clipped. Again this is a highly efficient sub. On virtually all material you will not require much over 30 watts using 2 of them. If you are using 2 Hammers your power requirements will be much less than mine. I would suggest if you stay with REL that you add another sub to each side as I mentioned to you in the thread about the purchase of your new MC2KW's. This 3 subs per side arrangement is not much better output wise than 2 subs per side. You might be surprised at how much better your system would sound if you added another sub, but truthfully, 2 Hammer's are the way to go for you. You want the ultimate and therefore 2 Hammer's are what you want. No conceivable low frequency could overdrive them and they are absolutely superb "woofers" as far as blend is concerned. This system would qualify as an ultimate system, IMO, exceeding anything I could think of.

Charles, thanks for the reply and sharing your feed-back. I am leaning toward the same conclusion you have. The REL is likely the best buy for the money, however no matter how many of them I have in my system will not change the fact that one REL G-1 has less then 1/3 of the volume of one Thor Hammer. So I am convinced this alone would contribute to an increase the benefit of having subs in my systems (Size does matter here!). It is also interesting to see what amp you are using because I was thinking about the MC601 as well for the subs but was not sure it would be "enough", althought at least to try them the temptation will be too hard not to try my MC2KW as well with the Thors (why not! - lol!).

I will likely pull the trigger on them this week and will make sure to post pictures of the updated system.

Jacques

JCR 04-14-2015 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by audioguy3107 (Post 692239)
Jacques - This is a really hard call to make on products like this, with low bass output of the magnitude you're talking, it would be really difficult to "picture" which setup would perform the best in your room. That being said, your RELs retail for $5000 per sub which puts you at $30,000 of subwoofer with your present setup. According to a review I read, the Thor's Hammer retails for $21,000, so two of those would put you at $42,000. I agree with the above posters about how great the Wilson subs sound......but you have to think that in regard to low bass output, how much are you gaining by switching different brands and spending just a little more $$$$? You're talking about augmenting the absolute lowest octaves and the question is whether shifting to a different brand would gain you much if anything. You also have to take into account that different models and designs WILL interact differently with your room, so unless you were able to do some sort of in home trial, you're taking a chance that it's possible the Wilson's could be worse in your space than they would be elsewhere. I guess my take home message is that unless money is totally no object to you I wouldn't do an equipment switch (and I'm not calling it an upgrade since I don't consider Wilson subwoofers an upgrade over RELs in your configuration) without some sort of in home test. Bass can do funny things to rooms and unless you're totally unhappy with the bass you're getting now, you'd be taking a chance that possibly could turn out worse than you have now. You just don't know how the Wilson's would interact with your room/dimensions/volume until you get them.

- Buck

Buck, thanks for your feed-back. You are right about the risk of changing brand and spending more to get to about the same place or even worst, go backward! However in this case I used to have Wilson speakers and did have the Wilson Watch Dog Subwoofer in my listening room before getting the Aida. While the 6 REL do pressurize my room better then a single Wilson Watch Dog, the quality of the Watch Dog bass frequency and harmonic richness was simply far better then what I am getting with the REL.

So my crazy quest with the Thor is not so much about getting a couple Hz lower then my current setup, but it is much more about getting the quality of bass I was getting from the Watch Dog, however this time with enough volume, not loudness, but volume to properly pressurize my room. The Thor should also be more effortless which in turn should generate a richer harmonic spectrum. Funny enough, I am not a big fan of "bass' per say, but I am addicted and am a HUGE fan of what bass do to the rest of the system (mids, highs, soundstage, etc)...everything simply sound fuller this way!

:music:

Best, Jacques


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