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Old 11-14-2014, 11:42 PM
aqman aqman is offline
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Default Vivid g3 and Wilson Alexia

Hi All,

I've enjoyed AA quite a bit and this is my first real post. I recently got to listen to the G3 and Alexia back to back and thought I would share some of my impressions. They were in different rooms with different electronics but was with music I brought and was familiar with.

G3: I own the B1, so I'm familiar with the vivid sound. The G3s were very similar sounding - very clean and open sounding with the speakers seeming to disappear. It was easy to forget about what was making sound and just listen to the music. Great, wide soundstage and airy highs. A bit smoother through the mid bass than B1s. The one thing that keeps them from being perfect is a little hash in mid upper treble around 10 kHz or so. I hear this in my B1s as well. Still probably my favorite of everything I've heard so far. They were bigger in person than I expected. Not sure I would want to go to G2 in a medium sized room. I love the shape.

Alexia: Big. I don't like the boxy shape. I didn't want to like them - but I did, a lot! My immediate first impression was how similar they sounded overall to the G3s. Probably because they look so different I expected a drastically different sound. The silk dome tweeter is excellent. I would give it a tie with rockport Avior as best tweeter I've heard. The tweeter really points down at you and I found myself looking up into the soundstage. Absolutely non-fatiguing. The one negative is that on a few occasions such as violin strongly on one side, the sound seem to come particularly from the midrange driver. This happened for about 30 s total in 40 minutes of listening. If your OCD knows no bounds, this may bother you. Would not be a deal breaker for me. This never happens with the vivids - B1 or G3.

Summary: Both wonderful!
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Old 11-16-2014, 09:16 AM
lloydelee21 lloydelee21 is offline
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Thanks for the feedback/insights...nice reading. [somtimes] i find the directionality of the sound (which you describe with the Alexias) is from not perfectly inert upper modules. on my much older X1/Grand Slamms...i have mass damped the upper module with Entreq...and a lot of that directionality has disappeared and even with extreme recordings it is not from the cone itself which is quite nice. in your case, obviously, i have no idea what was happening...just sharing my own experience with my wilsons at home for those who may wish to experiment.
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Old 11-18-2014, 09:44 PM
BillK BillK is offline
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For anyone comparing, I highly recommend auditioning the Giya G2 against the Alexia; that's the decision I was faced with and came down squarely on the side of the G2 for sound staging, delicacy and, frankly aesthetics and the Alexia for deep bass.

I own the G2s, though, largely because of the issue you cite - beaming.

That's what I call the ability to identify precisely which driver a particular note is coming from; this is most noticeable when you have something like a horn being played by only a single channel; with Wilson Sophia and below and virtually all other coned speakers, you can point to the sound coming from that driver there.

The Vivids - all of them - do not have that character, something normally one can only experience with planar speakers (my speakers were Apogee Caliper Signatures for decades and until I heard the G2s nothing could touch them.)

For me, in my room, the B-1s and K-1s sounded good, but were missing… something.

The Giya G3s sounded better than the ovals but were missing the bass my Apogees provided in spades.

With the Giya G2, things finally locked solidly into place; I suspect the G3s were just too small to properly pressurize my medium-sized but open on one end listening room.

Last edited by BillK; 11-18-2014 at 09:50 PM.
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Old 07-01-2015, 11:54 PM
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baddog baddog is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BillK View Post
For anyone comparing, I highly recommend auditioning the Giya G2 against the Alexia; that's the decision I was faced with and came down squarely on the side of the G2 for sound staging, delicacy and, frankly aesthetics and the Alexia for deep bass.

I own the G2s, though, largely because of the issue you cite - beaming.

That's what I call the ability to identify precisely which driver a particular note is coming from; this is most noticeable when you have something like a horn being played by only a single channel; with Wilson Sophia and below and virtually all other coned speakers, you can point to the sound coming from that driver there.

The Vivids - all of them - do not have that character, something normally one can only experience with planar speakers (my speakers were Apogee Caliper Signatures for decades and until I heard the G2s nothing could touch them.)

For me, in my room, the B-1s and K-1s sounded good, but were missing… something.

The Giya G3s sounded better than the ovals but were missing the bass my Apogees provided in spades.

With the Giya G2, things finally locked solidly into place; I suspect the G3s were just too small to properly pressurize my medium-sized but open on one end listening room.
Hello Bill - I have heard the G3 speakers and loved them. Unexpectedly the significant other expressed a preference for the look of the G2 speakers. Which I have not yet heard, however I am curious as to the size of the room you have them in? Mine is 13.5 feet wide by 23 feet deep by 9 feet tall. There is an opening into kitchen area in the back left of room.

Thanks.

Barr
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Old 07-02-2015, 02:40 AM
BillK BillK is offline
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My room is basically 17' x 13' with an eight foot ceiling and is open on one side to another room.

In this diagram, the listening position would be on the top near the middle horizontal arrow with the speakers firing towards the top of the diagram.



Listening position to speaker distance is approximately eleven feet.

Given the size of the room I suspect if you have the financial resources you'd be much happier with the Giya G2 than the G3s..

The fact that your wife prefers the appearance of the G2s is a factor that can never be under-appreciated.

Last edited by BillK; 07-02-2015 at 02:44 AM.
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