Wilson Audio Yvette’s First Impressions

My visit to this year’s 2016 HiFi Show Live event was cut short as I had to leave unexpectedly early, but in the short time I was there on the Friday afternoon and evening I got to listen to Wilson Audio’s newest addition to their ever growing list of accomplishments in the high end speaker world. The new Yvette speakers were on demo, with Wilson Audio’s Peter McGrath playing his selection of excellent music recordings.

The Yvette Speakers are the latest and replace the outgoing Sophia 3 Speakers which were and still are an incredible sounding speaker, but with the Yvette the new design and sleek lines are just the starting point of where the similarities end as they are as Daryl Wilson quoted “more of an evolution” than just a replacement speaker in the line-up.

With new drivers for the mid and tweeter the bass unit is the same one as used in the much coveted Alexia, and an all new cross-over and time alignment these accumulate into one serious high end speaker offering.

I managed to listen to them for about a full hour in total and in this time I got a taste of how serious a speaker the new Yvette really is. We listened to a mixture of old and new recordings which showed how adaptive they are to different styles of music being both classical and modern electro in the form of Boris Blanc. First off I will start by saying that I was completely shocked at how much of an improvement that these speakers are over the Sophia speakers which in my opinion sound a lot more closed in and much smaller in the regards to the soundstage size, through the Yvette’s the walls of the rather large demo room seem to just disappear. The width and height were just incredible but also the depth in which the sound seems to emanate from when the Yvette’s are in full flow.

Each tone from the music had such a fluidity and creamy texture to the sound that just captivated me in a way that I have not heard from a speaker that comes close to the Yvette’s price point. I do not know what magic Daryl Wilson is using but it is surely a hypnotic spell binding performance that these speakers manage to give. Boris Blanc at one point sounded like the voice of god in that the sound was coming from above such was the impact and tonal expression from the sound. This imaging was truly mind blowing as it did not stop there but instead just seemed to get better and better as the music continued to play. Most demo rooms at hotels are not the ideal place to hear how good a speaker can sound but in this case Peter McGrath had done a stupendous job of setting this system up.

They were being powered by Audio Research Stereo 150SE Power Amplifier and the synergy between the two was just great. I know that Wilson say that their speakers are not amplifier specific, but this pairing just sounded sublime and the grip on the Yvette’s was just stunning as the driver’s started and stopped instantaneously. On many occasions I was startled by the sound as it went from very loud to complete silence in an instance.

This was a very short but an eye opening session at how good these new Wilson Audio Yvette’s sounded and I hope to get a pair in for review sometime soon so I can do a full review on them, but from what I have heard already I am seriously impressed by these gorgeous looking and sounding speakers.