This is THE great day :-)

[Maz65]

I wish to enjoy with you my next speakers after Simon's Elipsas :-) They arrived today..

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[Diapason]

Fantastic. Congratulations Max! Now the break-in...

[Ivor]

Beautiful. Many years of enjoyment Max.

[Seán]

Congratulations on your new speakers Maz, may they give you many years of great listening pleasure.

[cybot]

Hope you enjoy breaking them in with proper music - see below ;)

[tony]

Best of luck with them Max look forward to hearing your impressions on them. Serious looking kit I hope they live up to expectations.

[HiFiFan]

Congrats, they look like Sophias. Really nice speakers

[Maz65]

First of all, thanks everybody, I'm not died after listening Sophias ah ah : these are only the busy days before Christmas ;)
But I'm writing a post about my first impressions...

[Diapason]

Glad you're still alive! First impressions can take a long time to figure out. ;)

[Maz65]

It's time to post some listening impressions...
The comparison between my old speakers, Sonus Faber Elipsa Red, is hard to describe because for some aspects, starting from build phylosophy, these are in the opposite side.
Two ways for obtaining great music at the end.

Visual Impact.
The Sophias look is far better live than in photos. Moderate WAF. To be honest the Sonus Faber Elipsa Red WAF was under zero in my home with modern furniture ;)
Knocking them: absolutely non-resonant sides, they feels a great sense of solidity.

Sound in break-in period.
To be frank, I forgotten how "bad" can sound a new speaker ;)
Break-in period written in the manual, 24 hours at moderate volume level in order to obtain 90% performance, is substantially correct. They changed a lot after listening 3-4 days. For me 50 hours is correct for break-in total time.
First hours was frustrating and a good tonal balance was only reached connecting my DAC directly to power amp, bypassing the preamplifier: the sound was chocked, especially the bass frequencies.
This was the first time I felt good whan listening a source directly connected to a power amp. But was only during break-in, now it is like before and my previous experiences was confirmed again, phew.
In the next days the speaker gain a lot of articulation, at the end the preamplifier was back in its place :)

Sound in the present time.
It's hard to say something new about these speakers: a lot of words has been spent in many reviews all over the world.
When I listen to an equipment I always think about the first word that came in my mind. In this case the first word is "amusing" (the first word for Sonus Faber Elipsa Red was "seductive").
Amusing because these speakers have a high level of coherency between the transducers, very low distorsion that invite you to listen everything with high level volume, the same low distortion that give you the sense of transparency when listeniong every nuance at low volume.
Spectral and Wilson is a consolidated sinergy.
Highly recommended, the transparency of Spectral is rendered at its best on Wilsons, and the result is a scene sculpted into the marble, every instrument is clearly identifiable in space, and the "black" between the instruments is very strong.

Amusing because, with these premises, the system can absorb any music genre, from Industrial Metal to Renaiisance Music and render it at its best.

Amusing because this is the PRAT definition ;)

Any question.. is welcome !
cheers,
Max