Review - Wilson Audio Alida CSC and Mezzo CSC Upgrades

    Audio: Listen to this article.

In December 2023 I made the decision to upgrade my surround and center channel speakers when Wilson Audio announced updates to both. I wrote about the products in this article (link), as I anticipated the upgrade.

In April 2024 the speakers arrived. I called my friends at Manny’s Piano Movers to lift the new Mezzo CSC center channel to the second level, and I wrote about preparing for the installation in this article (link).

Shortly after the aforementioned article was written, Tyler Hall and Peter McGrath from Wilson Audio arrived to assist with the installation. The old saying, “many hands make short work” was appropriate for this endeavor. Removing eight wall and ceiling mounted original Alida speakers, wrapping them in original packaging, and crating them for pickup is no small task for one to accomplish alone. It was a breeze with the help of the Wilson Audio team.

These guys know what they are doing, and spread this knowledge with Wilson’s dealers around the world. How do I know? They were taking photos and calling the factory during the installation to provide updates on the process and to take note of anything that should be disseminated to dealers because the speakers were brand new. Bolting loudspeakers into one’s walls and ceiling can raise the level of anxiety to a level not experienced when installing floor standing speakers. Fortunately, I had zero worries. I knew I’d be taken care of and I knew the job would be done correctly the first time.

A Glorious Upgrade

Given that the previous articles covered more technical details and features, it’s time I get down to the business of sound quality. As someone who listens to music eight to ten hours per day, I consider myself very fortunate. This time spent listening enables me to recognize changes in my systems with relative ease. Prior to this upgrade, I would’ve been very happy with my system and put it up against any immersive audio system in the world (as if there’s a ridiculous competition). Once the upgrade was compete, I heard very quickly what I’d been missing and immediately understood not only the importance one’s speakers coming from a single manufacturer, but the benefits of matching one’s speakers as closely as possible. Now, every speaker in my system, with the exception of the LoKe subwoofer, has the same CSC tweeter. This is game changing.

In addition to the matching tweeters, the sound I’m getting from the Mezzo CSC center channel is like having a Wilson Audio Sasha V loudspeaker right in front of me, as the driver compliments are identical, while the cabinets are vastly different. This is a big deal for immersive music because the placement of musicians can be front and center, as I’ll share in a bit. Why not just use a floor standing loudspeaker as my center channel? I don’t want a taller speaker between the front left and right channels as I believe it would alter the stereo imaging when not listening to immersive music. A low profile Mezzo CSC, with a beautiful hourglass stand resting on spikes embedded into my wool carpet, is the ideal center channel loudspeaker for me.

Listening to the Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio’s album A Shade of Blue in TrueHD Dolby Atmos (link) is both a sonic treat, capable of transporting the listener to the Gotanda Cultural Center Music Hall in Shinagawa City, Tokyo, Japan, and is illustrative of why I love the Mezzo CSC so much.

This recording features Tsuyoshi Yamamoto on the left, Hiroshi Kagawa with his bass in the middle, and Toshio Osumi’s drums on the right side of the soundstage. Engineer Hideo Irimajiri captured and mixed this trio exactly as it played live, with some of Kagawa’s bass bleeding into the left and right channels, but the vast majority of it emanating from the center channel.

Listening through my previous WATCH Series 3 center channel speaker, much of the bass was offloaded to the LoKe subwoofer because it wasn’t designed to handle reproducing a full blown standup bass. After the upgrade, playing this track was one of the first things I did. I love the music, the recording, and the mix. I just had to hear it again for the first time.

Midnight Sugar played through my system with the Mezzo CSC was everything I’d hoped it would be. The anticipation while waiting for the speakers to arrive, listening to this album several times during the months long wait, and the sonic dreaming done in my head, were all worth the wait. The Mezzo CSC is capable of reaching down to 19 Hz and reproducing Kagawa’s bass superbly. Listening to this album, and especially Midnight Sugar, I was presented with a front soundstage much more cohesive than with the previous center channel.

Lush deep bass starting in the center, bleeding into the left and right, before fading away in the surround channels. It’s glorious to hear when done at this level. Now imagine, much of the bass being offloaded to the subwoofer while the upper frequencies play through a center channel and the full frequency of the bass bleeds into the front left and right channels. It just sounds like it shouldn’t work as well as it did with the WATCH Series 3, but one doesn’t know what’s possible until the possible is performed in one’s listening room. I loved the WATCH Series 3, but music reproduction at this level thrives off of speakers as good as the Mezzo CSC. In a way, it feels like the Mezzo CSC should ship with a flyer sticking out of the front port that says, “Welcome to the big leagues.”

Equally as critical to this upgrade, and evident from the first note of the first album I played, is the CSC tweeter in all eight Alidas, that matches the Alexia V and Mezzo CSC. Sure, all the technical upgrades in the Alida to dampen vibrations shouldn’t be discounted, but in my mind the CSC tweeter upgrade hit me like a ton of bricks. My head was on a swivel when I tapped play. I couldn’t stop looking around at the surround speakers, as if I would see something coming out of the new Alidas. Perhaps I was just in awe of the new sound of my immersive music system.

No music illustrates the size of this sonic improvement more than that of Morten Lindberg and his 2L record label. Morten’s albums reveal the ultimate in resolution, delicacy, dynamics, and just about every category one can imagine. Picture this, a trio of wonderful vocalists front and center, Anders Jormin on his double bass to the right, Arve Henriksen with his trumpet to the left, and Helge Andreas Norbakken on percussion in the rear. All musicians standing in a loose circle in March 2024, inside the beautiful Sofienberg Church, in Oslo, Norway. And, Morten Lindberg capturing it all in high resolution DXD for a discrete 7.1.4 twelve channel release title Yule from Trio Mediæval (link), in addition to several other formats for playback on any audio system.

As soon as the Trio started singing on track one, Det hev ei rosa sprunge, I was captivated by the direct vocal reproduction in front of me and the reverberation surrounding me. Rather than an abrupt hand off of this delicacy, from speaker to speaker as the vocals reverberated, I heard a sonic weave through the entire attack, sustain, decay and release envelope as the Trio’s voices disappeared into the dark corners of Sofienberg Church.

While the handoff from Alexia V to original Alida was much closer to olympic relay runner’s precision and timing with the baton than anything else I’ve heard, the movement of sound from Alexia V and Mezzo CSC to Alida CSC has advanced into a new category of sonic transition. I don’t feel right about calling it a handoff, even though the sound is literally decaying from the front to the overhead and rear speakers, it’s as close to a handoff as the point at Cape Horn on the southern point of Tierra del Fuego, where the Pacific and Atlantic oceans meet. In other words, the handoff or demarcation between oceans and speakers in my system only exists on paper.

I can hear some members of the Audiophile Style community mumbling in the back corner of the Internet about never listening to 2L recordings and much preferring something less classical. I’m glad they spoke up, because I’ve been playing the new TrueHD Dolby Atmos releases from Frank Zappa (Apostrophe), Tori Amos (Unrepentant Geraldines), David Gilmour (Luck and Strange), and David Bowie (Ziggy Stardust), with great enjoyment. These releases range from tame to adventurous in their mixes, but each one sounds fantastic on my upgraded Mezzo CSC and Alida CSC speakers.

The tone of David Gilmour’s guitar and accompanying musicians, on the tasteful Atmos mix of the title track, Luck and Strange, is just beautiful as it washes around and over my listening chair. Zappa sounds like he is singing (or is it talking?) in my ear, as his guitar and other sonic treats emanate from all around. It’s a trippy experience to say the least, and I couldn’t be happier at the level or performance I’m getting from this speaker upgrade. The whole of my system is absolutely greater than the sum of its upgraded parts.

Conclusion

I can only speak as a music fan who spends eight to ten hours per day listening without a screen in sight, rather than a home theater buff. The importance of high quality similar loudspeakers for immersive music playback has never been more evident to me than it is now. Delicacy, detail, and dynamics are equally important, no matter which loudspeaker in an immersive system reproduces these sonic attributes.

Upgrading my immersive audio system from the Wilson Audio WATCH Series 3 and original Alida speakers to the Mezzo CSC center channel and Alida CSC was like upgrading from a nice three fold necktie, with a dissimilar liner sewn in for structure, to a finely woven seven fold tie crafted from a single piece of silk. The WATCH and original Alida were great, but were also outclassed by the decade of improvements contained in my main Alexia V loudspeakers. This led to a subtle handoff of sound between speakers rather than the weave of immersive music that I hear with the new Mezzo CSC and Alida CSC. Sitting in my listening chair, I now feel like I’m in a crystal clear sphere of sound.

    Product Information:

• Wilson Audio Mezzo CSC Center Channel - $21,250 ($24,250 as tested with Premium Pearl finish)
• Wilson Audio Alida CSC - $17,650/pair ($18,150/pair as tested with upgraded finish)
• Where to Buy

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Author's Complete Audio System Details with Measurements - https://audiophile.style/system