A Bright Pair of Watt Puppys


I'd love some suggestions on taming my bright system. My Watt Puppy 6's are really bright and it often seems on many recordings as though the tweeter and midrange are just way louder and more dominant than the bass. Often, to get more bass punch (or just warmer sound) I find myself wanting to turn the volume up. This helps the bass level a bit but also sends the rest of the spectrum thru the roof: it gets very loud.

Although I assume my room is too small for these speaks and I need some treatment, can't believe this is the only issue here. Watching other woofers at CES for example, the things extend rapidly right out of the enclosures on systems that sounded warm to me. My drivers barely move at all. Just doesn't seem right.

Also was told by the designer of Genesis speakers that my amp isn't powerful enough to control the bass on the Watt Puppys. That was a surprise.

Here's my system configuration:
WP 6
BAT VK-600
Bat 31-SE Preamp
Kimber 3033 speaker cables
Synergistic Research Alpha Sterling ITC
Shanling CD-100 dual output cd player
Furman power conditioner
Room Size: 15 x 25

Any suggestions? Anyone?
Thanks
/Lee
graywind11
Ok a couple of things.. Try keeping you Bat amp on for 3 days straight...ideally 7 days and see if that smooths things out. 7 days on made my Audio Research D400 MkII sound like butter! Becareful if you have aftermarket power cables on.. you might consider changing them all back to stock and slowly introducing them to make sure they aren't added that extra edge... (been there done that...)

Next, Read your Wilson manual about the spikes length between the WATT and Puppy and change the spikes (1 size) so the tweater shoots a little higher (aka over your head).

Treating 1st order reflection points will help a little, don't forget to either treat the floor or ceiling at the 1st order reflection points. This won't get rid of any brightness but it will clean it up even more (In case you were lacking any detail..... haha).

You could put some really warm tubes in your CDP, or switch to Audience or Cardas cables to warm it up.

Keep your Grills on the WP6 that will help as they were designed to be run with grills. The WP7's reduced that brightness and the WP8's reduced it one more time with the Maxx II tweaters.

Stick with the Wilson positioning method! They were designed to avoid room interactions by projecting at you! and as a result the cleanness and detail causes you to crank it up..

I've never met a Wilson owner that listens softly to their rig! Your addiction to volumn will continue... if you use a dB meter you will find that you can't tolerate other brand systems at that volumn level.. you really are listening a lot louder to your WP setup.. (Maxx's can damage your hearing they play so cleanly to extreme dB's!)

I had to get rid of my Lamm amps to get some more current for bass control! They will take anything you can throw at them like Magnepans.

Mcrheist said it best.. crap (overcompressed poor mastering) in, sounds even worse out on a Wilson system.

The room is not two small I have WP7 and a Watch Dog in a 12x16 room, I use extreme bass absorbtion methods because I like to crank it... WP's work great nearfield since they were designed as recording monitors originally.

Nice setup! and later as you upgrade preamps you will get even more detail out of you Wilsons!
Chris
Leemincy: The Rel's are tight but might not provide enough output compared to your WP 6's. Check out JL Audio Subs or James Subwoofer for some tight bass... I have a DD15 and even at it's tightest setting it's not fast enough.

My new JL Audio Fathom F113 is pretty impressive but not quiet the output of my Wilson Watch dog.

Or a little 280lb Watch Dog sub for a perfect match.....
Thanks Cytocycle. That's pretty much my synopsis of Wilson as well. Especially the changes from 6 to 7 to 8. And garbage in garbage out adage. So true. All good advice.

Daryl at Wilson has me switching out a few resistors that drive the tweeter and mid, ultimately to increase resistance to these two drivers, lowering hi-bandoutput a bit. The Caddock film resistors are pretty easy to get on the internet. Will try this as well as several room treatments. And My Bat amp is almost always on. (Stock tip for ya: PG&E). Takes at least 1.5 hours to reach crit temp. But this makes a huge difference.

Funny thing about the Wilsons. They soud louder and I think this is because of a 4ohm load. Compared to my Hales speakers (at 8ohm) these things crank at relatively low volume, which is ofcourse what drains the amp. I find myself listening louder (and my wife bitching louder as well.)

Ironically, I met the owner of Genesis at CES a few days ago and he told me my amp is in fact too small to control the bass in these speakers. I was amazed.

I was really impressed with Verity Audio Parsifal Ovations and wish I had known about the Sarastros over at the Mirage (someone said).

By the by, do you employ digital xover for the watchdog? Rel allows this and also has a high current cable that comes directly from your power amp, same as to the Wilson's. It recommends this format in fact.

/Lee
Patience and perserverence. Start with the least costly method of tuning. Discover, Uncover and discard all components and ancilliary gear that does not provide optimum synergy.

I performed room treatment, and placement first. Then fine tuned with tube rolling and swapping speaker cable and IC's.

The process took about two months. It was well worth it. I love my Wilson speakers. I have disdain for the real culprit, poorly produced recordings.
The 6s are not the problem. But they need LOTS of room to sound optimal. Cardas GR helps. Now that I have 8s, it's the 6s I miss, not the 7s!