Experience with Wolcott's on cone speakers?


Most of the comments I've heard on Wolcott amps have to do with how well they drive Sound Labs, Maggies, or Quads. Who has some experience with Wolcott's on large full range cone speakers? How do they do?
prairiedog
I have a customer who's using Wolcotts on a pair of Dunlavy's (Model IV's, as I recall), and he's quite happy with them. I have another customer who tried Wolcotts on Wilson Maxx's and as I recall he preferred the Tenors. So unfortunately I can't give a sweeping recommendation that the Wolcotts will excel with all cone speakers. Most of my Wolcott customers are using them with electrostats.

What speakers do you have in mind?
Two guys in my audio group choose Wolcotts to drive their cone based speaker systems.

Dennis runs the top of his Vandersteen 5 with Wolcotts, having previously used Atmasphere and Viva. Prefers the Wolcotts.

Andrew Litton, two time Grammy award winner and conductor of the Dallas Symphony replaced his Krell's with Wolcotts to drive his B&W 800's. He literally "danced" upon hearing them the first time.

Night before last we tested my personal pair of Wolcotts against the Tenor OTL and an Audio Research Ref 600 MK3 on Dynaudio Evidence Temptations.

The rating, by both the owner of the Dynaudio and myself was ARC first place, Wolcotts second place and Tenor last.

I should make this fact clear, the Tenor amps were purchased to run Quads and are NOT suggested (by Tenor) for the Dynaudio due to the 4 ohm load, power requirements and the fact that they are a ported system.

Not frequently mentioned, the Wolcott has a variable damping control, allowing for differences in speaker cable and speaker designs.
I would have to agree with Albert, without even being there. Quite a while ago I contacted Dynaudio regarding the possibility of matching the Tenor OTL's with their speakers and they said "No Way!" There is a severe impedance drop well below 4 ohms that is just too much for OTL technology.

600 watts of transformer coupled power is definitely what those speakers need. I can also see why the Wolcott amps, even with the 220 watts would run out of steam.

On the other hand, I would bet anything that the new Tenor 150 HPS or 300 HPM's would drive them incredibly well.

Prairiedog: If you are yearning for the Wolcott's, I would urge you to visit either Duke or Albert to see how well they can light up SoundLabs. I would have to say that they really make them sing!