The $27,900 disappointment? Wilson Audio Watt Puppy 8 issues.
GR Research gave a breakdown of these & I was surprised..
Owner looking to make them sound better.
I wonder if we will ever find out if the owner will be happier with them when he gets them back. That is the only part that matters. If someone has the patience to scour the comments and post that we all would appreciate it! |
Danny better be careful. Those guys that own Wilson audio are Mormons and they are known to be involved in unfortunate accidents if you know what I mean. I can’t believe he trashed them so bad he’s barking up a tree with a very big dog at the top of it. All I would take is a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of attorneys fees for him to defend himself and GR research would be broadcasting from a dumpster somewhere in Tennessee |
Part II came out yesterday. I found it shortly after seeing your reply. TY!
You’d be surprised. There’s a whole world of upper tier audio gear that seems to be thriving, some of which truly outperforms what most of us have access to, but that level of sound can be surprisingly finnicky to setup and to the entire system chain. Focal, Avant Guarde, YG Acoustics, Clarysis, Enigma, Magico, MBL, Gryphon, and a slew of others. |
@deep_333 +1 Meyer Sound Labs Bluehorn system. https://meyersound.com/product/bluehorn-system/ A more recent similarly lively system was Devon Turnbull's total system presentation at the San Francisco Museum Of Modern Arts showing of The Art Of Noise, June, 2024. I'm a sucker for a large space and horns, reminiscent of my old loft and the bands Altec A7's. |
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Why the anger for all this. I constantly hear audiophiles harping on the lack of negative reviews of equipment, so now we don't like negative reviews!
He's providing a service, up to his customers to determine the value of that service. And since when is marketing oneself via social media such a bad thing. |
+1 @ozzy62 There’s a difference between upgrading something you like vs trying to change the a component’s disliked sonics. Seems foolish. If they were targeting the latest Wilson sound on the cheap upgrades aren’t the answer |
@fertguy Deep Dive Part II just dropped, it appears...
"GR Research Upgrade failure or success with Wilson Audio" |
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Isn't the obvious question why is he reviewing/modding and slagging a 13yr old iteration of the WWP? Is there really enough commercial constituency to make it worth his while? It just doesn't seem relevant. FWIW I heard older models and was not impressed enough to buy a pair. I just heard the 50th anniversary models- and was and did. |
Not entirely true, he praises speakers designed by guys who know their stuff (A.Jones, Peter Comeau, etc, no engineering flaws), but it is true that they all get budget restricted w.r.t crossover parts, etc. Even a few hundred dollars worth of crossover part ugrades will get it up a notch, but, that is all something guys in the diy space attempt anyways, without danny selling them a upgrade kit. I know he’s a flat response chaser (which i’m not), but, i have a couple of different speakers around this Puppy price range that...i suppose he could measure it 50 different ways and still won’t be able to ’improve’ anything on it. 30k or above, i expect a speaker to not quite be "upgradeable", Puppy failed there, it seems. In Puppy’s case, it isn’t just a flat response issue....but my main issue with Wilson generally is...at 30k or 60k, you just bought a Focal driver and threw it in a box?! I would buy a Focal instead then, a focal utopia maybe..I could just buy a focal driver and throw it in a box myself, don’t need your help there buddy. Try designing/simulating/f’abing/testing, develolping all the tooling, etc for drivers in house by yourself. Now, the price starts to add up and finds a justification.
For the flat response chasers, the Tekton designer came up with the epic response, nuff said. "First, a loudspeaker can be designed from a viewpoint of rigid science [what this website looks to be all about] or it can be designed from a viewpoint of art and creativity. In my opinion, a great loudspeaker should have a beautiful balance of science and art. Think of what a mastering engineer could do to a song! A mastering engineer is both an artist and a scientist. Good loudspeaker design must be approached from an identical viewpoint; no different than a mastering engineer producing a track of music - I make the loudspeaker sound exactly how I want it to.
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@thecarpathian is your aunt on social media? Now I am intrigued. |
Someone who thinks some Alexia sounded "live" hasn't probably heard a Meyer Bluehorn, Klipsch Jubilee or a Levinson M1.
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@knotscott There will be a part II |
Wilson built its reputation years ago when they really had something special when compared with other speakers of the time. They do some things very well for a dynamic speaker. They also seem to ignore other very important aspects of design which back you into a corner concerning amplification. They have never been on my radar due to what I consider to be bad engineering and design decisions. |
Oh you are lucky, I would have banned that for sure. I also had something strange yesterday- I typed a semi-long response in a different thread, and I hit the post button on the bottom, and it disappeared and I got a 'log in using 2 factor authentication" pop up on screen. Sometimes strange computer issues happen. Of course I couldn't refresh or go back and retrieve the message and had to re-craft it. In the future I hope I remember to save the whole message before posting. |
For anyone considering a Wilson Audio Tune Tot though I encourage you to look at Fritz as a better sounding and more affordable alternative. |
@mclinnguy I sent a note to Tammy (admin) and she has reposted my original message. If you scroll up you can read it :) |
This is an infomercial masquerading as a hifi enthusiast video. If you have the cheese to buy these speakers, you shouldn't try to drive them using a 100 wpc (insert name) receiver bought from Best Buy. Your in a different league now. People don't listen to frequency response curves, they listen to music. This guys whole thing is to criticize someone else's work. Why I wonder there are no samples of music we can listen to? As a musician I can tell you, I've never played a gig or concert where we showed the sheet music or charts and never played a note. This whole video was a waste of 18+ minutes. |
I really didn't want to love the WP8 but I did. That being said; I wonder if the owner had adequate amplification and befitting room treatment? Reviews of the rarified air top audio gear pieces we often get reviews like a car guy complaining that the Ferrari just isn't as fast 0-60 as his Dodge, ergo: Dodge is better. |
@paqua123 +1 |
@deep_333 I'm not necessarily talking about THIS incident! I'm talking about many other ones over the years! |
No, it is not a review. An unhappy Wilson owner sent the speakers to Danny.
So would you drop $27K on a choppy FR and accept that as a design preference? The bad FR was duplicated by another respected reviewer. That Wilson FR is not even close to what is considered industry standard +/- 3 dB. A Frequency Response curve shows if a speaker is accurate. That curve is a mess and could not even be deemed a ":voicing" choice.
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I have to say, a waste of time. Yeah, little conflict of interest going on here. Wilson designed a speaker differently than he would, not a big surprise. I have heard different Wilson speaker for decades. They sound great and are consistent in there sound. They are not for me... but I completely understand why they have such a huge following... because of the way they sound... not how they chart on paper or connect their filter. These are great speakers (I have heard many iterations of them) and it is reasonable that someone is going to power them with a high end audiophile amplifier capable of dealing with their impedance. I'd feel really bad if anyone saw this video and did not go down and hear them before writing them off.
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