Wilson Audio TuneTot Review (high-end bookshelf speaker)

[Galliardist]

10K for a shoes box size speaker? Thanks, but no thanks!

Let's put it this way. I live in a small unit (apartment, flat) in suburban Sydney, and am restricted in where I can live by a combination of my job and my inability to drive - I need to live near public transport.

Most of the people here criticising this speaker for price alone I know have dedicated rooms for their audio systems, probably treated in various ways. I don't. I have a moderately sized living room with doors in opposite corners, and can't optimally place my speakers, quite apart from the presence of my partner's book collection which is way more important.

The price of these speakers in Australia is probably around $20,.000 AU. To acquire a dedicated room I would need to buy a house or larger unit that meets my location and other needs, I would be looking at over $900,000AU at current prices.

Without seeking to defend this particular speaker, one at this price that actually does something significant or is more pleasing/leads me to listen to more music, suddenly looks a lot more interesting in my situation.

 

[aj625]

What a bunch of rubbish.

There is nothing anti-science or anti-objectivist about having preferences for particular cosmetics and buying accordingly.

Plenty of us have been on this site far longer and don't find it necessary to be so extremist in outlook.

Exactly. Amir has made a list and you can very well choose a good looking product of your choice irrespective of measurements. But measurements certainly are your shortlisting and starting guide. It's upto you how much weightage you want to give to what parameter. Nobody throws money without consideration of these factors. If it wasn't so then there wouldn't have been so many websites with reviews. In fact you are also here not just for heck of it. Imo looks will always be secondary for most of the audiophile that why they are "audiophiles" or else they could have well be called audioart lover. Isn't it ?

 

[watchnerd]

Let's put it this way. I live in a small unit (apartment, flat) in suburban Sydney, and am restricted in where I can live by a combination of my job and my inability to drive - I need to live near public transport.

Most of the people here criticising this speaker for price alone I know have dedicated rooms for their audio systems, probably treated in various ways. I don't. I have a moderately sized living room with doors in opposite corners, and can't optimally place my speakers, quite apart from the presence of my partner's book collection which is way more important.

The price of these speakers in Australia is probably around $20,.000 AU. To acquire a dedicated room I would need to buy a house or larger unit that meets my location and other needs, I would be looking at over $900,000AU at current prices.

Without seeking to defend this particular speaker, one at this price that actually does something significant or is more pleasing/leads me to listen to more music, suddenly looks a lot more interesting in my situation.

+1

While I do have an acre of land in the Seattle area, my "big rig" listening room is also our living room. Replace books with LPs and you get something like this:

Standmount speakers with dual subs adding up to a total cost about the same as the Tune Tots:

 

[hvbias]

Man, this thread has me wondering what kind of gear I could send to Amir that:

a) Is expensive
b) He'll probably subjectively like
c) Won't measure all that great
d) Will get the ASR community all salty

I think a used one of these would be perfect; they were $14K back in the day, but the used ones are still $4K

Mark Levinson No.30 Reference Digital Processor

Over the past two and a half years, I've auditioned and reviewed a number of digital audio products. It has been a fascinating experience both to watch digital playback technology evolve and to listen to the results of various design philosophies. The road to more musical digital audio has been...

www.stereophile.com

Credit to @Robin L for the find on the vintage DAC thread.

Interesting thought, I'm not sure if what I'm about to write would be controversial or not.

Spectral SDR-2000 and Pacific Microsonics Model 2 DACs. The Spectral used to have a small cult following on a hifi forum (people did pass multiple blind tests with it against a Matrix DAC level matched to within half db) and the PM Model 2 still sells very quickly whenever it turns up second hand, and these are not cheap. I believe Fresh! Reference Recordings still use a PM Model 2 on their classical recordings as the HDCD logo is on the back of their discs. Texas Instruments and whoever made the UltraAnalog DAC had some real engineering in them and it would be interesting to see how they held up today measurements wise. I have a friend that had a high up position at Google and now at Target's e-commerce division with two Spectrals and a PM Model 2. I stick to speakers, room treatments, room acoustics and speaker DSP threads so I don't know if Amir comments on the sound of DACs.

If speakers only, Rockport seem to have the same SOTA cabinets like Wilson. Vivid Giya are another that do well on JA's measurements but the Klippel is more unforgiving. I think these speakers sound quite good but a tad on the sterile side with lieder.

 

[watchnerd]

If speakers only, Rockport seem to have the same SOTA cabinets like Wilson. Vivid Giya are another that do well on JA's measurements but the Klippel is more unforgiving. I think these speakers sound quite good but a tad on the sterile side with lieder.

@Thomas savage had / has a pair of Giya's, that I think imploded or something.

 

[watchnerd]

Pacific Microsonics Model 2 DACs. The Spectral used to have a small cult following on a hifi forum (people did pass multiple blind tests with it against a Matrix DAC level matched to within half db) and the PM Model 2 still sells very quickly whenever it turns up second hand, and these are not cheap.

Looks like $10K is the current going rate:

Pacific Microsonics Model Two HDCD Processor | Reverb

The Model One and Model Two HDCD Processors are the best D/A A/D converters ever built! We have one of each for sale. The original retail price of the Model One and Model Two were 16,000 and 20,000 respectively. However, the company (Pacific Microsonics) did not build the proc...

reverb.com

 

[amirm]

Looks like $10K is the current going rate:

When we acquired Pacific Microsonics, I thought about getting one of their units but then thought, what would I do with this giant box and didn't. I regret that decision!

 

[hvbias]

@Thomas savage had / has a pair of Giya's, that I think imploded or something.

I hope @Thomas savage is doing well! I recently came back to ASR with being on holidays and haven't seen him posting much. My wife and I both think these are some of the best looking speakers ever made (though YMMV Kandinsky is one of my favorite artists) and it was nice to see they were designed well too. Though a modern aesthetic that doesn't really suit any of the rooms I want speakers in.

When we acquired Pacific Microsonics, I thought about getting one of their units but then thought, what would I do with this giant box and didn't. I regret that decision!

They've come way down in price, they might have been more like $30k when you were thinking about getting one?

I used to have Assemblage 2.0, 2.1 and 3.1 DACs that had PMD100 or PMD200 digital filters. It was interesting to see the HDCD light on them even with a regular FLAC rip I made on EAC and not on dbpoweramp with its HDCD DSP. So there was some flag (?) that was alerting the DAC that it was HDCD encoded. Even if these discs didn't have peak extension and were just mastered using a Pacific Microsonics ADC.

Anyway would have been interesting for sure. I always wondered how they did the analog to digital conversion, I have never seen pictures of the insides of them. Rumor was they used UltraAnalog DACs for the D/A portion, but these were also 18 bit DACs? Were their 24 bit recordings released with them just padded? A whole lot of mystery and cult status surrounding them

 

[DanielT]

But if we see what Wilson says and what Amir comes up with with his test, is Wilson lying?

The information I can find, what Wilson says. Is it possible that I missed something?:

TuneTot is the latest product from the Wilson Special Applications Engineering (WSAE) team. While its name pays homage to the first WSAE product, it is a modern technical tour de force designed to offer the timbral beauty, dynamic nuance, soundstage resolution, and transparency — all the hallmarks of Wilson loudspeakers design culture — but do so in environments which are hostile to all of those qualities.

WSAE engineers readily detect even the tiniest enclosure vibrations — at the level of billionths of a meter, which, in turn, reveals the ideal combination and geometry of the composites for the cabinet. TuneTot is constructed from two Wilson proprietary composites — the proven combination of Wilson’s X- and S-material.

Wilson Audio | TuneTot

 

[MattHooper]

But what IS the goal with that particular peak? It's extreme and narrow, so not emphasis on low harmonics for notes that are well down, the reason I've seen given for less extreme peaks in small speakers.

It's worth noting that Wilson Audio do pay serious attention to bass. In the past (not sure if they do this now) they used to produce differing versions of their larger models for the European market, designed to work with smaller rooms and harder walls than their US versions. This kind of attention suggests that (whether we agree with their goals or not) they have learnt a few things about bass output. When stopped, the TuneTot's bass response doesn't vary too much from the previous Duette speakers, so in a sense this speaker is not too inconsistent with their history despite the open port response.

Indeed, were this a sealed box with just the closed port response, sure there would be lot of posts about the price, but the response would be less likely to be questioned as it has.

I agree that's a good question, and the peak may be very deliberate, or it could still be the Wilson engineers didn't know what they are doing, or didn't even quite reach their own design goals. I don't think we can say for sure. It's like how John Atkinson puzzles every time he measures a new B&W speaker, he says to paraphrase "I've been to the factory, they have very competent engineers, they know what they are doing, they could easily design a speaker without this idiosyncratic frequency response...yet they keep doing it. I have to presume it's deliberate, but I don't know why."

Similarly, designing a decently flat frequency response is within easy reach of speaker designers these days - DIYers achieve it all the time, and a company a old and well off as Wilson surely could do another me-too neutral speaker or Harman Kardon curve design. But they don't. They seem hell bent on emphasizing certain sound characteristics above others. And it clearly appeals to some portion of listeners, it seems.
Amirm's own listening indicates it has appeal.

 

[DanielT]

I agree that's a good question, and the peak may be very deliberate, or it could still be the Wilson engineers didn't know what they are doing, or didn't even quite reach their own design goals. I don't think we can say for sure. It's like how John Atkinson puzzles every time he measures a new B&W speaker, he says to paraphrase "I've been to the factory, they have very competent engineers, they know what they are doing, they could easily design a speaker without this idiosyncratic frequency response...yet they keep doing it. I have to presume it's deliberate, but I don't know why."

Similarly, designing a decently flat frequency response is within easy reach of speaker designers these days - DIYers achieve it all the time, and a company a old and well off as Wilson surely could do another me-too neutral speaker or Harman Kardon curve design. But they don't. They seem hell bent on emphasizing certain sound characteristics above others. And it clearly appeals to some portion of listeners, it seems.
Amirm's own listening indicates it has appeal.

Yep exactly. Wilson have created a speaker based on what they want it to sound like.

You mention DIY. That any DIY can do that. Yep exactly. Any DIY can for example create a speaker that , has an extra pitch, "disco bass". Or an increase (or lowering) in the treble range. Just work with different values for drivers, baffles, volume on box, value of the components in the crossover filter (passive ditto) and so on. If it's the cup of tea you want.

Then how good it will be depends on competence and experience, but that it can be done is obvious.

Just mix and get what you want via, for example, this:

Tolvan Data

Edit:
I can design a speaker in minutes. It might sound too damn bad in most ears. It's just tossing together a bit on chance and mismatch. But I can always say: Hey this is what I wanted. Take it or leave it. I can do, do not want to do it. By the way, anyone can construct a bad DIY speaker. It's not hard.In itself, I would rather build a really good DIY speaker. But I do not have the skills, experience or measuring equipment to handle that.

 

[Galliardist]

+1

While I do have an acre of land in the Seattle area, my "big rig" listening room is also our living room. Replace books with LPs and you get something like this:

Standmount speakers with dual subs adding up to a total cost about the same as the Tune Tots:

View attachment 174637

Your room's neater than ours will ever get to be! We have a LOT of books in the room (and an extensive mess in front of the speakers, so no pic for a while).

 

[MattHooper]

Yep exactly. Wilson have created a speaker based on what they want it to sound like.

You mention DIY. That any DIY can do that. Yep exactly. Any DIY can for example create a speaker that , has an extra pitch, "disco bass". Or an increase (or lowering) in the treble range. Just work with different values for drivers, baffles, volume on box, value of the components in the crossover filter (passive ditto) and so on. Then how good it will be depends on competence and experience, but that it can be done is obvious.

Just mix and get what you want via, for example, this:

Tolvan Data

The usual inference when some wonky measurements show up in a speaker is "Incompetent Designer!"

But that's only if the designer is aiming for the goal you are presuming.

It seems to me that when puzzling over the measurements of a speaker, especially one from a long existing company, or one that has good engineering resources, if they keep producing similar idiosyncrasies that's a tip off they have a different goal than the one you are judging them against. I mean, it certainly still MAY be that they are trying to achieve some frequency response/polar response etc that would be heartily approved of around here. But given the advances in speaker design, modelling software etc that is widely available, and if a company just sticks to it's guns nonetheless, it seems to me suggesting of having a different goal...not failing to achieve the one that many ASR folk want out of a speaker. In other words, it's not necessarily "incompetence"...but...having a different design goal in mind.

(One can also make the case for why they *ought* to aim for another response - e.g. appeal to Toole's et al's research - but nonetheless they may be achieving the sound they mean to achieve).

 

[DanielT]

The usual inference when some wonky measurements show up in a speaker is "Incompetent Designer!"

But that's only if the designer is aiming for the goal you are presuming.

It seems to me that when puzzling over the measurements of a speaker, especially one from a long existing company, or one that has good engineering resources, if they keep producing similar idiosyncrasies that's a tip off they have a different goal than the one you are judging them against. I mean, it certainly still MAY be that they are trying to achieve some frequency response/polar response etc that would be heartily approved of around here. But given the advances in speaker design, modelling software etc that is widely available, and if a company just sticks to it's guns nonetheless, it seems to me suggesting of having a different goal...not failing to achieve the one that many ASR folk want out of a speaker. In other words, it's not necessarily "incompetence"...but...having a different design goal in mind.

(One can also make the case for why they *ought* to aim for another response - e.g. appeal to Toole's et al's research - but nonetheless they may be achieving the sound they mean to achieve).

What Wilson wants to achieve you see in post # 829

I find it exciting when Wilson says:
WSAE engineers readily detect even the tiniest enclosure vibrations - at the level of billionths of a meter,....

Hm, wondering what kind of measuring equipment they have?

 

[DWI]

Nobody throws money without consideration of these factors. If it wasn't so then there wouldn't have been so many websites with reviews.

We did.

 

[watchnerd]

The usual inference when some wonky measurements show up in a speaker is "Incompetent Designer!"

But that's only if the designer is aiming for the goal you are presuming.

It makes me wonder what some here would think of the designers who worked on the latest iteration of the Klipschorn.

 

[watchnerd]

Hm, wondering what kind of measuring equipment they have?

Can't laser interferometry do that?

 

[aj625]

We did.

You must be very rich !

 

[Crosstalk]

Ok. So you refuse to recognize any other goals than your own.

Can't do much more with that.

Frankly, I too am appalled at the incompetence of motorcycle designers, who seem utterly unable to reach the goal of building a car. A Good Engineer can achieve a perfectly serviceable 4 wheeled vehicle, so nobody should waste their money on those incompetents building motorcycles.

No engineering there.

All the analogies you guys are using are pointless here. If accurate sound reproduction is the usecase of a loudspeaker, only one outcome is right here. Everything else is broken, like a car with a engine that spurts every now and then but still somehow run. Yeah for some people it may be ok, if there is a sticker of Ferrari on it

 

[aj625]

All the analogies you guys are using are pointless here. If accurate sound reproduction is the usecase of a loudspeaker, only one outcome is right here. Everything else is broken, like a car with a engine that spurts every now and then but still somehow run. Yeah for some people it may be ok, if there is a sticker of Ferrari on it

Exactly. Very surprised to see so many post in support for such an obscenely expensive piece of junk.