Wilson Audio Speakers: Why do people like them?

[dfuller]

I'll put it this way:

The obviously flawed ATC SCM19 V1 measured here has an Olive score of 4.8.

The very poor performing PMC Result6 has an Olive score of 2.8.

One has to try to make a typical monopole speaker get below 2.

 

[Sokel]

So did Dunlavy, and the off axis of those speakers was pretty bad.

First order slopes make pretty looking steps but that's about it. The lobing, especially vertically, is really quite bad.

.. and it's probably the reason that you need a laser pointer to define your MLP and put your head in a vice after that.
Wilson is famous for this.

Vertical response is often underestimated and a lot of speakers suffer there.
I will never get tired of saying it, since we can not avoid floor too much (a thick carpet or a little better is all we can do) , ceiling should be treated to death for peace of mind.

It's one of the earliest reflections (considering your listening room is not at the hall of a castle and it's the usual 2.5-3.5 m high so at a distance of 1-2.5 meters away from a nice floorstander's tweeter) and can spoil things big time, no matter the speaker.

 

[Arindal]

it's probably the reason that you need a laser pointer to define your MLP and put your head in a vice after that.
Wilson is famous for this.

My guess would be the latter reputation results from the numerous models employing several midrange drivers while separating midrange and tweeter enclosures. That is a recipe for problematic vertical dispersion.

Would not expect such behavior from a 2-way or a standard 3-way with rather compact midrange and midrange/tweeter being close together.

Vertical response is often underestimated and a lot of speakers suffer there.
I will never get tired of saying it, since we can not avoid floor too much (a thick carpet or a little better is all we can do) , ceiling should be treated to death for peace of mind.

Fully agree on the importance of vertical directivity and response under different angles. The restricted listening window is in many cases not the main problem, but tonality imbalances in early reflections are.

It is just a question what is the best measure to counter these problems as most of conventional speaker designs are imperfect in this regard. Treating floor and ceiling is a good idea, but not easy to implement in a way which is doing so equally over several frequency bands.

 

[Sokel]

but not easy to implement in a way which is doing so equally over several frequency bands.

No cheap either, if I take the example of what they charged me, ceiling was 2 times more expensive from the rest of the whole room (to look nice too) .

And it need lots of space too, my ceiling was 3.2 m before treatment and it's now 2.5 m counting the gap too. And even so it's only effective down to 200Hz-300Hz or so maybe even higher. What saves the situation a little is that usually the midrange and bass drives are lower than tweeter so the added distance helps with attenuation (but not much) .

Without it I doubt that I would have depth clues when recordings contain such but that's only empirical, is just that every time I have listened to a rig that can translate that coincidentally has treated ceiling. Maybe I'm also biased about though, mind can play lots of tricks.

Edit: to be honest here, when I say "ceiling" I don't mean the whole 80 m² of the room.It's only a 4X4 m area in front of me, right in front of my head, no more.

 

[dfuller]

and it's probably the reason that you need a laser pointer to define your MLP and put your head in a vice after that.
Wilson is famous for this.

Correct. That's why I find first order slopes so silly. Maybe it does sound a little better - but at one seat in the house, and it takes so much effort to get there it's just not worth it.

 

[MattHooper]

Vertical response is often underestimated and a lot of speakers suffer there.
I will never get tired of saying it, since we can not avoid floor too much (a thick carpet or a little better is all we can do) , ceiling should be treated to death for peace of mind.

On that note….My room….

Wall to wall thick, shag rug for the floor.

Bulkhead built down on the ceiling, stretched dark brown fabric over a frame, containing strategically distributed acoustic material:

When it comes to treating the floor and ceiling I believe there’s some level of disagreement as to how important it is.
But I did it, and I’m certainly pleased with the results as the room sounds fantastic with practically any speaker. You can really get immersed in the acoustic represented by the recording.

(I have a thick brown velvet cover for the fireplace near the left speaker for when I’m listening to music by the way).

 

[Arindal]

That's why I find first order slopes so silly. Maybe it does sound a little better - but at one seat in the house,

Don´t really see the connection between filter slope and uneven response at several positions. While with steep filters the interference or lobing area might be narrower in frequency range compared to first order ones with vast interference areas, not much is determined at which position this will lead to audible problems or at which frequency exactly. I would rather say geometry, driver sizes and crossover frequency play a more crucial role here, and they also determine which crossover topology is best for a certain scenario. There might be cases in which a broader transitional band is a deliberate measure to smoothen directivity instead of a sudden step.

 

[teched58]

View attachment 464281

It would be cool to compare the $10K Tune Tot to much cheaper studio monitors and see which is best

To listen to them side by side
Let's say with KH150 or 8341

Measurements show it barely will have a chance if uncoloured reproduction is the target, even if we compare their spinorama scores (1.5 for the Wilson and 6.8 for both KH150 and 8341) the difference is huge, usually more than 1 point is significant, of course that doesn't make it impossible for some individuals to prefer it for few reasons.

The best way to compare the Tune Tot to a cheaper speaker would be to throw both of them out the window, and then watch the owner of the Tune Tot immediately jump out the window after his speakers.
[EDIT: A comparison should be a test. Accordingly, what I said above should be revised to read: The best way to compare the Tune Tot to a cheaper speaker would be to throw both of them out the window and then watch which one the Tune Tot owner tries to save when he jumps out the window after them.]


I hear Polymarket has it at 75% odds that the owner will defenestrate himself in an attempt to save his precious investment.

 

[ahofer]

The best way to compare the Tune Tot to a cheaper speaker would be to throw both of them out the window, and then watch the owner of the Tune Tot immediately jump out the window after it.

I hear Polymarket has it at 75% odds that the owner will defenestrate himself in an attempt to save his precious investment.

Does the Tune Tot have a higher max SPL? Those little monitors tend to suffer a bit in larger rooms.

 

[dfuller]

Does the Tune Tot have a higher max SPL? Those little monitors tend to suffer a bit in larger rooms.

The Genelec Ones (short of the 8361) are pretty low max SPL - the 8341 (like most Gennies) has a very aggressive driver protection limiter, and even before that point just runs out of steam for lots of SPL.

Same goes for the KH150, which has a pretty hard SPL limit in the low end of around 96dB.

The Tunetot on the other hand doesn't extend anywhere near as low (the 8341 and KH150 both have ~40hz lower linear extension thanks to a port tuning that actually makes sense vs the ~100hz tuning on the Tunetot), so unsurprisingly it goes quite a bit louder where it does play. Plus, it lacks any sort of limiters (being passive).

But considering the fact that you can get 8361s for about the same price as a pair of TuneTots (disregarding amps), I don't know why you'd compare them other than size.

Don´t really see the connection between filter slope and uneven response at several positions. While with steep filters the interference or lobing area might be narrower in frequency range compared to first order ones with vast interference areas, not much is determined at which position this will lead to audible problems or at which frequency exactly. I would rather say geometry, driver sizes and crossover frequency play a more crucial role here, and they also determine which crossover topology is best for a certain scenario. There might be cases in which a broader transitional band is a deliberate measure to smoothen directivity instead of a sudden step.

Crossover slopes definitely play a part here, though, especially vertically. Vertical off-axis will always have some lobing for vertically aligned drivers, but shallower slopes means more level in each driver's stopband, which pretty much means the lobes will be considerably wider. In theory shallower slopes can help the horizontal, but it's almost always at the expense of the vertical (and sometimes the axial response).

 

[Pearljam5000]

The Genelec Ones (short of the 8361) are pretty low max SPL - the 8341 (like most Gennies) has a very aggressive driver protection limiter, and even before that point just runs out of steam for lots of SPL.

Same goes for the KH150, which has a pretty hard SPL limit in the low end of around 96dB.

The Tunetot on the other hand doesn't extend anywhere near as low (the 8341 and KH150 both have ~40hz lower linear extension thanks to a port tuning that actually makes sense vs the ~100hz tuning on the Tunetot), so unsurprisingly it goes quite a bit louder where it does play.

But considering the fact that you can get 8361s for about the same price as a pair of TuneTots (disregarding amps), I don't know why you'd compare them other than size.


Crossover slopes definitely play a part here, though, especially vertically. Vertical off-axis will always have some lobing for vertically aligned drivers, but shallower slopes means more level in each driver's stopband, which pretty much means the lobes will be considerably wider. In theory shallower slopes can help the horizontal, but it's almost always at the expense of the vertical (and sometimes the axial response).

They're all 6.5 inch

 

[dfuller]

They're all 6.5 inch

I don't know why you'd compare them other than size.

 

[Pearljam5000]

Sorry
Missed that

 

[MattHooper]

From Andrew Robinson‘s new review of the Wilson Watt puppy…

The in-room measurements are more linear than I would have guessed:

He seemed quite enthusiastic about these loudspeakers, especially talking about how locked in they were to the listening position to provide an amazing disappearing act with precise imaging and realism. I’d like to have heard them in his set up. I don’t doubt that some aspects of the performance could’ve been quite impressive.

 

[Purité Audio]

Here’s to you Andrew Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you can know…
Keith

 

[Blockader]

From Andrew Robinson‘s new review of the Wilson Watt puppy…

The in-room measurements are more linear than I would have guessed:

View attachment 466024


He seemed quite enthusiastic about these loudspeakers, especially talking about how locked in they were to the listening position to provide an amazing disappearing act with precise imaging and realism. I’d like to have heard them in his set up. I don’t doubt that some aspects of the performance could’ve been quite impressive.

 

[MattHooper]

View attachment 466026

Could you elaborate? What in the post you were quoting deserves the face palm?

 

[Purité Audio]

Everything?
Keith

 

[MattHooper]

Everything?
Keith

cynicism is boring Keith. Can you provide anything else?

 

[Purité Audio]

I have my audiophile ‘bingo’ card.
Keith