Wilson Audio TuneTot Review (high-end bookshelf speaker)

[respice finem]

What is expensive, well, good question...
My "price relativity theory": A 10k$ speaker is ridiculously expensive, if you can get what you expect from a speaker in its class for, say, 10%, and expensive if you can get ... at 50%. I've been after a tool to do a job (so I got the Neumanns).
But, and here's the relativity: if you are after "subjectively pleasant sound" or "luxury", design "art" etc. - it may be worth the price for you.

Ceterum censeo: An item has the right price if it finds its buyers (without false/misleading claims etc.).

 

[DanielT]

Did you read that Amir prefers it over the Revel M106? This speaker doesnt measure well at first glace but everything seems to fall into place.... And that in my view makes it great. A designer that doesnt follow to beaten path but know how a speaker will preform in a certain environment. But this makes it a niche product

How about audibility regarding distortion between them? That might be part of the explanation.

Or personal taste regarding dispersion and frequency response. Or.... well that's it. There's nothing else I can think of now.

 

[voodooless]

Did you read that Amir prefers it over the Revel M106? This speaker doesnt measure well at first glace but everything seems to fall into place.... And that in my view makes it great. A designer that doesnt follow to beaten path but know how a speaker will preform in a certain environment. But this makes it a niche product

Let's have Amir review the same speaker, but then tell him it cost $500,- I'm pretty sure he'll come to a different conclusion. Nobody is immune...

 

[MrHifiTunes]

I think these brands exist almost entirely because rich egotist exist and can be parted from their money. They make toys for these folks. For many reasons I don’t find much to justify or to admire in that kind of business.

Then you can say this about everything cars, houses, boats, art, .... Wouldnt life be boring? Im sure some "rich egoist" also know what sounds good. They probably hire a sound engineer anyway. D
idnt Mark Levenison did this also with his own brand? Tune an amplifier to an environment, got bored of not been able to explore his "artist freedom" with mark levinson.

 

[aj625]

Did you read that Amir prefers it over the Revel M106? This speaker doesnt measure well at first glace but everything seems to fall into place.... And that in my view makes it great. A designer that doesnt follow to beaten path but know how a speaker will preform in a certain environment. But this makes it a niche product

Exactly that suprised me. Only very first time I have seen such review. How a speaker having an extremely bad peak at as high as 120hz can sound even subjectively good ?

 

[MrHifiTunes]

Exactly that suprised me. Only very first time I have seen such review. How a speaker having an extremely bad peak at as high as 120hz can sound even subjectively good ?

I would like to see how it performs when put against the wall in a high reflective environment. I think that peak will be as bad as it looks.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Why people are saying this speaker have a expensive cabinet etc?
This cabinet only uses cheap wood, not even aluminum.
I dont see any special thing in this cabinet at 10,000 usd.

 

[zeppzeppzepp]

Measurements don't matter for sq, measurements not related to sq, it's all about what your ears like, all dac sound same, all amp sound same, all speaker sound same. Sounds familiar to you ?

You miss the point.
measurement surely matters.
But the measurement of this expensive speaker is not really a problem if you know how it affecting the sound.
Not all ups and downs in the measurement mean equally bad.
You need more insights to interpret the data, not just look at the figures.

 

[MrHifiTunes]

You miss the point.
measurement surely matters.
But the measurement of this expensive speaker is not really a problem if you know how it affecting the sound.
Not all ups and downs in the measurement mean equally bad.
You need more insights to interpret the data, not just look at the figures.

Seems most people digest one graph at a time and don't see the whole picture

 

[JJB70]

I think some are over reacting, but I also think some of the negativity is understandable given that one of the things this site has always been very negative about is other sites and reviewers finding reasons to praise expensive stuff which doesn't measure well. I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "here's the measurements, they're not great but I actually enjoyed these speakers/headphones" or whatever, but I also think that there should be a consistent approach if this is the case.

 

[Mart68]

Exactly that suprised me. Only very first time I have seen such review. How a speaker having an extremely bad peak at as high as 120hz can sound even subjectively good ?

My understanding is that a narrow peak will be harder to hear compared to one that spans over a broader frequency range.

There's nothing about the speaker that justifies the price though, you can get better for a lot less. Just because they sound okay with a bit of EQ doesn't make them a good buy.

 

[Thomas_A]

With the exception for the bass peak, this speaker follows the stereo compensation just a bit too much with its 3 kHz dip (on-axis). It may sound quite decent in-room given that the predicted room response does not show any large surprises. However, I see no reason to buy a "moderate-decent" speaker for this price. Its bass problems, including peaking and low bass capacity below 100 Hz is just too much errors.

 

[MrHifiTunes]

How about audibility regarding distortion between them? That might be part of the explanation.

Or personal taste regarding dispersion and frequency response. Or.... well that's it. There's nothing else I can think of now.

I don't see much difference in distortion. I think it sounds good because the end result is textbook, but the individual parts are far from textbook. I also assume it is tuned to a specific setup. Close to wall and high reflective room.

 

[hvbias]

I am not sure I understand what you mean, by saying they sound like miniature speakers, even with subwoofers.

Would that not in some regard show a lack of proper integration, or some huge response issue in either the subs or monitors or both?


I think I have heard the issue you describe, but it seemed to be a lack of midbass, due to bad integration of the sub to the low end of the monitor, or phase issues which cancel out a part of the bass range, due to distance between the sub and monitor.

After all A sub and mini monitor, are really the same thing as a big 3-way speaker, with the lows simply in another box.....

What I currently have in my office are JBL LSR306 MK2. The integration with the pair of subs is excellent and I use PEQ to smooth out any bass peaks.

This is an issue that many of us, not just Amir have posted about with regard to small speakers sounding well... small. There are at least two threads discussing the matter and several theories have been proposed as to the why. I know I'd pass any blind test with these vs say Salon2 where both were EQ'd to have similar response. Music like Wagner's Parsifal, Mahler's third symphony, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder sound miniscule and toy like. Even being kinder with chamber symphonies or period instrument sized orchestration does not produce satisfying results. In reality the same applies to really any music, I'm just using classical as an example as that is what I'm most familiar with.

Like I posted in the Genelec thread we need more blind testing on the why we're hearing certain aspects of sound quality, and address them appropriately for things that trained listeners find meaningful instead of continuing to chase the 1% things that don't matter so much. This is why I'm not convinced by the blind leading the blind of just following the measurements alone. With the major caveat being that the best sounding speakers generally do tend to follow the things that Toole has written about in his book.

It's not quite cognitive dissonance, the effect of the "cheap speakers I own" are just as good or better than the expensive speaker XX is the same as the audiophile that thinks because system Y costs a huge amount it must be better than system Z but sort of along the same lines.

I once listened to some big B&W floorstanders at my local dealer, followed by Wilson Audio Sophias (don't know which version). The Sophia's were played very loud and I had big fun listening to rock and jazz. Especially horns sounded great. I can understand @amirm that he liked the Tunetots.

However the fun disappeared completely when opera was played. Male voices were horrible through the Sophia's, rough and aggressive in the mids [1] and I knew immediately that those speakers were far from neutral and that I couldn't live with them.

[1] Similar to Naim SBLs even longer ago - the FR I saw later in a magazine revealed a strong resonance around 2 kHz.

Opera will bring any poor speaker to its knees One of my favorite experiences was playing Berg's Wozzeck on some trash Audio Note speakers, the discontinuities in the crossover and radiation were so obvious.

 

[sarumbear]

Yes I do! Franchise fee is $250,000.

Are there any franchises yet?

 

[sarumbear]

I think part of the good response is the super rigid box and high quality drivers. I can't prove this but it is a working hypothesis. There was certain clarity in high frequency notes that was really nice.

As a person who spent a year choosing drive units (we tested 100+) and building a super-stiff enclosure for my Silver5L and I can vouch that 100%.

 

[sarumbear]

Recommended cables for the TuneTotView attachment 174000

This is the most absurd thing I have ever seen!

 

[respice finem]

Maybe the owner has a welding shop

 

[Steve Dallas]

Did you read that Amir prefers it over the Revel M106? This speaker doesnt measure well at first glace but everything seems to fall into place.... And that in my view makes it great. A designer that doesnt follow to beaten path but know how a speaker will preform in a certain environment. But this makes it a niche product

Your point misses a key element: these speakers *require* EQ to sound better than the M106. DSP and equalization are more accessible than ever, and I use them in every system of mine, but how many average consumers can say the same? Most buyers of these speakers will be stuck with terribly aberrant sound.

 

[GaryH]

Interesting about this departure from the preference scores. I wonder if there is some additional new measurements to add to the quiver to correlate with preference

There is, it's called a brain scan.