Wilson Audio TuneTot Review (high-end bookshelf speaker)

[aj625]

I agree the the importance of DRC. No doubts here. I am still wondering, pay 10k on this and then DRC or pay 50 bucks on an Amazon basics speakers and then DRC. What does DRC on this gives me extra over a 50 bucks speaker which also can be corrected in the room? Then it comes back to the brand name marketing and me falling for it… no thanks.

May be these people are from Wilson !

 

[MrHifiTunes]

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

Im spending already way to much time here. We are getting close to 45 pages but didnt learn me much.

so 1 more time.
Many seems not to like this design. What would you do to make it better?
Im not talking about the bass bump. Easy to get it fixed with the supplied foam. I want to know about the rest of the spectrum.
What you hear is the in-room response. What would you fix here and make better here? We have close to 450 people here who didnt like it so Im sure we get many advise to make the Graph below better then it is. And again NOT talking about the bass bump. You like it, you leave it. You dont like it, you put the foam plug.

 

[MrHifiTunes]

And one for the scientist here.
I mentioned it before but no one goes deeper into it. So I will try to rephrase my wobbly on-off axis question.

Looking at the graph of the individual drivers. This doesnt look like a standard linkwitz riley, butterworth or bessel filter.
Seems they just have a notch on the woofer and tweeter at 1k2 and 2k8 Hz.
Still they manage to get a smooth in room response and good directivity for a 2-way design without waveguide.

What do think is going on here? It intrigues me as it is different from what i saw before from any design. And it seems to better then standard XO topology in a reflective room.

 

[KSTR]

The price/perfomance ratio of this product sure is mediocre (even when considering any boutique item bonus), and I think we all agree on this.

 

[DanielT]

And one for the scientist here.
I mentioned it before but no one goes deeper into it. So I will try to rephrase my wobbly on-off axis question.

Looking at the graph of the individual drivers. This doesnt look like a standard linkwitz riley, butterworth or bessel filter.
Seems they just have a notch on the woofer and tweeter at 1k2 and 2k8 Hz.
Still they manage to get a smooth in room response and good directivity for a 2-way design without waveguide.

What do think is going on here? It intrigues me as it is different from what i saw before from any design. And it seems to better then standard XO topology in a reflective room.

Do not forget to add level of distortion to the equation. We're still talking about speakers. Audible distortion.In some situations, it depends on the volume / dB plus how sensitive you are to distortion ... the old usual in other words.

If that level of distortion is good / sensible compared to other speakers?

 

[MrHifiTunes]

Do not forget to add level of distortion to the equation. We're still talking about speakers. Audible distortion.In some situations, it depends on the volume / dB plus how sensitive you are to distortion ... the old usual in other words.

If that level of distortion is good / sensible compared to other speakers?

Distortion is what it is....its about understanding their XO design.

 

[MrHifiTunes]

The price/perfomance ratio of this product sure is mediocre (even when considering any boutique item bonus), and I think we all agree on this.

Still it is something personal....I want to talk about facts....what is not good about the in-room response? What can be done to improve it? And again NOT THE BASS BUMP

 

[DanielT]

Distortion is what it is....its about understanding their XO design.

Yes distortion is what it is and it differs between different speakers.

If you are now going to compare Audio TuneTot with other speakers. That was just what I wanted to say.

 

[Eetu]

Im spending already way to much time here. We are getting close to 45 pages but didnt learn me much.

so 1 more time.
Many seems not to like this design. What would you do to make it better?
Im not talking about the bass bump. Easy to get it fixed with the supplied foam. I want to know about the rest of the spectrum.
What you hear is the in-room response. What would you fix here and make better here? We have close to 450 people here who didnt like it so Im sure we get many advise to make the Graph below better then it is. And again NOT talking about the bass bump. You like it, you leave it. You dont like it, you put the foam plug.

These are less than 6k and include 6 channels of amplification, DACs..

When a speaker is 10k/pair you should get waay more than the Wilson offers.

 

[MrHifiTunes]

These are less than 6k and include 6 channels of amplification, DACs..
View attachment 174682
When a speaker is 10k/pair you should get waay more than the Wilson offers.

Is it audiable? this is the M106. Where you draw the line between good and bad?

 

[Thomas_A]

Is it audiable? this is the M106. Where you draw the line between good and bad?

A somewhat poor example given the diff in bass extension. But I get your point.

 

[Crosstalk]

Im spending already way to much time here. We are getting close to 45 pages but didnt learn me much.

so 1 more time.
Many seems not to like this design. What would you do to make it better?
Im not talking about the bass bump. Easy to get it fixed with the supplied foam. I want to know about the rest of the spectrum.
What you hear is the in-room response. What would you fix here and make better here? We have close to 450 people here who didnt like it so Im sure we get many advise to make the Graph below better then it is. And again NOT talking about the bass bump. You like it, you leave it. You dont like it, you put the foam plug.

where did they say its easy to fix it with a foam plug?

 

[Frank Dernie]

Some of it is. My observation is that most members value accuracy until their amp output, and then abandon it completely for the speaker/room part, by seeking additional tones and delays and reflections that were never in the original signal, which in my opinion represents joyous embrace of inaccuracy. Which makes a nonsense of the objective/subjective debate - most folks here seem to be both at once.

I think this is true to an extent, I have found the location of my speakers and chair in my room to have the biggest influence on the sound I hear, and consider it important to optimise this before trying any room compensation but realise some people's domestic arrangements mean they will have to compromise here, often massively.

OTOH whilst the Harman speaker evaluation system is the most easily followed in English, since it is published and has more (probably) English speaking people aware of it than any other design target it is clear other speaker makers may have their own proprietary targets that they have found to be important in their own non-published evaluations.

Of course these may well not be as "good" a way of evaluating a speaker than the Harman system followed almost to the extent of religious fervour by some people. OTOH they must appeal to their customers since, particularly Wilson, have been selling shed loads of high end speakers for decades. Personally I loved the early Watt when I listened to it but couldn't afford them then and have never subsequently owned Wilson speakers.

Whether a person would like or could afford them is one thing, assuming they don't know what they are doing is beyond stupid IMO.

 

[MrHifiTunes]

where did they say its easy to fix it with a foam plug?

putting the foam plug makes it a sealed box. putting a hole makes the bump at 115Hz. All other vented options are also not accurate sound so just person taste/design goal.
I do think putting the plug needs some attention to make it properly sealed. Which could be a caveat here.
But some seem to use the hole as a handle....maybe it is already enough to make it not function properly. there is foam on the inside aswell.

But like I mention don't talk about the bass here...

 

[thorvat]

Is it audiable? this is the M106. Where you draw the line between good and bad?

First of all estimated in-room response is not supposed to describe what you will hear, but what you will measure in your room. Some other things, like general smoothness of response curves coming from a bunch of different angles much better describe what you hear than a single curve that we call "estimated in-room response". If you want to use a single parameter to describe what we hear than you should stick to the rating figure.

Coming back to comparison with M106, I believe 2 things can be said: one is that M106 certainly measures better. Would that difference be audible? Hard to tell without proper blind comparison. I believe the difference could be audible but probably not to a great extent.
The other thing that can be said can however be said with absolute certainty - M106, while being better at measurements, is many times cheaper, and that makes it much more desirable choice for pretty much anyone excepts folks that for some personal reason would like to have this Wilson speaker in particular.

 

[TimVG]

What you hear is the in-room response

That's not true for the entire spectrum. Modal region, yes. Above that what we hear, to quote Toole himself: "With reverberation times of the order of 0.2 to 0.4 s what we hear from loudspeakers is the direct sound, a few early reflections, and not much else."

The estimated in-room response is simply a calculation.

 

[Crosstalk]

putting the foam plug makes it a sealed box. putting a hole makes the bump at 115Hz. All other vented options are also not accurate sound so just person taste/design goal.
I do think putting the plug needs some attention to make it properly sealed. Which could be a caveat here.
But some seem to use the hole as a handle....maybe it is already enough to make it not function properly. there is foam on the inside aswell.

But like I mention don't talk about the bass here...

is there a measurement available with the foam in, to show the bump goes away?

 

[MrHifiTunes]

That's not true for the entire spectrum. Modal region, yes. Above that what we hear, to quote Toole himself: "With reverberation times of the order of 0.2 to 0.4 s what we hear from loudspeakers is the direct sound, a few early reflections, and not much else."

The estimated in-room response is simply a calculation.

What do you suggest? through away this graph all together? Will they not taken into account what Toole describes?
Sure it is not "every room" but it is a reference we use to evaluate different designs?
What is your proposal to make it better?
If the science behind it isn't right it is good to make it better so we can make better judgements.
If this speaker didn't had this graph with this result will you be pointing it out as evidence why it would sound bad?

 

[MrHifiTunes]

is there a measurement available with the foam in, to show the bump goes away?

A bit late no to start asking these questions after all the post you made no?

A sealed box is a sealed box. The bump is there because of the port as shown in the measurements.
The slope will follow the line of the sealed box. Why you expect it to be different? All speaker software work like that and make that prediction. Or did you find something new? But like I said I do think it needs some attention or it is leaking.

 

[TimVG]

What do you suggest? through away this graph all together? Will they not taken into account what Toole describes?
Sure it is not "every room" but it is a reference we use to evaluate different designs?
What is your proposal to make it better?
If the science behind it isn't right it is good to make it better so we can make better judgements.
If this speaker didn't had this graph with this result will you be pointing it out as evidence why it would sound bad?

The research behind it is sound, it's the interpretations that seem to be the problem.

I'm not pointing out anything about how this loudspeaker may sound, but I knew when I saw this review 5 minutes after it was uploaded that it would cause a ****storm due to the subjective impression