Wilson Audio TuneTot Review (high-end bookshelf speaker)

[Ultrasonic]

I think giving these an OK rating if used with EQ is somewhat disengenious, since I bet the majority who buy these speakers wouldnt be using EQ (asthey'd argue it would corrupt the 'true' sound), and those likely to use EQ wouldn't buy them in the first place.

 

[HiFidFan]

Yeah, but Wilson has kind of short-circuited that strategy with the name, don't you think? Imagine a visitor to a rich guy's living room:

"Wow, those are cool speakers!"
"Thanks - they're Wilsons."
"Cool ... what model?"
"Tune Tots."
"Oh."

I don't think we'll see "TimeTot" out of Geneva anytime soon. . .

 

[fredoamigo]

If the Wilsons have won a happy panther, for 2022, I propose a diamond panther for the speaker SOTA

 

[Koeitje]

Regarding that bass peak,

How many people do you personally know actually EQ away even taller peaks that are present in your room?

If you run a $2k speaker without EQ-ing away that peak, it is not much different from having a $10k speaker with one additional peak. i.e. probably won't notice except for a "tight punchy controlled bass". Of course any music with any amount of bass note sophistication would get royally ruined... or "has new life injected in more dynamics" depending on the interpretation.

Except the peak you see here will even be a bigger peak if your room in a certain size.

 

[Pearljam5000]

It's got an "ecosystem"

 

[sweetchaos]

Which would you buy?
Kef Reference 1 for US$8000/pair

or this "thing"?

 

[PierreV]

It's got an "ecosystem"

But of course! This is where the Serinus nests. If you are lucky, you can hear it whistle in the evening.

 

[KellenVancouver]

It's got an "ecosystem"View attachment 173935

Ugh! How could they even dream up such marketing claptrap?

 

[maverickronin]

I think the name "Tune Tot" exists to upsell you to their more expensive models.

Or what if they could have continued the female name scheme from their other speakers and called it "Dolores"...

 

[aschen]

Wilson has a history with this sort of naming. There most popular series was the WATT Puppy. Watt is wilson audio tiny tot and the puppy was the matching woofer section, because you know puppies woof. I am sure many of y'all are aware.

I am definately not a Wilson apologist, I think their products are mostly terrible and are usually pretty ugly and unnecessarily theatrically packaged. I will say the ones I have seen have been extraordinarily well built even by high end standards. The pricing is stupid, the science isnt present, but they are made carefully to a high standard.

 

[gsp1971]

Hi-fi News also measured these. Even though the resolution is not close 1-10kHz seems to track quite well:
View attachment 173786

Wilson Audio TuneTot loudspeaker Lab Report

Given the TuneTot's compact dimensions and its 8ohm nominal impedance, the specified 86dB sensitivity looked ambitious and so it proved: we recorded 83.3dB for 2.83V at 1m on pink noise. Given that this really is an 8ohm design, our measured minimum modulus of 6.7ohm at 174Hz being very close to...

www.hifinews.com

I wouldn't buy these at any price let alone 10k. The foam/felt looks cheap too. I believe Darko has these

Have they scaled the x-axis to be >= 200 Hz so as not to show the bass boost?

 

[testp]

i've studied fair share of speakers here and for half the price there is Revel f226be that behaves close to ideal and has bass to ~30Hz with dirac, so i'm guessing you could get these only if your finger slipped and you clicked on buy at checkout...

 

[Larry B. Larabee]

The review isn't a total loss. Look how funny some of the responses are.

Dynamic range is hard to come by these days especially with these 2 way 'monitors'. It's a revelation when you hear it and from the review it appears not to be related to distortion or efficiency or type of dispersion if it sounds better than the revel. I don't believe that's true, though.

 

[MZKM]

With modern DSP it'd be feasible to use speakers with differing directivities but otherwise similar dimensions, layouts and driver size, and EQ them as closely as possible. Certainly not perfect, but that's one solution.

EQ the on-axis sure, but off-axis performance likely wouldn’t be very close, and you also have bass performance, distortion, etc. to worry about.

 

[fun]

Which would you buy?
Kef Reference 1 for US$8000/pair
View attachment 173938
or this "thing"?

Ref 1 is 10 lbs heavier, so it's really unfair to compare this "thing" to it. The R3, which also weigh 29 lbs, would be fairer comparison

 

[gsp1971]

Isn't this the most expensive speaker we got so far?

I think so. Owners of expensive speakers have probably been reluctant to send them in for review, unsure of what the measurements will show.
The first brave owners have come forward.
Keep them coming, I would like to see some Sonus Faber speakers coming in.

 

[anphex]

I think so. Owners of expensive speakers have probably been reluctant to send them in for review, unsure of what the measurements will show.
The first brave owners have come forward.
Keep them coming, I would like to see some Sonus Faber speakers coming in.

We need an ASR Europe center! The huge prices sending heavy speakers to USA are the only thing holding me back from sending in equipment.

 

[respice finem]

I think so. Owners of expensive speakers have probably been reluctant to send them in for review, unsure of what the measurements will show.
The first brave owners have come forward.
Keep them coming, I would like to see some Sonus Faber speakers coming in.

This - and IMHO the fear of getting them back smashed due to rough handling on the way. The longer the way, the higher the risk. Speakers are much more prone to transport related damage than electronics.

 

[ElNino]

Wilson has a history with this sort of naming. There most popular series was the WATT Puppy. Watt is wilson audio tiny tot and the puppy was the matching woofer section, because you know puppies woof. I am sure many of y'all are aware.

Most of Wilson's product names sound like something a slightly introverted guy who grew up in the 50s would come up with and think are sort of cool (e.g., WAMM, Grand SLAMM, WATT/Puppy, WHOW, and then a few products named after female members of his extended family). I'm not slamming the names, it's definitely a generational aesthetic. I'm sure Wilson earnestly thought Tune Tot was cool in its own way.

When Wilson died, they put an autographical book up on their website called "Life in the Rearview Mirror" written by Wilson... it's kind of a weird overly personal book but he was basically the typical suburban dad of my father's generation. A little obsessed with time alignment and no real interest in any other aspect of audio science (especially not diffraction and off-axis response), but seemed like a decent guy overall.

 

[Dialectic]

The company is based in Provo, Utah, but it is a stretch to assume the “guys” are LDS. More important, why the heck does it matter what religion they are?

As a factual matter, they are LDS, and like most LDS folks I've met, they are very nice.