Wilson Audio TuneTot Review (high-end bookshelf speaker)

[MrHifiTunes]

Considering the production cost, very low production volume and likely 15-25% discount off the MSRP you’ll easily get nobody’s getting filthy rich off this speaker. That cabinet also costs serious money, I’m not a fine carpentry journeyman, but if you asked one to build you a cabinet like this it’s probably close to four figures a piece.

Problem is the performance, if this performed like most mass market $1000 dollar speakers I don’t think the complaints would be that bad.

Does it not preform like mass market $1000 dollar speaker? Amir likes it more then than $2000 Revel M106. People just have difficulty to accept because they don't see it in the measurements. He is one of the only ones here who actually listen to the speaker. He doesnt seems the guy that would say it sounds good specially when measurments dont add up.

 

[nc42acc]

Curiously, me, I'm listening to them at the moment.


When I buy a consumer product, whether a toaster or a car, I don't break it down into parts costs. Like most other products, audio is priced relative to perceived competition and brand value and is usually perceived to fit into a certain price point, and the product designed accordingly.

I don't know if I'm an audiophile or not, don't really care, but my wife certainly isn't. She hates audio equipment. We do go to a lot of music together. She chose Wilson speakers, for both looks and sound, over the other brands generally considered wife-friendly.

DWI no offense by my other post but I have heard Wilson many times and have never been impressed. I am glad there are so many speaker. companies so we have choices.

 

[MrHifiTunes]

I never looked at the Wilson website before we bought the speakers. I had heard several models before, but not the ones we bought. I preferred a larger pair, but the wife did not like them. Wilson dealers deliver and set up the speakers for you. I have moved them to a different room and my dealer is due to come back and check the positioning, but they seem fine to me.

My dealer had the Tunetot in quite a large room, on stands. My wife does not like speaker stands, one of her reasons for rejecting the Focal Utopia Colour EVO.

looks like good service...How do they sound? I have same woofer in my speakers. My room is a bit big, I think they suit small to medium size rooms best.

 

[DWI]

DWI no offense by my other post but I have heard Wilson many times and have never been impressed. I am glad there are so many speaker. companies so we have choices.

Agreed. Lots of people love Focal, I can understand why, I tried them before Wilson and did not like them at all.

 

[RobL]

DWI, Just curious but what are you using for amplification with the Wilsons?

 

[Ouwebok]

Hi all, this is my first post here on this forum, after long-enjoying reading (and donating for ) ASR’s / Amir’s great work. I am a DIY loudspeaker builder and so can add a few points. I don’t know whether these have been covered in this thread already. Apologies if I repeat a few points.

First: on the bass hump:

As far as I can tell from the pictures, the enclosure contains 3 bass reflex ports. Is this correct? Amir’s measurement mention that he kept the backside reflex port open. If this backside port is a reflex port of equal length to the ones in front, then increasing combined reflex port-size leads to a higher frequency port resonance of the three ports combined than of the two ports on the baffle-only. Hence a hump in upper bass. I recommend a measuring again, with that back-port closed: the speaker should go deeper and will have less of a ‘pseudo bass’ ‘hump as seen here (and, as applied with many commercial designs).
I presume that the woofer used is (close to) the ($220) Scan-speak 15w-4530k00. That woofer is known to be one of the better small bass-woofers, e.g. it is one of Troels Gravesen’s favourites. It deserves a larger enclosure of 12+ liters, so that it will truly play well, down to 50Hz.

Secondly, it's great to read Amir’s comments on off-axis responses compensating on-axis measured ‘deficiencies’: we listen to the sum of on- and off axis response, so we shouldn't read too much into on-axis measurements (only). This is a known dependency in (DIY) speaker design, particularly with wide-dispersion units like the ($220) Scan-speak D3004-660000 (check its datasheet, and its very wide horizontal dispersion at 3 kHz in Amir’s measurements). IMO it is wise of Wilson Audio to take some energy out of the on-axis tweeter response at 3 kHz by creating a filter-x-over gap, albeit that I think they also created a bit of a ‘BBC-dip’.

Third, Amir mentioned baffle-step impact. At this size of enclosure, that applies to the 700 Hz -> cross over point. Amir didn’t often mention baffle-step impact before. Baffle-step impact combined with any internal resonance / port resonances can create nasty humps.

Lastly, I agree with many comments that low distortion really matters; it matters more than linear frequency response accuracy; see also Amir’s ‘Understanding Audio Frequency Response & Psychoacoustics’ Youtube video (recommended).

 

[sarumbear]

How about asking Sean Olive to preference test these speakers?

They have not been on the market for more than two decades. What’s the point?

 

[sarumbear]

Just curious out of the 23 pages of responses has anyone had the opportunity to hear any Wilson speaker in a system?

I tested a pair of Puppies at home for a couple of weeks after disillusioned with B&W 800s I had. I found the sound meh!

 

[Laserjock]

I never looked at the Wilson website before we bought the speakers. I had heard several models before, but not the ones we bought. I preferred a larger pair, but the wife did not like them. Wilson dealers deliver and set up the speakers for you. I have moved them to a different room and my dealer is due to come back and check the positioning, but they seem fine to me.

My dealer had the Tunetot in quite a large room, on stands. My wife does not like speaker stands, one of her reasons for rejecting the Focal Utopia Colour EVO.

So you have a Wilson Audio product but not the TuneTot and it’s a floorstanding model? Which model for specificity ?

 

[Spkrdctr]

I think it will be hard to come over 600$ a piece.

I was guessing $700-$800 for drivers and a very expensive all high end crossover. So then what, an $800 cabinet? So, $1600 add in another $200 in shipping material and costs and you are at $1800 all in. Not a bad profit if you bypass the dealers. I do not know if Wilsons are sold dealer only or not. If they are, then probably 2 or $3000 for the dealer. So now you are at $4800 still leaving Wilson $5200 profit IF they sell for list price. The dealers could always give up some money and drop the price $800 if needed. So, Wilson will make the money they need at $10,000 a pair. Too rich for me!

 

[beagleman]

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.

Could you please link me to the 2 threads?

I assumed you had a reason why you think this happens.
I guess where I find it confusing, is while I believe I have heard to "Some extent" what you are talking about, I have never heard a small speaker, supplemented with a sub that was well integrated properly to sound "Toy like and miniscule".....

 

[DWI]

looks like good service...How do they sound? I have same woofer in my speakers. My room is a bit big, I think they suit small to medium size rooms best.

My Wilson dealer, together with a couple of others from the UK, were flown out to Utah for a week to get to know the product better, see how it's made, installation etc. The customer service is excellent. I first bought from that dealer in 1980. We bought the Sabrina speaker. They are a tremendously enjoyable speaker. I'm not that much of a fan of home audio, I'd much rather get in the car and drive for 30 minutes and go to a recital or performance of some sort, which before lockdown was the case 3 or 4 days per week. I bought the Wilson in lockdown and I look forward to listening to music through them. They sound better in a smaller room, listening quite close. They are very undemanding on the amplifier and are fabulous at medium to low volume. They go low enough to make acoustic jazz work well, bass, baritone sax, etc. The treble is sublime.

 

[voodooless]

I was guessing $700-$800 for drivers and a very expensive all high end crossover.

Don’t forget that they won’t pay the prices we do for a few pairs for our DIY builds. In bulk prices will drop significantly. Same goes for crossover components. The potting will add some cost, but not very much.

All in all, your assessment is roughly in the ballpark. 5x markup is quite normal for these kind of products.

 

[DWI]

I was guessing $700-$800 for drivers and a very expensive all high end crossover. So then what, an $800 cabinet? So, $1600 add in another $200 in shipping material and costs and you are at $1800 all in. Not a bad profit if you bypass the dealers. I do not know if Wilsons are sold dealer only or not. If they are, then probably 2 or $3000 for the dealer. So now you are at $4800 still leaving Wilson $5200 profit IF they sell for list price. The dealers could always give up some money and drop the price $800 if needed. So, Wilson will make the money they need at $10,000 a pair. Too rich for me!

As someone who has actually bought a pair of Wilson speakers, the last thing that ever crossed my mind is how much it cost to make and sell them.

I suppose some people think brands like Wilson are charging criminal prices and people are stupid to pay them. You could say that about Nike shoes and a million other products. People buy things because they give them pleasure, and I enjoy going shopping with one of my kids buying him Nike shoes.

 

[jcb]

Does it not preform like mass market $1000 dollar speaker? Amir likes it more then than $2000 Revel M106. People just have difficulty to accept because they don't see it in the measurements. He is one of the only ones here who actually listen to the speaker. He doesnt seems the guy that would say it sounds good specially when measurments dont add up.

That is a fair point. Not everyone will prefer harman curve and maybe there’s something unmeasured going on with how the speaker interacts with the room. But of course this forum judges speakers based on harman curve deviation (preference score..) so this looks strange. Also the distortion doesn’t look all that special to me, yet received high praise by amirm.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

I seem to remember back when I started in hifi in the early 1980s, quite a lot of small British speakers exhibited this sort of mid to upper bass hump, and with some of the cheaper LP playback systems then being a bit bass light, they fooled the ear nicely into thinking there was more bass.

It's something of a surprise to see a similar speaker today, especially for this much money. But if the trick still works, they should convince their users that "vinyls" sound better than digital - especially modern digital remasters with the bass restored.

Think you are right the BBC monitor had a similar frequency response graph. Looking at the original tests the waterfall graph seems to show severe cone breakup at several frequencies.

 

[Laserjock]

DWI, Just curious but what are you using for amplification with the Wilsons?

I hope it’s fairly robust, the Sabrina drop to 2.53 ohms at 139Hz

 

[sarumbear]

My Wilson dealer, together with a couple of others from the UK, were flown out to Utah for a week to get to know the product better, see how it's made, installation etc. The customer service is excellent.

Now we know why the price is high.

 

[DSJR]

I'd cheekily suggest a 10x markup from factory cost to retail, but in the UK that includes the distributor margin. UK price is £11500 I believe (bigger than ever OUCH!!!). Don't know dealer margin but 40% is ringing in my head from my times past...

I'm not suggesting that Genelec-style true flatness of response is necessary FFS, but surely some attempt at neutrality with these high quality drivers wouldn't be so difficult to achieve? If these things do have three ports with the option of the back one blanked off, that's fine for bass tuning, but the crossover dip isn't cool in anyone's language and not everyone has a highly reflective room (heck, I'm suffering with a 3dBV gentle depression in my boxes, let alone a several dB spiky dip). Mind you, Pro-Ac for years designed in a 'V' response and people loved them!!!!

My choice for this kind of 'damned good box and looks' with non-standard response would be Sonus Faber, the classic models from this maker which could be really nice if set up right, if not state of the art in terms of utter neutrality...

 

[DWI]

So you have a Wilson Audio product but not the TuneTot and it’s a floorstanding model? Which model for specificity ?

I have the Sabrina, although it was the Sasha DAW that really rocked my boat. It was just a wonderfully relaxed, detailed and rather luscious sound, perfect for my tastes in music and how I like music at home to sound, but it is a matter of taste.