The $27,900 disappointment? Wilson Audio Watt Puppy 8 issues.


GR Research gave a breakdown of these & I was surprised..

Owner looking to make them sound better.

https://youtu.be/Tma9jFZ3-3k

 

128x128fertguy

Based on these impedance curves of speakers over 3 decades, it has to be obvious that these curves are providing exceptional sound to the people grading and buying these speakers. The objective they have set for the speakers are being met. Wilson speakers are very expensive, so, is it reasonable that they expect quality amps to drive them to get the most out of them - either a stereo amp or two mono amps ?

I see two main issues:

1. Adding a woofer planar amp to the Puppy so you can dial in any bass you want is creating a whole different speaker. It is now basically a sub-woofer type situation that is user definable. It is obviously not what Wilson was selling, and is completely changing the sound of the speaker. A more valid comparison would have been to compare his new crossover with the same amp setup.

2. The deterioraton of the old diffracton foam on old Wilson Speakers is a well known issue. Wilson sells new diffraction pads for people to update their speakers. Why not try that first to fix any diffraction issues ? When I bought my W/P 8 used, I knew that updating the diffraction pads was an additional expense that I had to factor in. Did I notice a difference when I added the new Wilson Diffraction pads ? Yes, I think I did. Maybe, I am wrong because I could not A/B the change, but, it would have been nice to measure the before and after using the Wilson recommended method for addressing this issue.

Lastly, I am not sure what to say about the whole "off axis" response issue.

If we're gonna question every W/P owner's posting credentials, why don't we bring up Danny Richie's past association with AV123 and its convicted criminal scammer Mark Schifter? Geez. I hate YouTube personalities.

@mulveling  Nobody is questioning EVERY Wilson owners posts, so your exaggeration is unfounded.  Apparently, Schifter was/is a very smooth operator conning multiple people.  Association by doing design work, is not proof of any wrongdoing.  Grasping at straws to level criticism at Danny, like you have done several times from behind your keyboard. 

Personally when I was really listening to loudspeakers years ago I thought Wilson loudspeakers were astounding but eventually thought they were not what I wanted ultimately, but still very good. Others must feel they are wonderful based on sale; it's not all marketing you know.

And if an amp cannot handle some 2 ohm lows it must not have balls balls at all IMO. I feel sure that my relatively inexpensive Odyssey Audio Kismet monoblocks can drive anything well, and to any volume level one might desire.

It's tough hearing a speaker-basher make his name doing such reviews and ripping on everything he speaks of. Oh well, folks make money that way after all.

 

I think you are missing the real point when describing design flaws with certain speakers. It is not an issue of the quality of the amp or what type of load the amp can drive. The simple fact is that lower impedance speakers are harder to drive, result in more distortion and quite possibly prevent the speaker from sounding as good as it could if the impedance were higher. 

 

...Or, they could sound better if reducing the impedance also reduces the Q resulting in a more linear response or reducing a peak.