watt puppy 7 / sophia?

If this is about getting the most bang for your buck, turn the page. Wilson doesn't offer that.
Tvad is right, as you seem to know, about buying used. Thankfully, there are still people who buy new so that the rest of us can buy used.
Try another thread asking for cost effective alternatives to Wilson WP-7. You will get a lot of responses and many of them will be valid. I'm going to recommend Zu Definitions because I own and sell them. However, my first bit of advice won't work there because nobody ever sells them used.

Tvad - I think you are probably right and I just did so.This is rather a different situation however. I am not a dealer per se but I do stand to receive a commission if anyone who listens to the speakers in my home buys a pair from the factory. I have no inventory other than my own pair of speakers and no investment to protect. I do not negotiate price and I live in a fairly remote location. All in all, I'm not likely to benefit directly from my comments.
But just as the matter of whether or not Zu uses a crossover evolved into a vast controversy, I fear that this one could as well. So I'll take your advice.

I have owned the wp7 and the sophias. I had the original sophias and not the sophias 2. I can tell you that no one can honestly say that the original sophias sound even nearly as good as the wp7. I would agree that the sophias are sweet speakers but please its like comparing a Porsche Boxer to a Porsche 911.

I currently have the wp7 and was debating moving up the food chain to the wilson maxx2. I heard the maxx2 in two different listening rooms. One time they were driven by expensive vtl siegfried tube amps and once by less expensive but real powerful krell 750 mcx ss monoblocks. It was apparent to me that the maxx2 were a better speaker but I was shocked that even with incredibly expensive vtl state of the art amplifier, I thought the difference was modest not substantial. Since it would have cost me roughly $20,000 to upgrade the speakers, I have pretty much decided to quash the idea.

The wp7 are a bargain at $15,000 used. I had posted an ad to sell my wp7 for $14,000 on audiogon last month in anticipation that I would be floored by the maxx2. I was surprised that the wp7 were not bought within a few days at that price. I am pretty happy though that they were not. I am not sure if its the economy or the wilson bashers out there that are cooling the demand for wilson but its a pretty sweet speaker.

Cheers

Mike