A Bright Pair of Watt Puppys


I'd love some suggestions on taming my bright system. My Watt Puppy 6's are really bright and it often seems on many recordings as though the tweeter and midrange are just way louder and more dominant than the bass. Often, to get more bass punch (or just warmer sound) I find myself wanting to turn the volume up. This helps the bass level a bit but also sends the rest of the spectrum thru the roof: it gets very loud.

Although I assume my room is too small for these speaks and I need some treatment, can't believe this is the only issue here. Watching other woofers at CES for example, the things extend rapidly right out of the enclosures on systems that sounded warm to me. My drivers barely move at all. Just doesn't seem right.

Also was told by the designer of Genesis speakers that my amp isn't powerful enough to control the bass on the Watt Puppys. That was a surprise.

Here's my system configuration:
WP 6
BAT VK-600
Bat 31-SE Preamp
Kimber 3033 speaker cables
Synergistic Research Alpha Sterling ITC
Shanling CD-100 dual output cd player
Furman power conditioner
Room Size: 15 x 25

Any suggestions? Anyone?
Thanks
/Lee
graywind11
Hey... sounds like you need someone to send your new speakers to.. :-)

If you have not heard of the room voicing procedure that David Wilson has coined, you might want to look into it.

Essentially, you have two choices when setting up your room. Defining where your room wants your listening and speaker positions, or (like most of our wives demand) establishing a listening position, and then figuring out exactly where your speakers want to be, and then treating your room to clean up the rest. Simple so far (at least to say).

So...given that your listening position is likely fixed, the next step is to voice your room relative to that listening position. The fist step gives you a smal box within which you fine tune your speaker placement. Without any technology aid (but someone with good listening skills), have that person sit in your listening position, while you do the manual work, or vice versa. Start from the wall behind where you expect your speakers to be placed, in front of the listener.... about 3 feet out from the adjacent wall (you'll do this for both left and right sides). SLowly begin talking in a monotone while walking towards the listener. At the first point the listener notices a decernable difference in your voices tone, mark the floor. Then continue from there until the listener again notices a discernable difference. That should define the front and back of the box within which you'll adjust your speaker placement (it's usally about 2 ft max). Then, to define the sides of the box, start speaking and walking from the back of the box from the adjacent wall. Marking the points where your voice tonality changes. Do that for the front and back markers you had previously done. The listener should have their eyes closed, and there shouldn't be any other background noise, so that the listener can concentrate.

I did this procedure in my theater with my daughter as the listener (she plays the flute so has a good sense of sound). Placing hte speakers within that box immediately reduced the beaming that you appear to be describing.

The next step is to address room resonances that arer likely muddying the bass so much that any artculation is impossible to determine. I'd suggest going to the ASC site and to do some reading. There are a lot of ways to treat eh room (both electronically and physically). But without understanding what you are treating, you'll be wasting your time (and likely money). A well setup room with some basic treatment for dealing with bass frequencies will make all the difference (ridiculous diferences you can't imagine).

SOooo...if all that sounds way to complicated... i'll send you my shipping info.. i've been lusting after some wilsons (watt puppies 6 or greaster or sophias) since '99...

BTW... my system is krell (HTS 7.1) driving plinius (a pair of SA250's) driving martin logan (ReQuests). I have a tower of 16" tube traps in each corner, corner traps (front and sides), and some sound planks (judiciouslly placed on the side walls). I bought all the sound treatments used on 'gon.
Johnbarlow, it may be that simple if Leemincy is not one of the hundreds of people you cite who both bought AND love Wilson Watt/Puppies. Personally I think they ARE bright. They can sound very different over a short listening period in the audio shop with selected music than they do over the long haul with a full range of music. You like them - that is fine. But Leemincy may be one of those who liked them well in the showroom but much less so over time. Many of us have had experiences like this with speakers - it is part of the learning process in audio and part of discovering our own tastes.
Try the Cardas mathamatical formula.

Speaker placement, simply stated

The distance from the center of the woofer face to the side walls is:

Room Width times .276 (RW x .276)
The distance from the center of the woofer face to the wall behind the speaker is:

Room Width times .447 (RW x .447)
This is all you need to know to place speakers in a symmetrical, rectangular room!

.
Kimber cable, BAT equipment could be the potential culprit in contributing to the brightness. I heard good and lively sound from Watt puppys with Audio Research all tube equipment in the past.

I would keep everything constant but slowly overtime switch out the Kimber with some other cables and listen for a couple of weeks. If that doesn't work, the BAT have to go.

Good luck..
Call Geoff Poor at Glenn Poor's Audio Video, http://www.glennpoors.com/index.html, and ask him. His phone number is 217-356-5456. Tell him that Chuck Davis asked you top call him.

Geoff's dad started the Audio Store in Illinois, and Geoff runs it now. BUT, Geoff is also a partner in BAT. In his store he has all of the BAT equipment and he carries the Wilson line. I've heard the set-ups and I can tell you personally BAT and Wilson goes together very, very well the way he has it set up.

Call him and ask him what cables he's running and what he suggests about your system set-up. He's extremely knowledgeable.

Chuck