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
Thanks Cytocycle. That's pretty much my synopsis of Wilson as well. Especially the changes from 6 to 7 to 8. And garbage in garbage out adage. So true. All good advice.

Daryl at Wilson has me switching out a few resistors that drive the tweeter and mid, ultimately to increase resistance to these two drivers, lowering hi-bandoutput a bit. The Caddock film resistors are pretty easy to get on the internet. Will try this as well as several room treatments. And My Bat amp is almost always on. (Stock tip for ya: PG&E). Takes at least 1.5 hours to reach crit temp. But this makes a huge difference.

Funny thing about the Wilsons. They soud louder and I think this is because of a 4ohm load. Compared to my Hales speakers (at 8ohm) these things crank at relatively low volume, which is ofcourse what drains the amp. I find myself listening louder (and my wife bitching louder as well.)

Ironically, I met the owner of Genesis at CES a few days ago and he told me my amp is in fact too small to control the bass in these speakers. I was amazed.

I was really impressed with Verity Audio Parsifal Ovations and wish I had known about the Sarastros over at the Mirage (someone said).

By the by, do you employ digital xover for the watchdog? Rel allows this and also has a high current cable that comes directly from your power amp, same as to the Wilson's. It recommends this format in fact.

/Lee
Patience and perserverence. Start with the least costly method of tuning. Discover, Uncover and discard all components and ancilliary gear that does not provide optimum synergy.

I performed room treatment, and placement first. Then fine tuned with tube rolling and swapping speaker cable and IC's.

The process took about two months. It was well worth it. I love my Wilson speakers. I have disdain for the real culprit, poorly produced recordings.
The 6s are not the problem. But they need LOTS of room to sound optimal. Cardas GR helps. Now that I have 8s, it's the 6s I miss, not the 7s!
Lee, I use the Marsh crossover that's built into the Wilson watch dog, I have used my Tact before with the second DAC card to control my setup but found that as a preamp (even modified) it was not clean enough. The Wilson manual is amazing for discussing how to setup your subwoofer and tune it. It comes with a Wilson CD and test tones and music for tuning the sub... The manual integrates using the CD.