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

Wilson built its reputation years ago when they really had something special when compared with other speakers of the time. They do some things very well for a dynamic speaker. They also seem to ignore other very important aspects of design which back you into a corner concerning amplification. They have never been on my radar due to what I consider to be bad engineering and design decisions. 

I don't recall Danny showing us the crossovers in the Wilsons.  Usually he points out the junk parts as part of his video.  

@knotscott  There will be a part II 

Someone who thinks some Alexia sounded "live" hasn't probably heard a Meyer Bluehorn, Klipsch Jubilee or a Levinson M1.

BTW, I have a friend who drives his Wilson Alexia 2 with high end Audio Research amps and preamps. Very few systems can recreate the live event, e.g. jazz clubs, as his. He has worked hard on all aspects of his audio chain and the results are astonishing. 

@thecarpathian is your aunt on social media? Now I am intrigued. 

Danny Hates every speaker that arent his. I dont trust that guy at all. He is tryin to sell upgrade parts. Wilson is a well known high end brand. The audacity to think he can fix them is hilarious

Not entirely true, he praises speakers designed by guys who know their stuff (A.Jones, Peter Comeau, etc, no engineering flaws), but it is true that they all get budget restricted w.r.t crossover parts, etc. Even a few hundred dollars worth of crossover part ugrades will get it up a notch, but, that is all something guys in the diy space attempt anyways, without danny selling them a upgrade kit.

I know he’s a flat response chaser (which i’m not), but, i have a couple of different speakers around this Puppy price range that...i suppose he could measure it 50 different ways and still won’t be able to ’improve’ anything on it. 30k or above, i expect a speaker to not quite be "upgradeable", Puppy failed there, it seems.

In Puppy’s case, it isn’t just a flat response issue....but my main issue with Wilson generally is...at 30k or 60k, you just bought a Focal driver and threw it in a box?! I would buy a Focal instead then, a focal utopia maybe..I could just buy a focal driver and throw it in a box myself, don’t need your help there buddy. Try designing/simulating/f’abing/testing, develolping all the tooling, etc for drivers in house by yourself. Now, the price starts to add up and finds a justification.

For the flat response chasers, the Tekton designer came up with the epic response, nuff said.

"First, a loudspeaker can be designed from a viewpoint of rigid science [what this website looks to be all about] or it can be designed from a viewpoint of art and creativity. In my opinion, a great loudspeaker should have a beautiful balance of science and art. Think of what a mastering engineer could do to a song! A mastering engineer is both an artist and a scientist. Good loudspeaker design must be approached from an identical viewpoint; no different than a mastering engineer producing a track of music - I make the loudspeaker sound exactly how I want it to.

Second, to assume I cannot design and market a ’flat responding’ loudspeaker is woefully shortsighted. If I wanted to produce a linear loudspeaker (as the reviewer has turned my design into) I would have done that; my simulator does this task in under 3 seconds. The facts are most audiophiles don’t go for the frequency response and corrections the reviewer has suggested. The only linear loudspeaker models we offer are intended for professional studio engineering and they are tools for a toolbox. Changing crossover parts values to flatten the frequency response is a super simple task; my job is to get the speaker sounding right for an audiophile. The problem is most audiophiles don’t go for ’scientific sound’; to my ears, it’s analytical, sterile, forward in the midrange when turned up, and frankly not much excitement to be discerned. Shipping the Mini Lore with a MiniDSP and a preloaded file converting the Mini Lore into a scientific masterpiece is no more difficult than changing a few values on the crossover.

Anyone wanting an improved version of the Mini Lore pair as the scientific reviewer has suggested my model be changed into is free to call me and I will accommodate your request.

Tekton Design caters to the audiophile community and when two pairs of Mini Lore’s were returned in 2023 we must be doing something right with the design.

Respectfully, Eric Alexander - audio designer and owner of Tekton Design, LLC""