W/P 8 Tweeter

There isn't a marketer alive who, when asked what they most desire, won't tell you: a simple message. Give us the word, the catchphrase, the slogan that will cut through the clutter and anxiety of the marketplace and hook the consumer with the thing, the simple elegant thing, that sets our product apart from the rabble.

We've noticed a lot of that going on lately in the loudspeaker industry. And a lot of it seems to be focused on tweeters—more precisely, tweeters made of exotic and expensive materials—like diamond.

Now there probably aren't any (successful) loudspeaker designers alive so arrogantly self-secure in their technology who, when the competition announces something new and improved, won't at least think to themselves: Hmmm. Is this something I need to know about?

There are a least two reasons for having that thought. The first has to do with the endless desire to make a better product. The second—less noble—motive has to do with wanting to be securely on the latest bandwagon.

At Wilson Audio, it's safe to say that joining bandwagons has never been part of our corporate culture; a fanatic desire to make better loudspeakers always has.

June 1, 2006, Wilson will introduce the WATT Puppy System 8. When it came time to design this new product, we wanted to be sure that every component of its design represented the best available technology. So we tested a lot of tweeters. The new materials promise (and deliver) extremely wide and linear bandwidth.

What they don't do is achieve the remarkable lack of grain and distortion that characterize the latest generation of Wilson tweeters. In the end, cost was not the issue. Good marketing copy was not the issue. The WATT Puppy System 8 will have the tweeter from the MAXX 2. Because it's the one that sounded best.

But we're not going to claim that's the reason you should rush out to hear the WATT/Puppy 8. A loudspeaker is a complex electro-acoustic system that depends on synergy between many elements to succeed. Good loudspeaker design demands a special brand of holistic thought. To say that our new speaker is worthy of your attention because it boasts this or that tweeter would be, at the very least, a half-truth. And that's the whole truth.