HFC_issue8 1.indd - Hificritic.com

Wilson Duette on the Road 

MARTIN COLLOMS ASSESSES WHAT MIGHT WELL BE THE ULTIMATE STAND-MOUNT – 

EXTRAVAGANTLY PRICED BUT EXQUISITELY BUILT, EXCEPTIONALLY FLEXIBLE AND OBSESSIVELY 

SPECIFIED. TONY FAULKNER ADDS A FIELD REPORT ON USING IT ON LOCATION AS A 

PROFESSIONAL RECORDING MONITOR. 

Wilson Audio is no ordinary loudspeaker maker, 

and the Duette is no ordinary loudspeaker. 

Discounting the CUB (which was best suited 

to home cinema systems), this is the company’s first 

statement stand-mount loudspeaker since the original 

WATT. Founder and designer David Wilson makes no 

excuses with this Duette. He has simply set about making 

the finest compact or bookshelf speaker he can, with no ifs 

or buts. 

Built to exacting standards, it costs what it costs. 

The idea of building to a price does not appeal to this 

man, nor does subcontracting its construction to less 

costly overseas sources. Much as a serious purchaser of a 

good piano would not consider a lower cost Far Eastern 

import, a Wilson Audio customer is well aware of the 

proposition on offer. 

This particular reviewer is sometimes excessively led by 

value-for-money considerations. At a higher price than 

any equivalent – an extravagant £8,888 for the speakers 

plus £2,000 for the partnering stands here in the UK 

– the Duette challenges this perception. With so many 

large, capable floor standing speakers on the market, why 

produce such a very costly compact? For an answer we 

need to go back to the early, glory days of audio, before 

1970, when the popular format, especially in the US, was 

the large ‘bookshelf’ speaker – the term ‘bookshelf’ being 

optimistically applied in view of the bulk and weight 

often involved. These speakers were usually mounted on 

their sides, and more or less acoustically matched to this 

boundary condition. Perhaps the most famous example 

of the ‘East Coast’ sound was the Acoustic Research AR3, 

a classic and deservedly popular ‘bookshelf’ design, and 

no pipsqueak as it was a full three way with advanced mid 

and treble dome units and a powerful 12in bass driver. 

In the same era, JBL’s similarly massive ‘bookshelf’ L100 

epitomised the ‘West Coast’ sound. 

Aesthetic considerations mean that our ideal of a free 

space stereo layout can be too intrusive for some, so some 

demand remains for high quality ‘bookshelf’ models, 

even though the apocryphal ‘bookshelf’ has now given 

way to a proper stand. 

The Duette is a powerful yet compact full range 

loudspeaker with as little engineering compromise as 

possible, targeted at near wall siting despite its known 

limitations. It’s a versatile two-way based on the classic and 

potentially powerful combination of a 220mm (8.5in) 

bass/mid unit and a 25mm (1in) soft dome tweeter. While 

stand-mounts have tended to become rather diminutive 

these days, often using 130mm (5in) bass/mid drivers with 

a 90mm effective cone diameter, the Duette has a 170mm 

diameter main cone radiator. Given its considerable peak 

excursion and powerful c50mm (2in) voice coil, its acoustic 

capacity is close to four of those small 130mm units. 

The crossover network is separately housed in its 

own box, which is neatly stowed away in the stand 

structure. The speaker is supplied with two different 

sets of umbilical cables, specified either for wall or free 

space siting, connecting the crossover to the enclosure 

terminals, and there are also accessory resistors to trim the 

treble to match. These are selected according to detailed 

instructions provided in the comprehensive operating 

manuals. 

10 HIFICRITIC MARCH / APRIL 2008

◆ REVIEW 

MARTIN COLLOMS 

TONY FAULKNER 

Technology 

Engineers will be impressed by the micro-grained, energydissipating 

lower surface of the brass cups, which sit 

between the enclosure’s hardened magnetic cones and 

milled recesses on the stand’s alloy top plate. The tripod 

coupling between enclosure and support is inherently 

self-adjusting, and the stand has generous, adjustable 

floor-coupling hardware. Between the milled alloy top 

and bottom plates, the stand has a massive non-resonant 

central pillar of ‘M’ material, a proprietary mineral-loaded 

polymer, locked in by tensioned, hardened steel bolts. 

The enclosure, made from the same tough yet well 

damped proprietary ‘M’ material, is singularly inert, and 

reinforced by complex bracing. Providing the drivers with a 

firm foundation, the front panel is 50mm (2in) deep, and 

the material is so tough it may be threaded directly to take 

the driver fixing screws. Internal volume damping relies on 

a familiar combination of acoustic foam pads and a well 

packed pad of fibre absorbent fixed behind the bass driver 

only, leaving the main volume unobstructed. Were that all 

loudspeakers were built as well as this one. 

Computer aided design was combined with extended 

listening to design the crossover, which provides 18db/ 

oct slopes for each driver at a lower than usual 1.8kHz 

frequency. External mounting makes the crossover largely 

immune from vibration and electromagnetic interference. 

To attain the 90dB sensitivity, it’s a 4ohm system, using 

a custom built SEAS Excel series 3.9ohm bass/mid unit 

with a unique cone, dust cap, termination and voice coil 

assembly. It has an open construction die-cast frame, and 

a complex progressive non-resonant spider. The 3.6ohm 

tweeter is a well terminated soft dome from ScanSpeak, 

built on a massive alloy plate, solidly bolted to the 

enclosure, and with rear cavity back wave termination. 

Both drivers have conductive copper elements in their 

magnetic circuits to reduce eddy-currents and minimise 

distortion. 

Sound Quality 

I first heard a quartet of near wall mounted Duettes in a 

40 seat demonstration at last September’s Heathrow show, 

ably operated by Peter McGrath. I heard a convincing, 

generous, enveloping and focused sound field of fine 

bandwidth and exceptional dynamic range. At times Peter 

used the new Wilson subwoofer, but on one particularly 

impressive organ piece we then discovered that he had 

forgot to switch on the sub. ‘Who needs it?’ we said 

to a man. Later I popped over to Henry Wood Hall to 

hear them monitoring one of Tony Faulkner’s recording 

sessions, and was impressed by their dynamic and vibrant 

replay, and their grip on the live acoustic. (Tony reports 

separately on his Duette experiences.) 

The ex-dem review speakers were well run in and 

seemed free from strain from the moment they were 

installed. While the bookshelf option was not attempted, 

near-to-wall and free space locations were both tried. 

Initial listening with LPs was very civilised. One 

hallmark of a refined well blended deign is the ability to 

pay baroque music quite loudly. This sat comfortably with 

one facet of my consciousness, while allowing me to write 

down these observations without mental anguish. 

Despite the large physical disparity between the bass 

and treble drivers I could not hear the join between them. 

The sound is not spoiled with the grilles on, but I suspect 

most enthusiasts will leave them off for the ultimate level of 

micro detail and dynamic expression. Happily the drivers 

look reasonably finger-proof. 

In free space very good results are possible when used 

as suggested with the appropriate supplied cable and HF 

resistor, although the perfectionist might well still note a 

lightness to midrange tonality, and a thinning of voices. 

The lower registers of a piano are recessed, leaving the 

higher notes sounding somewhat coloured and boxy. 

Initially fretting over this, I thought that Wilson might 

well have considered a crossover option more objectively 

optimised for free space: perhaps a bit more inductance in 

HIFICRITIC MARCH / APRIL 2008 11

◆ REVIEW 

EQUIPMENT USED 

Conrad Johnson 

ACT2-2 pre-amp, 

Audio Synthesis Passion 

passive pre-amp, Naim 

NAP250, Conrad 

Johnson Premier 350SA, 

Linn LP12, Naim ARO 

tonearm, Koetsu Red 

T cartridge, Origin 

Live DC drive (top 

spec). Naim CDS3, 

Marantz CD-7 CD 

players. Kimber KS 

3035 speaker cable, Van 

den Hul First Ultimate 

interconnect. 

the midrange network, and a further tweak of the overall 

balance. However, free space use showed the high potential 

for a precision stereo image – well focused, deep and wide, 

with fine perspectives. 

Moving the speakers closer to a wall, I found that the 

immediate locality should not be cluttered. All positional 

adjustments must be carefully made: the left-to-right 

spacing, the angling and the actual spacing from the wall 

behind. Once achieved, the tonal balance was close to 

perfect here: the upper-to-lower midrange now sounded 

uniform, and the speaker really sang. Near the wall I have 

to admit that it sounded much better than I expected, and 

after an hour or so it actually became quite convincing. 

The Duette sounded even and well blended, highly 

articulate and with the sort of natural expressive dynamics 

that are usually the preserve of much larger speakers. It 

informs you how well a musician is playing, revealing 

nuances of timbre and expression, along with upbeat tempos 

and fine timing. This is certainly an involving reproducer 

which reaches into the heart of performances. Instinctively I 

suspect that this has much to do with its inherent simplicity 

and engineering honesty, much like the original WATT. 

With the boundary gain in place the bass sounds free 

and uncompressed, and extends to 40Hz at good power 

– better than a number of larger floorstanding designs. 

It excels on jazz material, and here its special ability to 

assemble the leading edges of complex percussion sounds 

and meld them into natural coherent transients approaches 

the performance of a Quad electrostatic. You begin to learn 

to trust how this speaker puts complex sounds together, 

which I think is what appeals to Tony Faulkner for studio 

monitoring work. The meld of mid and treble also reminds 

me of the best BBC inspired monitors – articulate, with 

pure sibilants on vocals. Most impressive. 

I enjoyed many aspects of this loudspeaker’s 

performance and regard it as a true successor to the CUB, 

which never quite worked for me stereophonically. From 

one viewpoint the Duette may be regarded as a masterwork, 

helping to define the potential and possibilities available 

from a properly designed, almost perfectly optimised 

compact loudspeaker. Its timbre is clearly balanced to 

utilise a fair amount of acoustic gain from a wall boundary, 

and while the provided alternative adjustments allow 

it to perform in free space with deeper, more spacious 

and better focused stereo images, the midrange timbre is 

then perceptibly light, to the detriment of piano ‘tone’. 

In fact solo piano recorded with a sensible mike spacing 

(not under the lid), is perfect for checking that particular 

spacing from the wall, adjusting for even note playing and 

good tonality, especially for the left hand compass. 

So good is the stereo, stuff left between the speakers 

is readily audible and furniture, equipment etc should 

not be placed between them. Carpeted floors also are 

recommended. It is remarkably transparent, highly detailed 

with very good image depth. Reverberant recorded 

acoustics are revealed well. 

Incidentally I tried those two near identical umbilical 

cables provided with the Duettes, and was not at all 

prepared for the outcome. I was most sceptical about the 

need to have two, and while not great, the sonic differences 

were audible, and quite appropriate to the professed 

requirement. The ‘wall’ cable set, if used in free space, 

generated a slightly ‘airy’ almost harmonic quality for 

piano, much like harder felts on the hammers. Conversely, 

superior tonal balance and smoothness was obtained in free 

space with the ‘right’ cable. However, used for the speakers 

near a wall, the ‘free space’ cable was then insufficiently 

‘crisp’, impairing mid articulation. Duette sounded ‘just 

right’ with the ‘wall’ cable assembly fitted as instructed. 

Lab Report 

I measured an above average 90dB sensitivity for an 8ohm 

watt (2.83V) input, and while it does have a nominal 

4ohm impedance, with minima of 4 ohms in the bass 

and 3.6 ohms at 3kHz, the running average is about 

6ohms with only moderate reactive content. A wide range 

of amplifiers will drive this speaker without difficulty, 

especially in view of its good sensitivity. 

It will take 150W of undistorted program power and 

reach a healthy maximum spl of 107dB in-room. This 

design has a big heart, and the huge motor driving the bass/ 

mid driver has fine linearity. Distortion is much lower than 

average for a stand mount loudspeaker, rivalling many threeway 

models, in part thanks to the good efficiency, which 

means that input power is relatively low for a given test level. 

The Z or impedance curve indicates that the port 

tuning is at about 43 Hz. A mild surround termination 

‘wrinkle’ at 800 Hz reflects a mild resonance which is 

visible in the impedance characteristic. 

The actual frequency response will be boundary 

dependent, and the measured spatial response average for 

the listening zone corresponds to the near-wall location 

used mainly for auditioning. This shows a very smooth 

and well integrated mid-to-treble, but with a mild +2.5dB 

midband plateau (350 Hz - 1.5kHz). The bass is a bit 

‘rich’ around 60Hz but with good extension to 38Hz 

-6dB. The treble is well maintained to 17kHz, with a 

‘natural’ down-slope above 4kHz. The overall result is a 

little mid prominent, but not in an aggressive way, and this 

corresponds closely with the listening comments. 

The topmost red trace of the semi-anechoic response 

measurements is a hybrid of nearfield bass (dashed) and the 


◆ REVIEW 

axial mid-to-treble (unsmoothed). There is a hint of upper 

bass depression, about 2dB, and a mildly lifted upper 

midrange; the bass is well tuned and reaches 38Hz -6dB, 

while the main trend meets finely toleranced +/- 2.5dB 

limits out to 20 kHz, and extends still further, to about 

34kHz for -6dB. 

The above axis trace holds up well, but a 7dB suckout 

is visible in the crossover region when measured at 

15 degrees below the bass driver. The crossover point is 

located at a relatively low 1.8kHz, thanks to the powerful 

wide-band tweeter. Despite the relatively large bass/mid 

unit, system integration is good, but ideally you should 

not listen with your ears much below the centre of the 

bass unit unless the enclosure is mounted on its side 

(tweeters inward). 

The hard work expended on reducing enclosure 

diffraction has paid off, for example in the 30 degree lateral 

response, which, like the Watt 8, is first rate. The 45 degree 

off-axis output is also very good, and the still smooth 

output only begins to fade more rapidly above 6kHz at a 

wide 60 degrees off-axis. 

The decay response seen in the waterfall display is 

impressive for its excellent driver integration (phase and 

frequency) and quite rapid decay, confirming the natural 

timbre, the very good subjective dynamics and substantial 

clarity. Using a stethoscope, stray sound radiation from 

the enclosure panels seems very low, and makes a minimal 

contribution to the sound output. 

Conclusions 

The substantial US-UK price differential forces me to 

make a split conclusion. In the UK this is an undeniably 

costly design, yet one built and finished to an exceptional 

standard, and it is hard to put a price on such excellence. 

These very good, compact stand-mounts designs have 

a special voice and deliver their most natural sound when 

used as intended quite near a wall, so they have a special 

part to play as unobtrusive high quality speakers for more 

difficult room layouts. Here the Duette is as good as it 

gets, and is well capable of delivering the goods in a system 

costing as much as £40,000. 

I enjoyed its considerable transparency and retrieval 

of fine detail, its sense of performance and expressive 

dynamics, its healthy bass power and extension, and the 

fine sense of drive and involvement. It’s relatively easy to 

drive, efficient, with a natural and neutral tonal balance 

and very sweet treble. Many valve amplifiers will sing nicely 

with it. 

For US purchasers it actually constitutes fine value for 

money, while over here in Britain it still comfortably merits 

recommendation. 

Wilson Audio Duette Frequency Response 

Wilson Audio Duette Impedance and Phase 

Wilson Audio Duette Waterfall 

HIFICRITIC MARCH / APRIL 2008 13

◆ REVIEW 

TONY FAULKNER TAKES THE 

DUETTES OUT MONITORING 

As a professional classical recording engineer I am 

very dependent on the quality of my monitoring 

equipment. When I am working, the information 

supplied by my monitor speakers and/or headphones 

determines whether the producer and I think we have 

our microphones and settings in the right place. The 

monitoring also presents our work to artists and clients, 

who can decide whether they like what they hear or not. 

Most recording engineers end up using a loudspeaker 

that tells them what they need to know, and is consistent 

for them in its presentation and tonal balance however 

dubious the quality of the listening room. We primarily 

need to know where we are in the time available for 

setting up, and thereafter to get on with our microphone 

technique and musical duties alongside the producer 

and artists. In such a context, people like me are nervous 

of using typical consumer floorstanding loudspeakers 

originally optimised for controlled home listening in a 

living room. With a few exceptions (such as B&W and 

ATC in the UK), consumer moving-coil speakers are not 

usually ideal for monitoring, nor would it be reasonable 

to expect them to be so. Home speakers can be excessively 

awkward and heavy, time-consuming to set up, and often 

do not sound nice in makeshift control-rooms where the 

bass end can run wild with booms and honks. 

It’s no secret that I am an enthusiastic user of Quad’s 

electrostatic loudspeakers for monitoring, as they give me 

so much of what I need to hear, though I acknowledge 

they are not to everyone’s taste. Their stereo imaging is 

excellent, the midrange is transparent and consistent, and 

they provide masses of fine detail without having to turn 

the volume too high – a serious issue because listening too 

loud makes one tired and impairs judgment, as well as 

making a bad control-room sound even worse. Hence my 

trepidation at being asked to try a pair of Wilson Duettes as 

monitors for a Busoni recording project for Hyperion, with 

pianist Hamish Milne in London’s Henry Wood Hall. My 

doubts about the Wilsons proved ill-founded, and I found 

that the Duettes were overall the finest two-driver movingcoil 

speakers I had heard to date. My only complaint is that 

having heard them I’m now confronted with trying to find 

the wherewithal to buy a pair. 

First major feature of importance to an electrostatic 

enthusiast is that there is no obvious ‘moving-coil’ 

weakness in the crossover zone between the two drivers, 

and the clarity, integration and transparency are unusually 

uncompromised. Listening to a recent recital recording of 

Christine Brewer (soprano) and Roger Vignoles (piano) 

for the Wigmore Hall Live label, it was immediately 

apparently that the Duettes reproduced the components 

of the singing voice as though they came from one entity. 

Many other moving-coil models somehow separate the 

human voice into unnatural unintegrated components, 

with high and low frequencies living different lives – the 

tweeter squeaking with consonants and the woofer 

sounding chesty and a bit boomy. Here the bass is very 

well controlled and sensibly voiced for the size of cabinet 

and drive unit, and can be simply and convincingly finetuned 

by moving the speaker closer to or further from the 

wall behind it. The treble is extended and does not shriek 

nor squeak, unless the recording is shrieky or squeaky, 

and the balance is ideal for detailed listening. The Duettes 

deliver oodles of headroom for high power work, with no 

glare, boom or rattle. 

The Duettes will never replace my Quads, but 

for circumstances where I need significantly higher 

output, especially in bass power handling, and/or want 

the alternative qualities of a finely tuned moving-coil 

loudspeaker to suit the music and/or circumstances. These 

Wilsons are so very convincing and are fundamentally both 

accurate and very pleasurable to listen to. They come with 

all sorts of fine setting-up procedures for audiophiles, but 

in my professional work I seldom have time to do hours 

of tweaking beyond moving the loudspeakers a foot or so 

until they sound more or less right. When I come to use 

them on a more regular basis, I suspect I shall determine a 

nominal median arrangement and not mess around with 

them too much. Their conventional 2-wire connection 

worked well for me, and was a change from wrestling with 

the bi-wire plugs needed with some other designs. The 

highish 90dB sensitivity was very helpful, and the load was 

fine for my EAR valve monoblock power amps, using the 

4ohm output terminals. The Duette crossovers are fitted 

within the speaker stands (two sizes, normal and high, the 

latter useful for Pro users on the road). This feature makes 

the system more easily transportable, as it’s divided into 

four reasonable size and weight boxes, rather than two 

unwieldy backbreaking ones. 

The designer of this unique speaker deserves 

congratulations, for creating a model that reproduces music 

faithfully and confidently without imposing its presence in 

any ostentatious way, visually or audibly. It simply delivers 

without sounding noticeably ‘audiophile’ at all. I winced 

when I heard the price, but ‘no compromise’ describes both 

design and manufacture, and such quality does not come 

without some penalty.

HFC_issue8 1.indd - Hificritic.com

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