In that this is a review of the smallest Wilson speaker, perhaps a bit odd that the Wam Bam Thank you Mam models are being discussed.
Isn't it true to say that the largest speakers are to be used in baronial halls and such, where they would be barely noticed?
Wilson are, as you can see, polarising in many ways. Brands like Wilson and D'Agostino and a few others are, for many, the very "enemy" that people come here to get away from.
In fact, for many escapees from the high end, Wilson were once the brand they aspired to, precisely for the reasons that they now mock them for, I guess.
The big speakers and all the other high end stuff, there is an actual market for. Now, the following is guesswork but not necessarily so far out.
Let's say that there are around 800 million people living in developed countries, that two percent of that number could buy a Chronosonic without even noticing, and that eleven percent of that number (as in the general US population) actually own a stereo system. This is conservative, because in that sector of the population you don't have to decide whether to have a stereo or some other recreational item instead. Let's see: we're talking two million people, before we get to those who do have to at least think about it.
Wilson get 1% of that market and most buy the top model, they sell 20000. Now, I bet they don't get that number of sales of that model, but this is fantasy economics after all, and they may have something like that as a target for the top three models in the range.
The cheapest floorstander is in the range of a much larger market who will aspire to having a Wilson (but as audiophiles they will want to listen to lots of other speakers first... so their market share will be smaller accordingly).
Wilson do something rather interesting. They often launch a model, it stays low down in their range a year or two, and then they "revise" it and double the price. I presume this is a deliberate strategy - they regularly have something new for the entry level, and it looks like they are perfectionists who work on ways to improve everything.
But what of these TuneTot things? I don't think that many people aspire to them, to be honest. We have an indicator of that. Remember the Duette? That went through the upgrade thing as well. There was the Duette, which was only very expensive (IIRC around $8000 in the US), then they turned it into the Duette II at twice the price, then they dropped the model. Presumably, it just didn't sell enough. Nobody would aspire to a $16000 Wilson Audio standmount.
Hence the TuneTot is something quite different. It's designed to do duty anywhere and do it fairly well - while passive, in every other way it's the Bose Companion speaker for the 1%. And if anyone aspired to it, or could afford it and liked it enough to buy outside of that market, that's a bonus.
There must in fact be many more rich people than I tend to think, because our local suburban shopping centre has a Rolex dealership that fairly regularly sells watches that cost more than the TuneTots. In fact, I'm hardly rich and if I had to spend the cost of my system on a from scratch replacement I could (but no way I would) put them in that replacement system (but I don't drink, drive, smoke, etc) and my wife doesn't go in for expensive items, just books in large quantities
The economics aren't so bad for them, and these speakers will sell. So they'd
better be good enough for Amir to recommend.