Amp suggestionsfor Wilson Watt Puppies/Sophia

The Sophia is a lot easier to choose an amplifier. VTL Stereo 150 with a VTL 5.5 preamp is an amazing combination with Sophia's. Throw in some Transparent Super MM cabling and you have a winner.

For the WP's you need to be more critical of system synergy and spend more on an amplifier...

What components does he already own and how much does he want to spend?

check out the new VTL 450 amps with a VTL 6.5 pre. they'll do a super job driving either the sophias or watt puppies.

and go for the TA ultra SC ad ICs or you will be selling the speakers short of the extremes ,most especially the response at the lower end. from what i have heard from others, the sophia2 outperform the w/p 6s in finesse and overall coherence and do present distinctly differently from the w/p 7s. they may also be a better overal speaker than the 7s, but the sophia 2s do not have the bass of the w/p 7s. you dont mention which w/p # is being considered.
pass labs x350.5 stereo amp mates well with wilsons and the vtl 6.5 pre.

It doesn't matter what amplifiers you use with Wilson speakers as long as they are overpriced.

" It doesn't matter as long as it's overpriced"

A Wilson owner is not going to run a cheap amp just like a Ferrari owner isn't going to buy his tires at Wal-Mart.

There was recently another thread on this subject. I have had both Sophia I's and now have Watt Puppy 7's. The Sophia is an easier load than the WP, so it responds better to low-powered amps, especially tube amps. I didn't like what SET amps did with either as the bass and dynamics, the forte of Wilson speakers, were curtailed. I did like what higher-powered, push-pull tube amps like the Audio Research VT100 Mark III and Conrad-Johnson Premier 140 did for both. The soundstaging and dimensionality of instruments and voices were best with p-p tube amps, although the drawback was reduction of bass impact and dynamics. Big solid-state amps are the cure for this but I didn't like the flatter soundstage of SS amps, so I would listen to SS amps prior to purchasing them. I now have some Essence SS amps that are flat-out the best I have heard with the Wilsons, grabbing some dimensionality of tubes but far, far superior in other areas. I also heard Sophias at my Wilson dealer driven with a couple of different VTL amps (I think the ST150 and S-400) and I could hear the bass drum and bass guitar coming from different spots in the soundstage like on good SS amps, and the midrange was to die for. So maybe you could try these if you gravitate toward tubes.