Any other tweaks for Wilson Audio Duettes?


I have the Wilson Audio Duettes- series one. They have always been on their associated stands and usually placed at least 3 to 5 feet into the room. I have had good experience placing the tweeter on the bottom (upside down), and have had good results replacing the supplied umbilical speaker wire with at first, very pure copper, and later very pure silver speaker wire. Has anyone else done the same? What are your experiences? I have paired them with good solid state amplifiers and also good tube integrateds. Both had improved results with the above. My listening chair sits low so that may make a difference. I have had these primarily in a small room in a near field environment. My ears are about 8 feet from the speakers. Thanks for any further suggestions.
marklindemann
I was curious about the Duettes, but after enquiring I was told they only sell them to people with very difficult space requirements and wouldn't let me audition them.
Anyway you should deaden the stands if you can. This is not Duette advice rather its general. I would have familiarize myself with those particular stands to offer specific advise. However, if there is a platform that the speaker rests upon you can put a thick piece of wood to cut down on any resonance?
I have a pair of Cub's in a 2nd system. Have you listened to them? I've never heard your speakers, so I'm not sure if they have a similar sound.
The stands are the bespoke stands for the Duettes. They are fairly sturdy affairs. I have had good success putting anti-vibration products underneath the crossover and also underneath the stands. This is really a question to me of wringing the last iota out of the product. And if the question comes up, I have worked exhaustively with room placement and also introduced room treatment options. I was wondering if anyone else had done anything unique that I hadn't thought of. And also I wanted to introduce the topic so that others might experiment.
I had a pair of Duettes on Sound Anchor stands. You might want to consider replacing the Wilson OEM stands with stands that are lower so the tweeter is more level with your ears.

My Sound Anchor stands were the four post version which allowed me to place the crossover box neatly between the posts. I wedged the crossover in with soft pads to hold the crossovers firmly in place.

I always wanted to dump the supplied umbilical speaker wires but never got around to doing that.
<I always wanted to dump the supplied umbilical speaker wires but never got around to doing that. >


I just got a pair of Duettes and was thinking of doing the same thing. When I asked Wilson they recommended against it as they said the cables were twisted to create a specific inductance (hence the difference between the two supplied cables). I figured though, the worst thing that could happen is it wouldn’t help the sound and I’d go back to stock cables.

Then again, they also advised against replacing the 5.3 ohm resistor. I’m happy I ignored that because the 5.1 ohm Path Audio resistor is a really improvement over stock. I don’t think the stock resistors are bad, it’s just that resistor technology has changed a lot over the 12 or so years since these were manufactured.

All in all, they sound great with PS Audio tube gear in my much less than ideal room.