Wilson Audio WATT Series 7 - Manual (Page 19)

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a T T
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n T r o d u C T i o n
sound staging performance, and may cause instability, oscillation and damage in wide
bandwidth solid state amplifiers.
The spade lugs of some of the high quality cables often used with the WATT/
Puppy are angled to reduce pressures on the cable during installation. Avoid the instinct
to push the cable’s spade lug ends all the way into the WATT/Puppy’s connectors (see
figure 2 ). Partial insertion of these angled spade lugs will actually improve the reli-
ability of the connection. Flat lugs may be fully insert to connectors before tightening.
s
elecTion oF
i
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T
uning
P
orTs
The damping factor of an amplifier is a function of the amplifier’s output imped-
ance into a given load impedance. Solid state amplifiers, due to their intrinsically low
output impedance, tend to have a higher damping factor than vacuum tube amplifiers.
Vacuum tube amplifiers typically are transformer-coupled in their output stage and the
secondary windings of the output transformer present a relatively high source imped-
ance. This source impedance is a parameter which must be considered in the tuning of
the air volume of the loudspeaker enclosure. An interesting theoretical consideration
is that if a loudspeaker is designed around a solid state amplifier and then used with a
vacuum tube amplifier, it will tend to sound loose and tubby in the mid-bass regions.
The WATT loudspeaker system allows you to precisely tailor the air volume tuning of
the enclosure to the amplifier of your choice.
Your WATT loudspeaker comes equipped with two sets of interchangeable tun-
ing ports. The ports connect on the back of the loudspeaker system and are affixed
with three (3) button-head stainless steel screws. An allen key is provided which can
be used to remove these screws to facilitate exchange of the ports. Typically, WATTs
are shipped with the “D.F. 100-400” ports installed. This range encompasses the major-
ity of high performance solid state amplifier types. Most vacuum tube amplifiers have
damping factors of from 20 to 80, and we recommend the port which is labeled “D.F.
20-80.”
T E C H N I C A L N O T E