John
Attention Wilson TuneTot owners: the Utah-based loudspeaker manufacturer wants to pull on your coat about a new subwoofer. The Lōkē (pronounced ‘Low-Key’) is Wilson Audio’s smallest bass maker to date but with a 53cm x 55cm profile, it’s no micro sub. It’s not even what many would call small.
Lōkē’s enclosure is made from a proprietary “resonance-eradicating X-Material” where a 25cm (10inch) driver fires from its front baffle. That driver is no off-the-shelf number. It’s designed and manufactured in-house and tuned by Wilson Audio engineers to work in conjunction with the subwoofer’s “port configuration”. Lōkē, therefore, is not a sealed subwoofer.
And unlike Wilson Audio’s other subwoofer models – the fantastically named W.A.T.C.H. Dog, Thor’s Hammer and the Wilson Audio Subsonic – Lōkē is no passive operator. It internalises active drive with a 500W internal amplifier working in tandem with Wilson’s “ActivXO Dual Subwoofer Crossover” permitting control over the crossover frequency, crossover slope, phase and signal gain via a digital display (or PC via USB).
According to the press materials, “Lōkē is designed to be flexible, easy to set up and suited to multiple applications and environments.” However, it can also be used with Wilson’s smaller floorstanding loudspeakers, namely the SabrinaX, Yvette and Sasha DAW.
Price? Lōkē will run you a cool £8998 in standard colours, £9500 in upgrade colours and £10,998 in premium pearl colours. That’s almost as much as the TuneTots themselves. The challenge for the reviewer looking to determine the Lōkē’s value proposition will be to source another £9k-ish subwoofer for a direct A/B comparison — not an easy task. Another line of enquiry might be: will the Lōkē play as nicely as the TuneTot in smaller listening rooms?
At the time of writing, neither the UK distributor’s press materials nor Wilson’s website answers the crucial question: “Bass! How low can you go?”.
Further information: Wilson Audio
