Wilson Audio is a consumer tech brand headquartered in Provo, Utah. It was founded in Novato, California, in 1974.
One of the first speakers from Wilson Audio, the Provo loudspeaker maker, was officially a Tiny Tot. WATT stands for Wilson Audio Tiny Tot, a compact monitor first built for recording sessions. When it arrived, the most expensive small monitor on the American market cost $1,600 a pair. The Tiny Tot launched at $4,400, and later it got a matching woofer called the Puppy.
David Wilson worked in pharmaceutical research at Pfizer and Abbott before loudspeakers took over. He and his wife, Sheryl Lee, founded the company in 1974 at their home in Novato, California, and moved it in the early 1990s to Provo, where they had met at BYU. David Wilson died in 2018. His son Daryl runs the company now.
The cabinets are not wood. Wilson cuts them from phenolic resin composites and epoxy laminates that arrive in slabs, and even the smaller slabs cost more than $500 each. The diamond-hardened milling heads that shape them last two hours before they go out for sharpening. Workers sign the inside of each component when they finish their step.
In 2024 Wilson brought back The WATT/Puppy in what it calls a remastering. The Tiny Tot is still in the name.
According to Stereophile, the average Wilson Audio speaker in 2015 cost $69,325 a pair in standard colors, before any extras.
