HiFi-Plus 67: The Wilson Audio Sasha Loudspeaker

The king is dead, long live the king!Wilson Audio’s introductory tag-line to its new Sasha (technically, Sasha W/P) loudspeaker could be viewed as supreme arrogance or high hubris. One problem though, it happens to be true.

The Sasha is the replacement to the Wilson WATT/Puppy, a product that – above all others – has earned the right to be called ‘king’ among audiophile loudspeakers. First sold back in 1986, the Wilson Audio Tiny Tot (soon joined by its woofin’ Puppy partner) went on to become the most successful $10,000+ loudspeaker in history, and became a fixed point in the audiophile firmament. It set the tone for other Wilson designs, bigger and smaller. Recently though, the direction-finder in Wilson Audio sound came from elsewhere in the range. Each successive change made the W/P sound more integrated and lively and brought it more in line with the sort of sound made by other Wilsons, but the bright star of the Wilson line cannot spend its life playing catch-up to products like the Sophia or the MAXX.

In the Sasha, what could have been just another iteration of the WATT/Puppy concept (it would have been ‘System 9’) has undergone a root-and-branch reworking. The human brain’s ability to form associations and patterns is a remarkable thing, but it can be prone to failure (optical illusions are a perfect example of this). A quick glance at the Sasha in isolation will see similarities between this new speaker and the WATT/Puppy products it replaces and we will naturally make associations between the two that simply aren’t there. Because there are so many changes between the Sasha and what went before, it’s almost easier to point out the bits that aren’t changed rather than list what’s been swapped: the cones in the bass drivers, the range of ‘Wilsongloss’ finishes (our ones were finished in an almost black midnight blue) and – I think – the rear port and spikes are held over from what went before. Pretty much everything else is a new speaker.

A fair chunk of Sasha – the 25.4mm inverted titanium-foil dome tweeter and the proprietary 178mm paper/carbon-fibre composite cone midrange driver, for example – are a direct ‘lift’ from Wilson’s MAXX 3. These new units were chosen after a moment of audio epiphany at the Musikverein Concert Hall in Vienna by David Wilson. Other parts are total newcomers, such as the cabinet. Not only is it made from a new kind of material, developed out of the X (cellulose/phenolic composite) and M (wood fibres in phenolic resin) materials found in previous Wilson speakers. The new cabinet material doesn’t have a capital letter name, but features as yet undefined natural fibres set in a phenolic resin laminate. This is suggested to make for a low coloration cabinet material with a particularly good midrange.

The new material has allowed Wilson to completely redesign the chassis, making for increased volume in both cabinets and a head unit with more nonparallel lines. Inside, there’s a new bracing design. All of which helps aid rigidity and minimise resonance and standing waves. Those surviving woofer cones are backed up by a new motor and magnet arrangement, which basically means more magnet for the same cone mass.

The crossover has been moved from inside the mid/treble head unit to a rear panel at the top of the bass unit. The panel allows components in the crossover to be altered to suit specific rooms, and also gives the midrange driver more legroom, and supposedly more midrange clarity. One legacy point that is missing from both the Sasha is the grab-handle at the back of the WATT. This marks the end of the WATT’s vestigial standalone monitor role; the new head unit is adjustable to better integrate the speaker with the room and the listening position, but it’s got nothing to do with being used as a solo speaker.

On paper at least, the end result of all this change is just 2Hz more in the bass. The relatively high sensitivity (91dB/W/m) is tempered somewhat by the impedance plot. Although nominally a four-ohm load, the Sasha is claimed to dip to 1.8ohm minimum impedance at 92Hz. In practice, this means the Sasha is not a friend of the Single-Ended Triode brigade and does place a limit on the choice of amplifiers used with this speaker, but the sort of amplifier one would normally consider a comfy partner for a speaker costing nigh on £28,000 will have no problems handling the Sasha. And when used with a pair of Krell Evolution 900 monoblocs, which deliver upwards of 900W per channel, you have nothing to worry about, except losing hearing. The rest of the system in this case was a four-box Krell Evolution Two twin mono preamp and a Metronome Kallista CD transport and C2A digital converter. Heady, bank account draining stuff indeed. It was playing into a room about 18x24x9, with the main listening position about 10’ into the room. The speakers were about four feet from the rear wall, but only two-and-a-half feet from the sides and had about a 20° toe-in.