There is change, and also continuity, at Wilson Audio Specialties, the company founded in 1974 by recordist and loudspeaker designer David A. Wilson. David’s son Daryl Wilson was appointed president and CEO in 2016. David Wilson passed away in 2018. And in 2019, Wilson Audio Specialties released the Sasha DAW loudspeaker ($37,900/pair), designed by a team led by Daryl Wilson and named in honor of his father. The Sasha model has a history of its own. Designed as a replacement for the company’s successful WATT/Puppy two-box loudspeakers—these combined the Wilson Audio Tiny Tot compact monitor with a dedicated woofer enclosure called the Puppy—the first Wilson Audio Sasha W/P Series 1 loudspeaker was introduced in 2009; Art Dudley reviewed it for our July 2010 issue. A follow-up model, the Sasha W/P Series 2, was issued in 2014. The Sasha series retains a direct connection to those earlier designs within the expanding lineup of loudspeakers offered by Wilson Audio Specialties.

I told my editors that I could get two sentences out of the name connection, so here they are: Even though I am legally Alexander Matson, I have always been called Sasha, the Russian diminutive form for my given name. And there’s a similar naming convention that runs through Wilson Audio’s line of floorstanding loudspeakers, from Alexandria, Alexx, and Alexia all the way to their smaller sibling Sasha.

Let’s review
The two-box Sasha DAW measures 44.75″ tall without spikes, 14.5″ wide, and 22.85″ deep. These dimensions are slightly larger than those of the first Sasha model. Each speaker weighs 236lb. (The Sasha W/P Series 1 weighed 197lb.) Thus the latest Sasha is just 24lb lighter than the current Alexia 2 model, though the latter is a bit more than 8″ taller.

Why the weight gain? The lower woofer module of the Sasha DAW increased in volume by more than 13% compared to its immediate predecessor, the Sasha W/P Series 2; the thickness of its panels also increased. The upper module, containing the midrange driver and tweeter, gained 10% in volume, and those panels also increased in thickness. The Sasha DAW cabinets are constructed from Wilson Audio’s proprietary composite mixes of resin and cellulose: X-Material for most of the panels, with their newer S-Material formulation used for the midrange baffle. Permanent bonding, not bolts, holds everything together. The exteriors of the cabinets, the many subtly beveled edges of which add to their sculpted look, hint at the complex voicing and tuning hidden within.

The binding posts mounted on the rear of the bottom enclosure—in light of Wilson Audio’s lack of enthusiasm for biwiring/biamping, only a single pair is fitted—have been redesigned: Banana plugs are now accepted. While you’re back there, you can admire the speaker’s machined-aluminum “ultra-low-turbulence” reflex port: This hefty cabinet is not meant to be jammed up against a wall or into corners.

Also on the rear, next to the handsome Sasha DAW logo, is a window that offers a view of the resistors mounted within. These function as fuse-like protectors, as well as providing the ability to alter the balance between the upper and lower modules in inhospitable room setups—an adjustment that I’m told is rarely needed.

The specified frequency response of the three-way Sasha DAW is from 20Hz to 30kHz, ±3dB. In the speaker’s bottom enclosure, twin 8″ paper-cone woofers, fitted with ceramic magnets, are reflex loaded and wired in parallel; they both see the same signal. One can imagine how such less-than-enormous bass drivers, assuming ample excursion capabilities, could provide both bass depth and outstanding transient response.

The Sasha DAW’s crossover is newly designed with all second-order slopes. No circuit boards are used: The wiring is point-to-point. Wilson Audio now makes their crossover capacitors in-house, and the Sasha DAW is their first model to use them.

In the speaker’s upper enclosure is a 7″ midrange driver with a paper-and-cellulose–composite cone: the same as that currently used in Wilson’s flagship model, the enormous WAMM Master Chronosonic. Wilson designer Vern Credille described it to me: “The midrange driver motor has a secondary magnet, which changes the Thiele-Small parameters and gives more control. The midrange design is an acoustic impeded vent, similar to a vented enclosure but with a highly resistive port such that some characteristics of a closed box can be exploited.”

The 1″ textile-dome tweeter employs a neodymium magnet and is loaded with its own sealed box. For the first Sasha W/P model, the choice was a titanium inverted-dome design, but over the years, Wilson Audio has auditioned various other materials as tweeter diaphragms, including Kevlar, diamond, beryllium, and carbon fiber. (As I understand it, some materials yield great results way up high but are less suited to the tweeter’s lower range, and thus have trouble mating well with the midrange driver. And as David Wilson observed, a good tweeter “has to be a team player.”) According to Wilson Audio, the Sasha DAW’s midrange driver crosses over to the tweeter at about 1kHz, the latter driver being flat on-axis out to 34kHz.

Daryl Wilson described the design priorities this way: “The two fundamental elements we always focus on at Wilson are dynamic contrast and harmonic expression. And there is one more element that I’ve added the more we dug into it: micro detail. We are getting more resolution than we did ten or twenty years ago.”

Long day’s journey into setup
You should have seen the mournful expression on the face of the Air Cargo guy as he handed me the packing slip: He wanted me to see the total weight of the shipment. I helped him trundle the three seriously well-constructed wooden crates up the driveway and into the garage. When the crates were opened, the woofer cabinets rolled out on double-wheeled casters. The Sasha DAW model incorporates a clever new design element: The formerly solid fairings on the top edges of the lower cabinet are now open and function as handles. This reduces pressure between the upper and lower modules—and helps a lot in the setup process. Once the Sashas were roughly in position in my listening room, I laid down the woofer modules and swapped out the casters for spikes, included along with tools and other parts in two nicely done boxes.

Initial setup concluded with placing the upper module on top of the lower and connecting the exposed spade-tipped signal leads. It is at this point that things get uniquely Wilsonian. “Time-Alignment” is the term used in the setup manual, although “Time-Calibration” would also seem appropriate. The idea: mating the upper enclosure’s rear spikes to specific positions on an adjustable “stairstep” support, said spikes and positions selected with the aid of a calibration chart—itself based on the distance between the speakers and one’s preferred listening position—in order to synchronize the arrival times of upper frequencies. The Sasha DAW is now the lowest-priced model in the Wilson Audio hierarchy that offers this capability. Does this make a difference? You bet it does. If you change the positions or use differently sized spikes, you will hear it.

Once the Sasha DAWs arrived at my house and after some juggling of schedules, Peter McGrath, Wilson Audio Specialties’ sales manager, traveled to upstate New York, and I went to fetch him from Albany airport: Whether you’re a customer or a reviewer, installation comes standard with the purchase of any Wilson Audio speakers (although not always by McGrath himself).

I had hooked up the speakers earlier and been running them in. In this old house, built in 1872, my listening room was originally intended as one of two master bedrooms. The room is not huge: 13′ wide by 17′ long by 10′ high. (I like the ceiling height you can get in an old wood Victorian.) In spite of what may well be a minefield of resonant nodes, this is the most satisfying space I have had for listening to music.

Were the imposing Sasha DAWs going to be too much loudspeaker for my room? Only proper setup and listening time would tell.

The afternoon McGrath arrived, we listened for a while with the Sasha DAWs where I had set them out of their crates. Peter pronounced that things weren’t too bad, and he felt the speakers might end up quite close to their starting positions. The next morning, McGrath got to work with tape measures, a pad of paper, and his ears—no electronic measuring devices. Following the Wilson Audio setup procedure, Peter proceeded to listen, over and over again, for hours, to his favorite test track, Christy Moore’s “So Do I,” from This Is the Day (Sony 5032552), which features a deep male vocal and a plucked string bass. McGrath finds this recording helpful in detecting undesirable room resonant points.

With the speakers now set on large plastic furniture pads, we moved them in carefully measured half-inch increments from front to back and side to side; at each spot, McGrath would stop to listen and make notes. These included distance from the front wall and numerical grades—1 being worst, 5 being best—in five categories: Low, Low Mid, Upper Mid, Bloom, and Dynamics. McGrath is a tough grader: In only one position out of 13 did he assign three or more points in all five categories. The magic spot was 42.5″ from the front wall. This was only a bit more than 4″ farther from my listening chair than the speakers were initially, slightly farther apart, and more toed in than the speakers they replaced—and quite close to an equilateral triangle with respect to my chair. Grilles on or off? They were in place when McGrath first arrived, but he wanted me to take the grilles off. We also leveled the speakers once they were set—all the floors in my old house go in different directions. This improved the stereo sound- stage balance and detail.

Listen to this
The Wilson Sasha DAWs were well fed. Powering up the 450Wpc McIntosh MC462 stereo amplifier, McGrath and I began to explore a bit. The Sasha DAW’s specified sensitivity of 91dB is higher than average—they can indeed play loud—and their nominal impedance is specified as 4 ohms. Counterintuitively, McGrath suggested that with some amps the speakers might sound better using an 8 ohm output tap. We compared, and this proved to be the case: Bass was deeper and tighter and the spatial performance better using the 8 ohm taps instead of the 4 ohm taps.

I ran this observation by Wilson designer Credille, who stated that “On tube amps with multiple taps, we have found that the 8 ohm tap generally works the best.” John Atkinson took another look at his measurements of the McIntosh MC462 for me and decided that “The 8 ohm tap of the MC462 has the lowest output impedance, which will control the bass best—the opposite of what I would expect.” All this adds up to: Each user will need to determine these things for themselves, case by case. Wilson’s specified minimum amplifier power for the Sasha DAW is 25Wpc. I would suggest even more—you probably won’t experience all the Sasha DAW has to offer with flea-circus amplification.

I don’t know what unseen planchette guided my fingers to my original copy of Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band’s Clear Spot (LP, Reprise MS 2115 0598): my favorite album from Don Van Vliet, not only for the material but because it is by far the best-sounding recording of Don’s career. The incredible pow of the drums and the wailing harmonica on “Circumstances” . . . well, as Little Richard put it, they “made my big toe jump up in my boot.” Deputy Editor Art Dudley motored by the next day for a listen and asked to hear “Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles.” Art commented that this was the best he had ever heard that particular track sound, with its surprisingly soulful vocal from the Captain. Outstanding.

If you want to really vet the quality of vocal reproduction from a loudspeaker, reach for Joni Mitchell’s masterpiece Blue (LP, Reprise/Rhino MS 2038). Listening to the superb recent vinyl remastering from Rhino Vinyl, my eyes welled and my ears perked up when I got to “Little Green.” I have heard this tune innumerable times, but I never noticed how long Joni sustains the last word of the song, “sorrow”: heartbreak made audible by the Sasha DAW. My reference Harbeth 30.2 40th Anniversary Edition loudspeakers, reviewed by Herb Reichert in the April 2018 issue, utilize a 1″ soft-dome tweeter, as do the Sasha DAWs. However, the Harbeths provide less texture, detail, and diction than I heard from the Wilsons. This does not mean the latter were forward or strident: With the Sasha DAWs, there was no sense of that up-in-your-face-and- ears sound that I have sometimes experienced with large monitors in recording studios.

In the mood for some Steely Dan, I turned to the album that won them their overdue Grammy in 2000, Two Against Nature (CD, Giant/Warner Bros. 9 24719-2). Donald Fagen and Walter Becker honed what they termed their “junkie grooves” to a fine edge over the years, and this album is chock-full of ’em. Listening to “Cousin Dupree” felt like driving a really high-powered go-kart: Through the Sasha DAWs there were pace, snap, drive, and speed, all propelling the energy of the track forward.

Turning to a more uptown kind of music, I streamed from Qobuz the fifth and final movement of the Shostakovich Symphony No.8 from the cycle-in-progress by conductor Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (24/96 WAV, Deutsche Grammophon 289 479 5201). As the concert bass drum and the rest of the orchestra repeat the same bone-crunching crescendo, the effect heard through the Sasha DAWs was beyond exciting—it was terrifying. I think this is what Dimitri wanted us to feel. (The subtitle on the album cover is “Under Stalin’s Shadow.”) The low-end performance of the Sasha DAWs was sui generis: Though I have owned other fine floorstanders and subwoofers, the low-end performance of the Sasha DAWs took things to another level.

Shostakovich is among the most varied of composers. When he mutes the strings, and a single woodwind softly takes the lead, the Sasha DAWs reveled in the most delicate of musical colors. The soundstage was fantastic, laid out in sparkling width, depth, and detail. Stereo soundstaging is high on my to-do list; if I want to listen to mono, I’ll crank up one of my three Victrolas. With the Sasha DAWs properly dialed in, with the room “completing the acoustic circuit,” I could answer my earlier question I started with: No, not too much loudspeaker. The electronics, the speakers, and the listening space were all pulling together now, putting their backs into it like a well-trained crew team.

The sweet spot?
I think it’s likely that the increased size and solidity of the Wilson Audio Sasha DAW cabinets, along with revisions to the drivers and other elements, may have resulted in improvements, overall, compared with the prior Sasha models. (John Atkinson’s measurements should shed further light on this.) There is tonal beauty, alongside an amazing dynamic range. The end result helps create the tactile sensation of actual music being performed by actual musicians, not virtual ones.

Are the Wilson Audio Specialties Sasha DAW loudspeakers worth their price of admission? It’s a matter of priorities. Usually, when hi-fi buffs complain about high-end pricing, they compare audio gear to cars. But, as Dylan puts it: “I don’t have no sports car, and don’t even care to have one. I can walk anytime—around the block.” To my way of thinking, a more apt analogy for the Sasha DAW would be to a really fine musical instrument, which musicians can and do find a way to have in their lives.

When I examine product lineups from high-end manufacturers, I tend to seek out the model where the cost and performance vectors intersect. In my view, within the current Wilson Audio Specialties lineup, the Sasha DAW occupies that spot. This loudspeaker is at the center of the design concepts that David Wilson first created for his company. In a less costly world, would I choose to keep the Sasha DAWs? In a needle drop. I have never heard music recreation in my own home like this before. The Sasha DAW has rocked my listening world. The Wilson Audio Specialties Sasha DAW loudspeaker is a beautifully balanced fusion of technology, craft, and art, and a fine living tribute to David A. Wilson.