Wilson Audio Sasha DAW

Wilson Audio Sasha DAW

Discontinued replaced by Sasha V

Honouring the Past, Heralding the Future

As Wilson Audio launch the latest Sasha, they at Wilson Audio can’t help but think of Dave’s original WATT/Puppy, which was first launched nearly 30 years ago, and which is the lineal ancestor of the first Sasha.

The DAW designation for this Sasha—DAW for Dave Andrew Wilson—is a nomenclative homage to the man who started it all.

Introducing the Wilson Audio Sasha DAW, a loudspeaker that simultaneously honors the past and heralds the future.

Time & Sound

In the Sasha DAW, a beautiful and functional calibrated “ladder” facilitates extremely fine adjustment within the time domain.

Design

In the end, the new design is the highest resolution, lowest distortion, and most linear loudspeaker in the history of the WATT/Puppy platform.

It is easier to place in a wider variety of rooms than its predecessors.

Most importantly, the latest Sasha provides a remarkably direct conduit to the numinous beauty of music.

Drivers

Based on the 8-inch driver found in the Alexia Series-2, the new woofer was redesigned for the specific needs of the Wilson Audio Sasha DAW.
The midrange and tweeters are the same units used in the WAMM Master Chronosonic, and an all-new crossover blends the entire recipe together

Enclosure Materials

Wilson’s proprietary composite, X-Material, is the ideal material for woofers and tweeters.

The research surrounding the original Sasha led to the development of S-Material, designed specifically to increase midrange accuracy and beauty.

Sasha DAW Technical Specifications

Drivers

Woofers

Two – 8 inch (20.32 cm)

Midrange

One – 7 inch (17.78 cm)

Tweeter

One – 1 inch, Dome (2.54 cm)

Enclosures & Materials

Upper Module

Rear Vented Midrange, X&S-Material

Woofer Module

Rear Ported Woofer, X-Material

Measurements

Sensitivity

91 dB (one watt at one meter at 1kHz)

Nominal Impedance

4 ohms / minimum 2.48 ohms @ 85 Hz

Minimum Amplifier Power

25 watts per channel

Frequency Response

20 Hz –30 kHz +/- 3 dB room average response [RAR]

Overall Dimensions

Height

44 3/4 inches (113.67 cm)

Width

14 1/2 inches (36.83 cm)

Depth

22 15/16inches (58.26 cm)

Weight Per Channel

236 lbs (107.05 kg)

System Shipping Weight (approx)

322.05 kg

The Man Who Started it All

The original WATT began not as a response to a perceived market need. It was not the product of focus groups.

Dave never intended it to be a commercial product at all.

Dave Wilson designed the WATT in 1985 as a tool for himself.

He was a recording engineer who needed a loudspeaker he could take with him to on-lo- cation recording venues, a location monitor that spoke the same language as his revolutionary and revered WAMM reference monitor.

In other words, Dave was literally designing the loudspeaker he wanted to own.

There was a certain freedom this approach a orded Dave.

He was not governed by business-school notions of market need.

Without these considerations, he was unrestricted to design and build a loudspeaker that specifically to his desire for a loudspeaker that was completely without compromise, crass cynicism, or commercial concerns of any kind.

As a direct consequence of Dave’s pure intent and his idealistic approach, a masterpiece was born.

Two Originals

Later, the WATT was paired with a dedicated woofer module—the “Puppy.” The WATT/Puppy combo became Wilson Audio’s largest selling product.

And the most successful loudspeaker priced over $10,000 in the history of audio.

The reason was simple: it was a truly compact, full-range loudspeaker that could fit easily in most real-world listening rooms while still offering the bass speed and extension, the dynamics, and musicality associated with much larger systems.

When Sasha W/P debuted in 2009, it heralded a name change in recognition of the comprehensive redesign of the WATT/Puppy platform.

The addition of W/P to the name was meant to signify the new loudspeaker was still part of an evolutionary chain that extended back to the original introduced in 1989.

With the Sasha W/P, the platform eschewed the modular, two speaker approach of the WATT/Puppy, and instead treated the loudspeaker as a single integrated design.

Without this limitation, imposed by the fact that the WATT itself was designed as a standalone monitor, the Sasha’s performance established a new elevated standard for what was possible for hyper-performance, compact monitors.

When it came time to upgrade the Sasha, Daryl Wilson was sensitive to what his father accomplished.

In the wake of Dave Wilson’s recent passing, Daryl was all the more motivated to ensure the Sasha would honour his father’s achievements, and yet look to the future for an even greater level of performance than was possible when Dave designed the original Sasha.

An All new Sasha

Daryl decided a fresh look at the Sasha was in order.

He approached the Sasha as if it were an all-new loudspeaker, taking the elements that very clearly worked in its design and, at the same time, applying the myriad technologies generated by Wilson’s design team since the advent of the Series-2 nearly ve years ago.

The result is the largest up- grade in the history of the WATT/Puppy and Sasha platforms.

Led by Vern Credille, the team designed a new woofer for the Sasha.

Based on the 8-inch driver found in the Alexia Series-2, the new woofer was redesigned for the specific needs of the Sasha.

When Dave designed the original Puppy, speed and dynamic impact were priorities, as well as optimizing the bass extension.

He found that two smaller drivers allowed him to optimise both.

This strategy has been refined over the years.

The latest Sasha represents the largest leap in bass performance since the platform’s inception, and resets the bar in the areas of transient honesty and impact, linearity, and timbral resolution.

To further augment bass performance, Daryl and his team redesigned the Sasha’s bass enclosure from the ground up.

Thicker X-material panels further reduce (the already vanishing low) panel resonances.

Enclosure volume was increased by 13.3%, which allows for greater bottom-octave authority and reduced distortion.

The blades on the top of the module, where its companion midrange/tweeter rests, have been strategically redesigned with openings, which reduces cavity pressure in the space between the upper and lower modules.

Finally, a new, ultra-low-turbulence port reduces already low unwanted wind born noise.

For the design of the upper module, Daryl Wilson worked closely with Jarom Lance, one of Wilson mechanical engineers.

Thicker panels throughout the module reduce resonance.

An all-new pattern is cut into the inside of the enclosure, which mitigate internal reflections.

Enclosure volume was increased by 10.2% for increased dynamic range and efficiency.

The midrange and tweeters are the same units used in the WAMM Master Chronosonic, and an all-new crossover blends the entire recipe together.

Vern and Daryl worked to improve the frequency linearity of the platform.

Already the industry leader in the areas of ultra-low distortion and vanishing noise levels, the team found ways to reduce both.

In the end, the new design is the highest resolution, lowest distortion, and most linear loudspeaker in the history of the WATT/Puppy platform.

It is easier to place in a wider variety of rooms than its predecessors.

Most importantly, the latest Sasha provides a remarkably direct conduit to the numinous beauty of music.

In recognition for the man who started it all, the Wilson team felt it appropriate to dedicate this most ambitious iteration of the Wilson compact loudspeaker in its history to the visionary who first imagined it thirty years ago, here we have the Wilson Audio Sasha DAW

Thus, the designation “DAW,” Dave Andrew Wilson’s initials.