Sasha W/P Series 2: The Further Evolution of an Audio Classic
he original WATT minimonitor and its companion bass module, the Puppy, are "perhaps the most influential loudspeaker of the modern era," as Wilson Audio calls the pairing. For more than 30 years, the WATT/Puppy platform, through various iterations, has come to define the performance of midsize floorstanding speakers. Building on this rich legacy, Wilson Audio has introduced the Sasha W/P Series 2 ($29,900 per pair), which pays homage to the WATT/Puppy platform and incorporates some evolutionary features from more recent and costly Wilson Audio designs. The Series 2 Sasha improves on its predecessor in a number of important areas. First, the woofer cabinet, developed with Wilson Audio's latest laser vibrometer, has nearly 30% lower resonance than that of the original Sasha. Second, the Series 2 uses a custom version of Wilson Audio's Convergent Synergy silk-dome tweeter with a rear-wave chamber designed specifically for this version of the driver. Third, the speaker's midrange/tweeter enclosure has a two-plane baffle that enhances the axes, and output, of the drivers. The enclosure, which also uses a new bracing scheme, is fashioned from the latest version of Wilson Audio's X material, along with S material strategically used for the midrange baffle. Fourth, there are now 20 group-delay positions for the midrange/tweeter module, increasing from four with the original Sasha, improving the speaker's time-domain performance. Finally, all crossover parts and values have been fine-tuned for the new Sasha. The Sasha W/P Series 2 will begin shipping in late
February 2014. Wilson Audio has produced a short video that provides more information on
the speaker and the history of the entire WATT/Puppy line. You can see it here. |
