DESCRIPTION :

Succession is a fact of life in both royal dynasties and venerable audio products. It inevitably calls forth complex emotions, hence the resonance of the phrase above, reputedly first uttered upon the death of Charles VI of France, and thereafter part of the ritual of ascension in many European countries, including England.



For the past 23 years, no product represented the soul and history of Wilson Audio more than the WATT/Puppy. With well over 15,000 units sold since its inception, its place in the pantheon of great audio products is assured. Martin Colloms described the WATT in his landmark book, HIGH PERFORMANCE LOUDSPEAKERS, as the perfect enclosure. Its distinctive pyramidal shape has inspired numerous imitators.



The WATT was conceived of necessity. At the time (the early eighties), Dave Wilson was engineering a series of audiophile recordings and he needed an accurate location monitor. Nothing commercially available met his standards, so he decided to design and build his own. The WATT was in instant demand among Dave’s professional peers.   Once it was combined with a dedicated woofer cabinet (the Puppy), its long reign as audio’s most successful over- Ł10,000 loudspeaker began.



From 1986, when the WATT was introduced at that year’s Consumer Electronics Show, to 2009, the WATT/Puppy system evolved through seven revisions. New cabinet architecture, new enclosure materials, new drivers, the introduction (with System 6) of Aspherical Group Delay—all of these changes came as Wilson’s loudspeaker technology progressed and found expression throughout the family of Wilson products—from Alexandria to Duette. The WATT/Puppy, as the paterfamilias, was never allowed to languish far behind Wilson’s state-of-the-art.



So why not a System 9?  Why a new loudspeaker that embodies the spirit of WATT/Puppy, evokes a similar form factor, but which can no longer simply be called a WATT/Puppy?  Why was it time for Sasha?



Throughout its evolution, the WATT was always a self-contained, two-way loudspeaker. It had its own crossover; the WATT always had the capability of being removed from the Puppy and operated on its own. MAXX and Alexandria, meanwhile, were multi-cabinet loudspeakers that integrated drivers through crossover modules mounted in the bass cabinet, a design strategy that has many proven sonic benefits. The WATT/Puppy platform itself became the obstacle to fully leveraging the latest advances in cabinet materials, crossover design, and proprietary driver design. Sasha makes all of those things possible, while maintaining the central position in the Wilson product line held by its illustrious predecessor.



Both the new midrange/tweeter module and the bass cabinet have greater volume than W/P System 8.The larger bass enclosure results in a 2Hz greater extension in the bass, and less congestion in the upper bass.Increased volume in the upper module allows a new bracing architecture and sidewall construction for greater rigidity and lower resonance.Sasha’s upper module utilizes Wilson’s newest proprietary cabinet material for its baffle, resulting in a lower noise floor and greater transparency in the critical midrange.By removing the crossover from the upper module, less midrange energy is reflected through the midrange driver cone, again improving clarity and transparency.Sasha incorporates both the 7” midrange driver and the tweeter from MAXX Series 3.Sasha’s woofers utilize a new motor/magnet assembly with more magnetic force for the same cone mass resulting in improved dynamics and acceleration in the bass region.The crossover is housed in the bass module, with resistor access on a rear panel. Custom wiring, hand-built at Wilson, connects all the drivers. Sasha’s midrange driver comes directly from MAXX Series 3. In turn, the MAXX version of the driver is closely derived from the new proprietary midrange that was developed as the heart of the Series 2 version of Wilson’s flagship Alexandria.

musikverein



It is precisely these earliest reflections that give the sound of the orchestra such rich alacrity in the Musikverein. Dave knew if he could develop a driver capable of capturing that nuance, then every type of recording, of any type of music, would likewise benefit from the increase in resolution and detail.



Wilson Audio formed a strategic partnership with a new driver manufacturer to codesign a driver capable of the speed and detail Dave first dreamed of in Vienna.



Writing in soundstage.com about the MAXX 3 version of the mid-range, Marc Mickelson says: “It is more lively and animated, more detailed, textured and expressive ...while never giving the impression that the frequency response, for instance, has been contoured or goosed. This wasn’t a matter of output as much as input -- the ability to convey important musical information from recordings, once again differentiating them from each other.”

Marc Mickelson soundstage.com, May 1, 2009



genealogy



The design of that driver was inspired by experiences Dave has had at the Vienna Staatsoper and at the Musikverein Concert Hall also in Vienna, Austria, where he had the opportunity to listen to several concerts and rehearsals of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.



The unique presentation of direct versus reflected sound in that hall, which some consider to be the world’s finest, led Dave to a clear insight into what was missing from every loudspeaker he had heard, including his own: a driver with enough speed and low-level resolution to differentiate the first milliseconds of reflected sound as distinct from the louder and more sustained secondary reflections that we typically recognize as a hall’s ambient signature.