This review page is supported in part by the sponsors whose ad banners are displayed below

After the speakers are thoroughly broken in, it’s a good time to experiment with the pitch of the top cabinet and its spike. If the pitch is set too high there’s a slight emphasis to the upper midrange and treble and a corresponding reduction in body. If set too low, the presentation gets a little too rich. When it’s just so you’ll know it. The spike length setup charts in the manual and placards are easy enough to understand and serve as good starting points. However don’t be afraid to use spikes longer or shorter than recommended. You’ll learn a lot in the process and end up with better sound.


Trust your ears, forget about concepts (they don’t have ears) and keep working (and working and working) until everything is shockingly real and convincing. Experiencing suspension of disbelief is a level of sonic performance that's entirely possible with the Sashas even using relatively inexpensive electronics. And remember to experiment with dynamic EQ. Relying upon speaker positioning or other passive acoustical conditioning methods alone will not be a complete solution for most listening rooms. You have been warned.

Dynamics: Certainly this is a major strength of this speaker, namely being able to convey slam and impact one moment while spinning a web of delicate allusion in the next. Actually the Sashas can do both at the same time. There’s tremendous force, control and refinement all at once. Transients large and small regardless of their origin in the musical spectrum are faithfully reproduced in a way that helps make recordings seem much more realistic. If the leading edge isn’t right, the rest must of necessity suffer. And when everything is in order transient-wise, one can readily detect those recordings that have their polarity reversed. Lesser speakers are often more responsive in the midrange and treble while lagging in the bass, giving me a kind of woozy feeling as though the upper ranges of the music had a kind of discontinuity with the lower. That this is not the case here is yet another example of how these speakers are coherent, namely that they seem to be similarly dynamic, quick and responsive across many octaves. And on the best of recordings the music emerges from a wall of anticipatory silence - not darkness, not light but silence.

Soundstage: The breadth, depth and height are all top notch and appear to be limited mainly by the room and electronics. When one reads reports about sweet spots being rather restricted (definitely not an issue with the Sashas), a major contributing cause is likely to be room interaction. Conversely a well-designed room with active EQ generally serves to relax positioning requirements for both  speakers and listeners. Even in my lightly treated room the sound field projected by the Sashas imposes itself on the acoustical volume. A pleasing listening experience can be had from a wide range of locations. The soundstage has a diorama-like stability to it which can be viewed rather realistically from several perspectives. The effortless natural deep bass extension probably helps to recreate vast interior spaces such as those of cathedrals or orchestral halls where the acoustical dimensions inherently supported low frequencies.


Imaging: Within the soundstage individual voices, instruments and ambient noises of all sorts have appropriate body, dimensionality and action. The latter relates to what one experiences as waves of sound energy moving across the soundstage. These interact with the walls of the recording venue and deliver reverberant effects that seem very close to the real thing. You will hear a wealth of new musical subtlety in familiar recordings that was previously obscured. It’s not as if the interplay of backup vocalists for example is somehow highlighted—this tends to become quite tiresome over time—but rather that the overall "noise" is so low that the smallest details show up in correct and natural proportion to more prominent material.


If one would like some examples of imaging, the relatively Spartan microphone setup in the Reference Recordings Reference Jazz Etc. First Sampling is instructive. The female vocalists—the late Eileen Farrell, an opera and concert soprano; and Marni Nixon better known for her decades performing as a playback singer for leading ladies who couldn’t—both come to life in a slightly dry and not that reverberant studio. With a small number of musicians in a well-defined acoustical space the three-dimensional reality of these veteran performers is quite apparent: Eileen was a larger broader heavier plump figure (more the stereotype of the operatic soprano) while Marni is relatively petite, compact and svelte. Eileen had the mass, swagger and power to belt out the Blues; Marni exudes the sinew and intensity needed to hit those money notes in a way that enthralls. Their voices follow the differences in build and both are depicted with great but not exaggerated clarity. It’s easy to note how the room acoustics filter their voices as the sound slaps off the back and side walls of the studio. All this the Sashas convey easily and accurately within a realistic context as unified whole: There’s enormous detail but it’s integrated in a holistic and convincing manner.

Conclusion: What other speakers should one consider at this lofty price? Three competitive products come to mind even though they are all radically different in terms of their core architecture and implementation which is rather remarkable. Clearly speaker designers have highly individualistic and idiosyncratic notions as how to the best accomplish their sonic goals. Be sure to audition the Vandersteen Model 5a Carbon with its built-in and tunable 400-watt subwoofer amplifier. The rear-firing tweeter, midrange and subwoofer drivers are shared with the much more expensive Model 7. Somewhat more power may be required given its 87dB sensitivity but the impedance is an amp-friendlier nominal 6Ω. A key feature of this model is its elaborate capability for bass control which certainly will be beneficial in optimizing the speaker to a particular room. That one of the most successful and enduring firms in the industry considers this such an important ingredient for good listening reinforces the suggestions made here along the same lines. And the Vandersteen uniquely allows for easy field installation of reasonably priced upgrades and refinements which helps protect one’s initial investment.

The popular Magico V3 with its aluminum faceplate and laminated wooden case is yet another contender worthy of your consideration. It’s about the same size and price with 89dB sensitivity and a nominal 4Ω impedance but doesn’t go quite as low as the Wilson or Vandersteen. And finally there’s the Vienna Acoustics The Music from its Klimt series. These rather tall and deep speakers have 91dB sensitivity—about the same as the Sasha—with a nominal 4Ω impedance. In its driver complement, The Music features an unusual flat-cone dual-concentric driver that handles a very broad swath of the musical spectrum.


The Sasha’s imposing but not edgy contours and its mirror-smooth polished surfaces in many ways allude to the refinement of the audio experience these speakers can deliver. It will be fascinating to hear what new wonders they can produce as my system moves towards full-bore active EQ. The Sasha package is for once all of the same acoustical, mechanical and aesthetic cloth and in many ways may well be the best speaker in the Wilson lineup with respect to balance of value, performance and aesthetics. This speaker clearly represents a new and greatly improved sonic direction for the company and in its first year or so of production has already become something of a benchmark against which all others will be measured.

What’s in the crates? Two big bass cabinets on casters and in a third crate the two top sections along with tools and accessories.
Final take: Attractive, dynamic, transparent, impressive and imposing yet very easy on the ears.


Proceed to the next page for Edgar Kramer's take on his pair.
Enlarge!