Review Archives - Melody's Vision

Bewitched by Sabrina

mevart.melody — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 08:33:07 +0000

MARTIN COLLOMS LISTENS TO THE MOST COMPACT OF WILSON AUDIO’S FLOORSTANDING SPEAKERS, THE SABRINA X, ALMOST FIVE YEARS ON FROM HIS REVIEW OF THE ORIGINAL SABRINA. ALTHOUGH THE PRICE HAS RISEN BY ALMOST 37% IN THE INTERVENING PERIOD, FROM £16,000 TO £22,000, HE STILL FINDS MUCH TO ENCHANT HIM

Download the pdf here HiFiCritic_Wilson Audio Sabrina X

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Wilson Audio SabrinaX floorstanding loudspeaker

mevart.melody — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 08:30:41 +0000

Download the pdf here HIFI+_SabrinaX

The post Wilson Audio SabrinaX floorstanding loudspeaker appeared first on Melody's Vision.

WILSON AUDIO Alexia V

mevart.melody — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 08:27:45 +0000

Download the pdf here HFN Jan Wilson Alexia V

The post WILSON AUDIO Alexia V appeared first on Melody's Vision.

Wilson Audio Alexx V | REVIEW

mevart.melody — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 16:56:04 +0000

Has the new Wilson Audio Alexx V (website) loudspeaker caught your interest? Are you interested in the most in-depth review available? Experience our journey with the Alexx V…

The Wilson WAMM Master Chronosonic or Chronosonic XVX loudspeaker driven by the D’Agostino Relentless amplifier can be intoxicating but out of reach for most, including myself. Although out of reach, the DNA of these references trickles down the line. I was intrigued to see so much DNA from the WAMM and XVX work their way into the new Wilson Alexx V Loudspeaker.

Words and Photos by Mohammed Samji

Could the new Alexx V loudspeaker be an order of magnitude better than my trusted Alexia Series-2 loudspeakers? Could they work in a small room with a corner setup like mine?

Wilson Audio Alexx V Loudspeaker History

To understand the Wilson Alexx series, we need to go back in time. Following the WAMM Series 7, David Wilson developed the X1/Grand SLAMM loudspeaker in 1993.

The introduction of the Grand SLAMM created a gap between the legendary Watt Puppy loudspeaker and the Grand SLAMM series. A new speaker was started and code-named Bull Dog to fill this void and would be released as the MAXX in 1998. The MAXX Series-2 would follow in 2004, and the MAXX Series-3 in 2008.

Daryl Wilson led the follow-on speaker to MAXX Series-3 while David Wilson was developing the WAMM Master Chronosonic. The co-development of these side-by-side allowed R&D learnings from the WAMM to be leveraged in the MAXX replacement.

The result was the introduction of the original Alexx Loudspeaker in 2016 that would now use two different-sized midrange speakers, the ability to adjust all modules for time alignment, and the incorporation of Wilson proprietary X-Material. The two Xs in the Alexx name pay homage to its predecessor, the MAXX Series-3.

Fast forward five years and the replacement to the Alexx Series-1 arrives with the new Alexx V loudspeaker. Why did they go from Alexx Series-1 to Alexx V? I thought I had it figured out and that V was code for 5 (Maxx 1, 2, 3, Alexx 1, Alexx 2), but that is just a coincidence. Daryl explained that V refers to its usage of Wilson’s proprietary V Material that was first used in the Chronosonic XVX. There are also two XXs in Alexx, and the combination of Alexx V is an homage to a smaller XVX.

The Alexx V is born. Enough history….

Wilson Audio Alexx V Manufacturing

Construction of the Alexx V is performed start-to-finish at the Wilson Audio manufacturing facility in Provo, Utah.

I’ve documented the process previously for the Alexia Series-2 here. The process for the Alexx is generally the same, but it takes more time to manufacture the more complex design and additional modules.

Daryl Wilson explained:

“The hands-on time here at Wilson Audio to craft a pair of Alexx V is roughly 130 hours. This does not consider the five days’ dry time needed for our adhesives and the additional 4-7 days’ dry time necessary for the paint & clear coat to cure. Nor does this 130 hour take into consideration the time it takes our partners to manufacture the intricate metal elements found in the Alexx V design and the finishing processes before delivering to Wilson Audio.“

The factory was kind enough to provide pictures of my pair working through the process. You can view their journey here.

Lots of love goes into every step…

And the final steps in the process can be seen here:

Wilson Audio Alexx V – What’s New

New 3D-Printed Convergent Synergy Carbon Tweeter

The Wilson Synergy Mach 5 has been the reference tweeter since the release of the WAMM. One of the critical differences in the Mach 5 version is that it experimented with the durometer of the enclosure material and made it softer.

To come up with something better, Wilson shifted to leveraging 3D Printing to allow for rapid prototyping. While many materials they tried didn’t pan out, they discovered a carbon fiber strand + a specific 3D printer that had the potential to mix things up.

This resulted in the birth of the Convergence Synergy Carbon Tweeter. Wilson claims, “The CSC Tweeter offers far greater and more linear high-frequency extension while providing unprecedented ambient retrieval and superior harmonic detail.”

Each carbon tweeter uses 1,509 inches of carbon to print one tweeter enclosure. The Alexx V is the first loudspeaker to ship with this, but I think it’s fair to assume we will see it appear in more places.

The Addition of V-Material

Wilson’s proprietary V-Material is the new cool kid at Wilson. It was first introduced in XVX and used in the Wilson Audio Pedestal. I asked Daryl to give me the elevator pitch on V-Material. He explained:

“V-Material is an advanced iteration of our X-Material that is masterfully designed for vibration absorption and dissipation. It has many structural characteristics of X-Material, but its unique damping properties were refined and enhanced for particular applications. To date, V-Material is far superior to any other structural material we have tested in vibration mitigation.”

In a Wilson Audio Alexx V, V-Material is incorporated into the cross brace, at the top of the woofer cabinet, and in the upper gantry. V-Material is also used in the new acoustic-diode feet, but more later.

Alexx V Time-Alignment

Time alignment is one of the critical tenants of Wilson’s design. The goal is to ensure that sound from each driver arrives at your ear in your listening position simultaneously down to a few microseconds.

The updated hardware improvements were taken from the XVX to allow for additional precision in the time domain. I asked Daryl to shed some color on the differences across the line. Daryl explained:

“We have long stated the accurate and precise reproduction of music, especially in micro detail, dynamic contrast, and correct tonality of musical instruments depends on the loudspeaker’s ability to be carefully aligned in the time domain.

The Alexia 2 has twice the number of tweeter module increments and so alignment from Alexia 1 (15 microseconds accuracy) to the Alexia 2 (10 microseconds accuracy).

Alexx V’s design has been more refined in many ways. One of those refinements was the individual module baffle alignment with the listener in every installation configuration. This brought the time alignment accuracy from 10 microseconds to 8 microseconds.

The Chronosonic XVX and WAMM Master Chronosonic utilize the micrometer hardware, which provides time alignment down to an incredible 2 microseconds.”

Alexx V Upper Gantry

All this fancy hardware and precise alignment of the upper modules are housed in a new upper gantry. It’s gorgeous and has an open design like the XVX and WAMM. It makes the speaker feel smaller and allows you to see the intricate details. The prior solid sides feel heavy visually compared to this open gantry.

Wilson provides grills for the sides of the gantry; I recommend you look at them for two seconds, test out the cool integrated magnets that allow you to put them in and out, and then toss them back into the crates for long-term storage. The speakers sound better when removed.

Lastly, the new gantry provides an integrated rechargeable light. It looks beautiful and is helpful during setup.

QuadraMag 7″ Midrange driver

The new 7″ QuadraMag midrange driver is made from aluminum, nickel, and cobalt with five separate magnets. This driver is also used in the XVX.

I asked Daryl for any additional color on the QuadraMag Driver:

“One of Dave Wilson’s last projects was exploring and refining what would eventually be called the QuadraMag. This extremely musical 7” mid-range exquisitely reproduces subtle textures and space in such a satisfying and realistic way. The project was only about 40% complete when Dave passed. The challenge with using this AlNiCo design is the low sensitivity. We are very pleased with the sonic results with several modifications and careful crossover blending. Vern Credille and Daryl Wilson finished refining this mid-range just in time to be effectively implemented in the Chronosonic XVX. The Alexx V is currently the only product to incorporate the QuadraMag into its upper modules array.”

The upper 5.25″ midrange driver is the same midrange driver that debuted in the original Alexx Series-1 and was used in the TuneTot and SabrinaX.

Behind each of the midrange drivers are changes to internal bracing + the addition of inner wave diffusers integrated to further aid resolution. I assume these are very similar to the work done on the Alexia Series-2 and other modern Wilson offerings.

Acoustic Diode Feet

I have tried various feet under my Wilson Speakers over the years with varied success, with most attempts being unsuccessful. I did like the Stillpoints Ultra 5 feet under my Alexia Series-1, but they were awful under my Alexia Series-2. In general, the stock feet work best since that was what the speaker designer voiced the speaker with.

Wilson has taken the learnings from their Wilson Pedestal Feet and incorporated them into their new Acoustic Diode Footer.

Daryl explained that the development of the pedestal informed them about mixed material and vibration control. The Wilson Pedestal is designed to decouple and isolate the device it rests on. In the current design, a Wilson Pedestal might have some micro-movement, and for source components and amplifiers, this will have no impact.

On the other hand, a loudspeaker needs a stationary baffle to launch the signal. You would not want it to move as it will smear what you hear. Daryl explained that you need something that provides isolation but also keeps the speaker stationary and not floating. This is one of the key differences between the Pedestal and the Acoustic Diode.

The Acoustic Diode provides a V Material buffer between vibration from the floor to the speaker and from the speaker down to the floor while maintaining solidity in its position and preventing any smearing or shifts to tonality.

These Acoustic Diodes first shipped in the Alexx V but are now standard on the XVX and WAMM. These feet can be purchased from Wilson to be used on any of their loudspeakers.

Woofers

The thunderous low frequency is courtesy of 10.5” and 12.5” woofers that work in conjunction. These are the same drivers used in the XVX and WAMM.

AudioCap WA Capacitors

Wilson now produces Capacitors in-house with extremely tight tolerances. These are used throughout the Alexx V.

Wilson Audio Alexx V – Arrival and Unpacking

The Wilson Alexx V shipped in 3 huge crates with a combined shipping weight of 1400 pounds. The speakers are 500 pounds per side once set up.

During delivery, the delivery driver wanted to know if I was running a business and what shipped in these heavy crates. I explained they were a pair of speakers. He then asked me, “Are they better than Bose?” I replied yes, signed the release form, handed him a tip, and just smiled to myself.

The crates are enormous and require two people to move. The lower cabinet crates are large enough that I can fit into them.

Looking into the crates, we see the upper modules perfectly packed.

One tip, the speakers are hefty, and you risk damaging any flooring even with the supplied castors. I lined my floor with RAM board from Home Depot to prevent any damage. It made the process easy, and my floors walked away with no scuffs.

Once into the room, marvel at the detail of the gantry. Soak it in since, once assembled, you won’t be able to appreciate all the little details.

All the various hardware, acoustic diode feet, essential tools, and the mammoth Wilson Jack are included.

Wilson Audio Alexx V Installation

We started by placing the Alexx V in the exact location where my Alexia Series-2 had been located. All the upper modules were carefully installed using a starting distance to my listening position.

Even though it makes no audible difference, I recommend you pay homage to David Wilson and place the odd serial number loudspeaker on the left and the even on the right as you drop the speakers into your room. This is the standard Wilson setup procedure.

Bill Peugh from Wilson spent over an hour understanding the room and my corner setup before a speaker was moved. At this point, the process starts. The space was mapped, and the Wilson Audio Set-Up Procedure (aka WASP) was completed. This takes time, but all efforts here will be rewarded. I can’t stress enough that have a dealer perform the setup. It is included in the price!

In the final hours, we moved the speakers’ fractions of an inch to get the placement perfect. Once the procedure was complete, the speakers were 79 inches apart and 129 inches from my listening position. The speakers moved further apart and more into the room compared to the prior Alexia Series-2 installation.

Huge thank you to Gary Bruestle of Definitive Audio, Bill Peugh, and Tyler Hall of Wilson for the hours they spent getting the placement. And a special thank you to John Smith for helping me re-pack my Alexia Series-2 back in its crates and get the Alexx V into our home.

Alexx V – Fine Tuning Tips

Cable management can impact performance. Here is what I found sounds best. First, keep everything tidy. A black brace allows you to keep all three sets of wires separated from the upper modules.

The most important thing is this: do not use the airtight gasket to stuff cable slack into any of the modules. Instead, pull all the slack out, push one inch back, and re-tighten the airtight gasket on the back of each upper module. The modules sound much better without cable slack stuffed in them. When this is done correctly, the difference on the 7″ midrange is not subtle.

Here is the last cable tip (…maybe I am going crazy). When you pull all the slack out, the connection cable from the tweeter module will be extended. Since it is long, encourage it to touch the cross brace filled with V-Material. To my ears, things sounded a little better when the tweeter cable was touching the V-Material brace. The change was small, but the background got even quieter.

The Wilson Audio Alexx V, at 500 pounds per side, may settle into your floor and require a final re-level after a few hours. It is evident on mine after a few hours as they settled into the floor, and leveling was done a second time after all other positioning was complete.

Wilson Audio Alexx V Listening

After living and, more accurately, loving my Alexia’s for over ten years, I knew I was in for a treat with the Alexx V swap. But realistically, how much better could it get? Before pressing play on critical listening post set up, I was expecting a bigger soundstage, more low-frequency texture, more of the recording venue to come through, similar to what we saw when I had two Wilson WATCH Dog subwoofers, and the usual improvements in tonality.

On the first play, yes, so much of that happened. The low-frequency texture and bloom, especially around the human voice, brought me to tears. But I didn’t expect the overwhelming level of resolution to be uncovered. I’m super blessed to have had a system that was already highly resolving, but the new resolution I was hearing surprised me in a very good way.

More impressive is that this new resolution was present at both ends of the SPL spectrum. Playing the Alexx V loud, like I love, demonstrated the Alexx V’s ability to uncover and continue to deliver micro-details at extremely high SPLs even after that slam of a transient! On the other end, the Alexx is quieter than any speaker I have auditioned, allowing it to deliver resolution on a pitch-black background even when the speaker is played soft. I found myself turning the volume down in my room since this experience was intoxicating, especially with the human voice.

Let’s review a few recordings that demonstrate what I was hearing:

Meg Meyers, “Running Up That Hill”

Pressing play on “Running Up That Hill” almost knocked me out of my listening seat. It was a perfect example of what was different with the Alexx V… the sheer amount of detail and air being resolved on the synthesizer & Meg Myers’s voice left me gobsmacked. I froze…the goosebumps were instantaneous, something I hadn’t had with that track in my room in the past. I had the same viral reaction when this track was played at a low or insanely high volume.

Sting, “Rushing Water”

I’ve been nicely surprised by Sting’s new album, The Bridge. Its sound is fresh in my memory; we’d had the opportunity to hear Sting play it live at the Colosseum at Cesar’s Palace. It was the first live show we’d seen during COVID times, so it is one that I won’t forget.

The Alexx V presented a vast sound stage with precise placement of all elements. The drums were fast and tight, tonally perfect, with the right texture and decay. Sting’s voice rides on top of the rhythm section, and all-up reproduction took me back to the Colosseum.

Ben Harper, “Amen Omen”

“Amen Omen” is one of my favorite Harper tracks. It’s an acid test for tonality for me when I change something in my room. Hitting play revealed perfection in tonality emanating from the Alexx V but also flexed the Alexx’s ability to reveal a little more detail on the edge of Harper’s voice and the cymbals and quieter sounds in the track. By far the best reproduction I have heard of that track to date in my room or any room where I have played this.

While listening, I stepped out of the room and walked to my office to grab some more paper. Interestingly, the music that spilled out of my listening room still sounded sweet as I walked down the hallway.

Dixie Chicks, “Landslide”

Ok, I’m a sucker for anything from Fleetwood Mac, and this cover of “Landslide” makes you smile. Two seconds after you hit play, the detail and tonality of their voices make you smile. If you don’t get goosebumps from the reproduction of this coming through the Alexx, then that’s just wrong.

Beyonce, “Partition”

This Beyonce track should light up a room to demonstrate Wilson’s low-frequency muscle. The low frequency and texture of the bass guitar were explosive, fast, and beautifully textured. The room pressurized instantly, and the low octaves were elevated significantly compared to my prior experience with the Alexia Series-2 paired with 2 WATCH Dog subwoofers. If you listen to this track, listen to the finish; halfway through, there is a transition with a jet-black background before it takes off again.

Chris Stapleton, “Death Row”

If you could listen to just one track on the Alexx V, I’d choose this Chris Stapleton track. It brings together all of what I am hearing in the new speaker, expressed in the incredible tonality and midrange as you hear Stapleton sing from the heart in this chest. Gobs of detail across this voice and the instruments take you to that moment when it was recorded. This is produced with a large soundstage, precise placement, and dynamics and texture. Some speakers do some of these things, but it’s rare to see all of this simultaneously.

Listening and Wilson Grills

Now in terms of the grills.

With my Alexia Series-2 Loudspeakers, I didn’t find a vast improvement with the grills on or off. Yes, it was better off, but not enough that I missed it when I put them back on.

It’s a different story with the Alexx V. With the added resolution; the difference is not subtle when the grills are removed. Wilson explained that the grills attenuate the signal by about 1dB between 2 and 4khz. On the Alexx V, this is very easy to hear. I recommend leaving them off and enjoying the design’s beauty.

Wilson Audio Alexx V Summary

When I embarked on trying the Alexx V in my room, I knew I was in for something special. Every upgrade in the past has shown improvements as Wilson has benefited from all of its R&D investments.

As a culmination product, the Alexx V was more than a mere additive sum. I would go as far as to describe it as a step-function improvement over my prior Alexia Series-2. Every aspect I cherish as I listen to my favorite recordings got better…cue all those words reviewers like to drop here.

If I had to pick just two of Alexx’s standout achievements, they can reproduce micro-details at any volume and then paint them over a pitch-black background. Holy moly. There is a deftness and a delicacy that is both unexpected and delightful for a speaker that stands almost six feet tall and weighs over 500 pounds.

While wrapping up the review, I had a friend over who was a concert pianist. I played for him a favorite acoustic track of John Legend that I love. In the end, he looked at me and said, “Wow, that sounds like the grand piano I have at home! I’ve never heard it reproduced like that.” I could only nod.

For me, this hobby has one goal: travel across time and space. Take me to the moment and to the place where that music was first created. Take me there, and leave me. The Wilson Audio Alexx V has brought me closer to that ideal than I ever have gotten before. Of all the gin joints in all the towns worldwide, the Alexx V walked into mine. All I can say now is that they will be hard to beat. In the meantime, all I know is that I’m going to have a lot of fun.

Give them a listen if you dare. I’m betting you won’t regret it. Just be sure to bring some Kleenex because your poor checkbook will need sympathy. Sorry about that.

And yes, I purchased the review sample.

-Mohammed

Wilson Audio Alexx V price: $135,000/pair with standard finishes, $138,000/pair for special finishes, and $151,000/pair with a premium pearl finish.

Associated Components

Dan D’Agostino Momentum Phono Pre-amplifier

Dan D’Agostino Momentum HD Pre-Amplifier

Dan D’Agostino Momentum S250 Amplifier

dCS Vivaldi DAC, Master Clock & Up sampler

AMG Viella Forte Turntable with two AMG 12JT Turbo Arms

Lyra Atlas Lambda SL & Lyra Atlas Lambda Mono cartridges

HRS M3X Isolation Bases, nimbus couplers, and damping plates

Wilson Audio Pedestals (under all sources and amplifiers)

Transparent Audio Opus and Magnum Opus Gen 6 Interconnect Cables

Transparent Audio Gen 5 Reference XL Speaker Cable

Transparent Audio Opus Gen 6 Balanced Phono cable (Atlas SL)

AnalogMagik Balanced Phono cable (Atlas Mono)

AudioQuest Niagara 7000 Power Conditioner

AudioQuest Dragon Power cables

AudioQuest Ethernet & HDMI cables

Nordost QKore 1 & 3 grounding blocks

Synergistic Research HFTs in various locations around the room

Emotiva RMC-1L Surround Processor

https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2022/01/21/wilson-audio-alexx-v-review

The post Wilson Audio Alexx V | REVIEW appeared first on Melody's Vision.

Review: Wilson Audio SabrinaX are “Small” floor-standing loudspeakers which are A prefect fit for smaller and medium-sized rooms.

mevart.melody — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 16:48:03 +0000

The predecessors of the Wilson SabrinaX, which we tested a good five years ago, were owned by a colleague, but they met my listening taste so well during the hearing check that I kept toying with the idea of buying them as work loudspeakers, which would save a lot of money. Especially since the weight class was right, as a tester who notoriously moves equipment, one is happy about every pound that shines through absence. The Generation X Sabrina (24,600 euros) has around eight kilograms more per channel, but still has nothing to do with the heavyweight class – and technically it has grown quite well.

Class instead of mass – if I understand Wilson Audio correctly, the smallest floorstanding speaker in the house is not seen as a qualitatively scaled-down “entry-level model” anyway. But as an uncompromising speaker for specific purposes. These are: small to medium-sized rooms or larger rooms in which, for acoustic or optical reasons, you don’t want to accommodate sound-sounding properties. Incidentally, the recently tested AudiaZ Cadenza pursued very similar goals.

Best Bonds

It is fitting that the three-way speaker , which is just 102 centimeters high with spikes, has recently come up with the same 20-centimeter bass driver that is responsible for the bass in the Sasha DAW, which costs around 45,000 euros – but there in duplicate. The bass reflex system with a tuning frequency of around 31 HertzIn the Wilson SabrinaX, it now blows through an aluminum tube, which can also be found in the Yvette (34,000 euros) and causes even less flow noise. Finally, at the other end of the transmission range, the “Convergent Synergy Tweeter” – namely in the Mk 5 version – ensures detail and airiness, which is used, among other things, in the WAMM Master Chronosonic (here we are also in the real estate business in terms of price). Incidentally, I think it’s kind of cool that Wilson remains so true to itself in terms of drivers and doesn’t use solutions that are currently popular in the high-end area, such as AMTs or ribbons .

Wilson Audio has been working with Scan-Speak for decades and, together with the Danes, develops almost exclusively tailor-made solutions, some of which are then further modified in-house – for example, the tweeter has a rear chamber that is tailor-made.

A bit of rusticity…

And why the weird felt on the baffle and the teasing star around the tweeter? This is not new with the Sabrina – and other models from the company – but it is definitely rustic and unique and obviously tried and tested: it simply sounds better with the “Diffraction Pad”, says Wilson Audio. The star around the tweeter is intended to counteract sound components straying on the baffle, not least the localization sharpness benefits from this.

full body x

The X-Material that makes up the Wilson Audio SabrinaX’s case isn’t new either. On the other hand, the fact that the entire housing – and not just the baffle and base as in the predecessors – is made from synthetic resin enriched with minerals according to Wilson’s family recipe is a plus. Less vibrations, less “crate sound”, more real sound – that is, to put it loosely, the way that the Americans have in mind with the generous pouring of resin. And I actually think I can hear this, we’ll come back to it shortly in the sound section.

The final milling of the baffle frame surrounding the felt did not work quite so well on one of my two test models. In any case, one of the small, upper corner bevels does not necessarily run straight as a rule. Nothing that’s particularly noticeable, but still a small negligence in workmanship on the otherwise elegantly painted, extremely cleanly manufactured (e.g. edge gradients) and certainly quite complex case in terms of production.

Turn & screw

The bottom line is that what the currently 59 employees of the factory based in Provo – a town with just over a hundred thousand inhabitants roughly 70 km south of Salt Lake City – bring to the listener is also the finest fare in terms of processing. I can’t, for example, not remember holding higher-quality spikes in their hands before. The four-part construction, intended as a mechanical or acoustic “diode”, is also a new development . The SabrinaX has ½-inch threads, the new standard at Wilson Audio. Older models can also be upgraded with the new spike solution, a ⅜ inch version is available separately.

Important, since it is relevant to the sound, as I found out: After installing the spikes and final, wobble-free positioning, do not just tighten the nuts by hand, but with minimal effort! – with the open-end wrench from the enclosed spike and tool box. Among other things, it also contains a key and bit for tightening the driver screws – very nice. Here, too, the following applies: Please be careful and never rock-solid! For torque wrench owners: Wilson factory bolts the drivers to 35 in-lbs, which equates to 3.95 Nm.

The signal path

A speaker terminal developed in-house on a solid metal plate is not something you see on the rear of speakers every day. It should contribute to the optimization of the even shorter signal path of the Wilson SabrinaX. The crossoveris located at the bottom of the loudspeaker then immediately behind the terminal. This is not implemented using a printed circuit board, but is freely point-to-point soldered – for this price range, however, this is a matter of course. Personally, I think it’s good that the other contacts of the signal path are also soldered and that ugly cable lugs aren’t plugged onto the contact lugs of the drivers. Unfortunately, this is not a standard even in high price ranges. Plug contacts can only be found in the SabrinaX directly behind the terminal and at some resistors.

Of all things with resistance? Yes, behind the detachable base plate of the Wilson Audio SabrinaX are interchangeable resistors that have two functions: On the one hand, sound tuning can be carried out to a certain extent with different resistor values, for example in problematic room acoustic conditions. A practical solution that I know from Sehring loudspeakers. On the other hand, these resistors act as a kind of fuse to protect the expensive drivers: The resistors react more sensitively to voltage peaks or longer-term overloading/heating than the drivers and interrupt the circuit early.

For all that, these resistors are also “the best sounding resistors we’ve listened to, and we’ve listened to a lot of resistors,” as Daryl Wilson writes to me. The love goes even further with the capacitors. So much so that Wilson took over a capacitor manufacturer last year , relocated production to Provo and from then on manufactured custom-made capacitors (“AudioCapX”) on their own machines, which should also ensure little tolerance in terms of capacitance in the SabrinaX.

Wilson SabrinaX: Sound Test & Comparisons

I had already commented positively at the beginning about the weight of the Wilson Audio SabrinaX, which is comparatively easy to handle for a high-end floor-standing loudspeaker. To then find out in the listening room that the SabrinaX don’t let any big pushing and shoving break out: The two guests felt just as comfortable in the marked standard positions and aligned almost “on the axis” (with tweeters aimed at the ears) as I did also know from the vast majority of other loudspeakers. That the sound of the Wilson loudspeakers reacts to even the smallest changes in position, as I have read here and there in English-language articles on the Internet, I cannot confirm – at least in relation to my listening room.

Clear announcement

Let’s try to grab the Wilsons at the low end first – the bass end. Because there are clear announcements to be made here. The first: With spikes just a meter high and armed with a single 20-centimeter woofer, speakers like the SabrinaX aren’t able to work miracles in terms of low bass pressure. The deep black electronic impulses on the first beat for a short time every two bars on “Am I” by Kode9 & The Spaceape (Album: Black Sun) are delivered less powerfully than I do, for example, from my Sehring 903 know. Yes, even in the under 10 kilo euro class you will find many floorstanding loudspeakers that make more inferno at the very, very bottom: I think my listening room walls still vibrate after visiting the Nubert nuVero 170 … But that wants or can too not everyone. Similar to the Audiaz Cadenza, I therefore consider the bass tuning of the Wilson SabrinaX to be more of a concept than an inadequacy: it is also suitable for small and medium-sized rooms.

The second announcement: The quality of what the Wilson SabrinaX gives the best underneath is the burner. Absolutely quick to start, extremely clean in the swing-out behavior and tonally (also in itself) extremely balanced. So it’s hardly surprising that the first thing that catches my eye on the track “Our happiest days slowly began to turn into dust” is the electric bass that wanders lightly over different registers, although the real eye-catcher is the post-rockers Red Sparowesbut the ubiquitous pedal steel guitar is. This purity of the tone, the effortless, undelayed tracking of gradations, yes: the transparency of the bass range make the Wilson my personal passive speaker reference at this point. Especially since – and this is perhaps the best thing about it – nothing seems superimposed. In my opinion, for example, “dust-dry-precise” isn’t really the right word, because that would be a certain “taste”. On the bass side, the Wilson Audio SabrinaX put themselves wholeheartedly at the service of the music, without even being extravagant.

Very sympathic. But not unconditionally: The SabrinaX scale more with the amps that fire them than I normally hear: The above listening description basically also applies in combination with my Norma Revo PA 150, but even more so with my Bryston 7B³ . The Wilson show me the differences between the amplifiers, especially the greater control, the more energetic stability of the Bryston blocks, which deliver twice 600 watts. On the one hand, this speaks for the sound level of the loudspeakers, on the other hand it is certainly due to the fact that their predecessors were electrically demanding, especially in the bass range. Performance and load stability are Sabrina’s favorites here, with or without the X.

On the mezzanine

On to the next floor. Via a perfectly designed stairwell: because the connection between the low and medium frequency levels is superbly homogeneous, without even a single, small step provoking stumbling. I think I rarely write about this aspect otherwise. Or at least only if there’s something to criticize during the transition. With the Wilson SabrinaX, however, the bass, fundamental tone and lower mids are effectiveso conclusive, so consistent that I keep noticing it positively over the weeks. Admittedly, I find it rather difficult to describe this subliminal trait with a “hard” musical example. It still feels strikingly “right” when listening – for example when guitar and bass are in close tonal contact or toms and bass drum are wildly vying for attention.

Roller coaster ride to happiness

Bright, glassy, thin. But also soft, reserved, comfortable. All of this applies to the mid-high range. I’m sorry, what? Yes, you read that right, but fortunately that only applies in phases and only over the first 500 operating hours, the SabrinaX arrived brand new. Incidentally, my Spendor D9 had similar strong rashes, although “only” for the first 250 hours or so. My Sehring 903, on the other hand, certainly took as long as the Wilson SabrinaX, but the roller coaster ride was less winding.

Perhaps this explains one or the other sound description from English-language media, which does not really match my impressions of the Wilson SabrinaX: because at the end of the roller coaster tour, the happy listener can expect an “honest” in the best sense of the word, extremely seamlessly coherent Unity representing mid-high range, which shines even with difficult recordings with a competence that I personally value extremely: Namely, to sound uncompromisingly precise and uncompromisingly stress-free at the same time.

Not cozy, but virtuosic

For example, the opener “Obeliskmonolith” (album: Horizons / Rapture), by the English combo The Physics House Band , which can be classified somewhere between math rock, jazz and post -rock, is admittedly not a typical audiophile gem, but is still better in terms of recording than one would expect from many high- to hear end-chains. The virtuoso swarm of snare and tom rolls, hissing hi-hats and cymbals spreading across the entire stereo panorama is not a particularly cozy reception per se, which is also flanked by uncomfortable organ sounds.

Nevertheless, as a listener you are immediately fascinated, curious and right in the middle of it all. In any case, if a) the ability to differentiate/transparency are at the highest level. Via a whitewashed, soft-focus rig, this song’s intro comes across as entertaining as looking into a lens-clouded kaleidoscope. And b) by no means is there even a touch of “analytically sharpened” chain at the start, which would inevitably subject the eardrum to a sandpaper treatment with this title.

Not the smallest veil on the lens, not even a scrap of sandpaper anywhere: the Wilson Audio SabrinaX draw you into the action as a matter of course right from the start, it sounds exciting, complex and catchy at the same time. The silky, finely atomized, tonally, in case of doubt, even more minimally restrained than cheekily tuned treble of the Wilson is worth an extra applause. Last but not least, when I read Ralph Werner’s report from 2016 , our current SabrinaX should actually achieve an even higher level of quality than its predecessor.

Why actually Sabrina – and not Reiner?

But be that as it may, the degree of purity not only of the highs but also of the mids is enormous either way.

When it comes to freedom from distortion and true-to- sound color fidelity, my very “gryssel-free”-sounding Sehring 903 set a benchmark across all price ranges – the Wilson SabrinaX are fully up there and noticeably go one better in terms of resolution and fine dynamics. In general , I have hardly ever heard a loudspeaker (the AudioSolutions Virtuoso M come to mind) that accurately reproduces even the finest tones in such a way – sorry for the overused word, but it fits here like a glove : the Wilson shine with both a jagged attack as well as with clean, sensitive sustain. Incidentally, an overemphasis on the attack is often the cause of the notorious “(over)analytical” sound.

It goes without saying that the whole thing is also good for voices: Recoil’s “Want” (Album: Liquid) has “only” rap, but it has a great groove to offer – and above all Nicole Blackman’s voice: quietly lascivious, menacingly whispering, soberly cool, Energetic, accompanied by effects or clean, close to the microphone and further away again: With these interplay and nuances, the Wilson SabrinaX succeeds outstandingly in creating tension, and thus distance and intimacy at the same time.

Similar to the recently tested Audiaz Cadenza, the ace up the sleeve when it comes to vocals isn’t a particularly resonant, romantic or smooth voice reproduction, as is sometimes appreciated by lovers of classic British monitors. But the unpretentiousness, the unvarnished conveyance of the real material in its complexity and its multifacetedness – admittedly devoid of any artificial sharpening or harshness. Coils , for example, are also extremely cool(Coincidence, has nothing to do with Recoil) “Where are you” (Album: Musick to Play in the Dark Vol. 2), in which the sampled pops of bursting bubble wrap circle around the voice horizontally – to outside the actual loudspeaker level: The The differently loud pops of the film sound so absurdly realistic that you almost have to laugh. The accompanying percussive scraping noises effortlessly turn out to be sampled, alienated nose-blows. And the roughness of John Balance’s voice, miked from close by, is presented in such a complex and haunting way that, despite all the trappings, you stick to his lips undistractedly. Anyone who likes such realism without any unpleasant harshness, but also without any decorative frills, will love the Wilson SabrinaX.

Speaking of mid-high and Audiaz Cadenza: Their ceramic drivers are very similar to the Wilson SabrinaX in terms of undistortedness, purity and immediacy – with high musicality/long-term suitability: Both converters also have in common that they work out voices wonderfully and in a fascinating way ” free”. I remember the Oberbayern a bit more airy and shimmering, but the mids are a little lighter tonally, less padded than the SabrinaX, which is exemplary from head to toe and therefore (comparatively) more sonorous.

Finest stagecraft

The two loudspeaker concepts also differ spatially. The spatiality of the Audiaz Cadenza also works outside of a narrowly defined sweet spot and has an open, spacious charm that is difficult to resist. The Wilson Audio SabrinaX takes a more classic approach and will appeal to fans of coax systems and broadband speakers, coherent two-way systems and high-quality studio monitors: In terms of localization sharpness, depth gradation (which I don’t usually catch in my listening room) and plasticity, the SabrinaX are true masters, just like their predecessors. With an exemplary blackness behind and between the instruments and voices. Last but not least, it is commendable how beautifully absorbing the image is in the direction of the listener. And how stable and coherent transients – such as whipping snares – or voices are formed exactly in the middle of the stereo. When it comes to the stage, the Wilson deliver a performance that has never before been achieved in this quality in my listening room by any loudspeaker that I would recall. Even my former Thiel CS 3.7 with its coax drivers couldn’t keep up by far. The freshly revised

Brazen dynamism

Actually, it should be sufficiently clear in the paragraphs above that the best values are achieved in terms of dynamics: With my combination of Funk MTX and the extremely powerful Bryston 7B³ at the front, what is offered reminds me of what the best active loudspeakers are otherwise able to do in terms of gross dynamics. If you disregard the fact that the SabrinaX, as I said, doesn’t exactly shovel super low, more “bass mass” on the shovel is certainly possible. And finely dynamically on high-end ribbons or AMTs – garnished with a pleasantly silky touch.

One special feature at the end: The Wilson Audio SabrinaX conveys even at high volumes and massive impulses – such as the toms, the bass drum and the electric bass in “Harper Lewis” by Russian Circles (Album: Station) – the feeling of not leaving any energy behind, but firing it in the direction of the listener in an unshakeable, focused and powerful manner. Which, when listening to it loud, gives rise to a feeling of “iron sovereignty” that is difficult to describe, but somehow cool. A feeling that is certainly not least due to the mechanics and therefore to the case, which has been further improved compared to its predecessors. Yes, in the bass and overall in terms of musicality, the SabrinaX has developed further compared to the somewhat “stricter”, “more ascetic” Sabrina, in my opinion.

Wilson Audio SabrinaX – Conclusion

The Wilson Audio SabrinaX do not offer a deliberately presented analytical approach. Nor can it be said that the SabrinaX sounded even the tiniest bean or warmed up. Hm, maybe the treble is tonally a homeopathic jar more subtle than the strictest teaching would be, but that’s more academic than relevant to hearing. The deep bass expansion of the SabrinaX is more relevant to hearing: If you still want to have an alarm far down in the south, you will be better served by many speakers in the price range under 10,000 euros. But if you own smaller and medium-sized rooms (from 20 square meters it can already work) or room acoustically critical, larger rooms up to roughly 40 square meters or simply don’t want to bombard your neighbors,

Either way, the Wilson Audio SabrinaX are among the “most correct”, most balanced, yes: most plausible loudspeakers that I know of. Last but not least, special praise goes to the purity/low distortion and “background blackness”. Listeners who love to bathe in details will appreciate them just as much as those who like it above all organically and musically or those who want to be particularly gripped by dynamics. Or stand on being sucked spatially into the action. Such excellence across the board is not a matter of course, even in this high-end price range. Especially since many loudspeakers are consciously trained for a certain tendency.

Speaking of taste: In terms of my testing activities and listening preferences, the SabrinaX hit the mark in such a way that I really couldn’t help but buy them and let them enrich my work from now on. If you have also become curious and would like to try out the SabrinaX, make sure you have adequate amplification – the performance and load stability appreciate the Wilson Audio SabrinaX audibly.

The Wilson Audio SabrinaX are characterized by…

a sound image that is as transparent, precise as it is musical and suitable for long-term use.
a consistency and coherence that immediately connects the listener to the music, which is otherwise more familiar from smaller two-way loudspeakers.
Textbook-like neutrality, at most the treble is a touch reduced on the level side.
a spring water-like pure sound, not least tone colors and the famous black background benefit from this.
a fascinating subtlety, tones are traced with exemplary clean, fast attack and accurate, full-bodied sustain.
an exceptionally fine-pixel, more silky than ostentatiously analytical high tone.
a midrange that is as organic as it is informative with fascinatingly authentic voice reproduction.
an exemplary, differentiating, dynamically wonderfully energetic and powerful bass. When it comes to depth and thrust, floor-standing loudspeakers can often do even more.
a three-dimensionality that passes as a benchmark for many other systems: Last but not least, the clean, stable stereo center and the perceived “blackness” behind and between the instruments and voices, which can be clearly located, are worth mentioning. Only the stage height could perhaps be improved for such a top speaker.
a very high-quality workmanship (housing, terminal, driver screw connections, spikes) with minimal rusticity in detail (felt on the baffle, inner edge of the baffle is not absolutely straight at a small point).

Facts:

Model: Wilson Audio SabrinaX
Concept: passive three-way floorstanding speaker (bass reflex system)
Price: 24,600 euros, Ivory test version: 25,600 euros
Dimensions (with spikes) & Weight: 30 x 39 x 102 cm (WxDxH), 50.8 kg/each
Standard finishes: Carbon, Galaxy Gray, GT Silver, Quartz; Further “Upgrade Colors” are available as an option and at an additional cost
Efficiency: 87dB/1W/1m
Nominal Impedance: 4 ohms (minimum at 2.6 ohms at 135 Hertz)
Guarantee: 5 years upon registration

Review: Wilson Audio SabrinaX – “Small” floor-standing loudspeakers

The post Review: Wilson Audio SabrinaX are “Small” floor-standing loudspeakers which are A prefect fit for smaller and medium-sized rooms. appeared first on Melody's Vision.

Wilson Audio SabrinaX Floor Standing Loudspeaker Review | StereoNET United Kingdom

mevart.melody — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 14:43:53 +0000

Posted on 23rd December, 2020

David Price auditions an exotic compact floorstander with a pedigree to die for…

Wilson Audio

SabrinaX Floorstanding Loudspeakers

Those paying the asking price of the Wilson Audio SabrinaX expect more than just loudspeakers. At this rarefied level of hi-fi, it’s about purchasing an experience rather than a utilitarian object designed to do a job – what CEO Daryl Wilson calls, “sonic and industrial art that provides the listener with experiences only found where microphones are placed.” There’s something special, intangible and really rather hard to define that marks out true high-end from merely high-quality hi-fi. It’s hard to put your finger on it, but rather like falling in love I suppose, you know when it happens to you…

Whilst the SabrinaX is a mere Bagatelle compared to the company’s flagship Chronosonic XVX floorstander, it can’t hide behind its family name or siblings. It costs a lot of money, and on the surface at least promises nothing especially eye-catching or gimmicky; there’s no radical transducer technology, fancy ribbon tweeters or trick cone material straight out of the laboratory. Instead, this compact floorstander relies on speaker design best practice – high-quality components blended expertly to do the job. “With the SabrinaX form factor refined from the start, we focused on the “refiner’s fire” and how to incorporate innovations that have been developed over the last five years”, Daryl told me.

The brief was to deliver a loudspeaker possessing supreme musicality, in around a year. No pressure there then! The existing Sabrina was thoroughly reimagined, despite being an already highly capable compact floorstander. The start point was the cabinet, surely the ultimate arbiter of whether a speaker succeeds or fails; Wilson Audio’s bespoke X-Material was used for the entire outer part of the cabinet for this new version, whereas it had previously been in only the front baffle and lower spike place. The reasoning was that it gave the speaker a much less resonant frame into which the company’s respected drive units could be fitted. Additional bracing was added, and some aesthetic tweaks made – and the result is a fairly compact 960x305x390mm box that weighs an epic 50.8kg.

The respected Convergent Synergy MK5 25mm doped silk fabric dome tweeter is fitted – trickled down from the company’s flagship Chronosonic XVX. This marries up to a 146mm doped paper pulp midrange driver and the 200mm paper pulp woofer also seen in the Sasha DAW. These are knitted together by a bespoke crossover using Wilson’s own AudioCapX-WA capacitors, now also made on-site in the Provo, Utah factory. This connects to the company’s own binding post block, which also features banana plug connectivity. Raw Transparent cable, hand-twisted and custom-built to Wilson’s specifications, connects everything up.

The speaker is a nice enough thing to look at and available in what the company calls automotive-class paint finishes, with three standard colour options – carbon, galaxy grey and quartz – plus three additional WilsonGloss colours, crimson, ivory and diamond black, bumping the price up to £22,998. Such was the smoothness and the lustre of the paint that I’d say it’s better than automotive class – or at least most cars. Still, what I liked about this loudspeaker is its generally unimposing look. Especially in the ivory finish, the SabrinaX blends into the decor very well and certainly isn’t a “look at me” sort of prima donna. It doesn’t scream its high-end credentials at anyone whose eye it catches; instead, it’s only when you go up close and touch it – and/or try to move it – that you realise it is something out of the ordinary.

On the face of it, the quoted 87dB (1W/1m/1kHz) sensitivity is pretty standard stuff, so this speaker should go loud enough with even relatively low powered amplifiers. However, Wilson Audio specifies its nominal impedance at 4 ohms, dropping down to 2.6 at 135Hz; this means you’ll need a power amp made of stern stuff – although given the SabrinaX’s not inconsiderable retail price, the chances are that you can afford such a thing. Given that it’s a reflex ported design with a vented midrange driver, the likelihood is that the designer has gone for bass extension at the expense of sensitivity and/or ease-of-drive. And so it transpires, when you look at the very wide band 31Hz to 23kHz (+/- 3 dB) quoted frequency response. Wilson says you’ll need an amplifier of at least 50W RMS per channel, which is fair. Still, this doesn’t preclude you using it with a tube amp; there are thermionic valve-powered designs with lots of watts and 4 ohm speaker taps around – and I suspect a good few purchasers may go this way.

By the standards of many high-end loudspeakers, the wee Wilson is surprisingly easy to position. Normal rules of engagement apply as far as closeness to boundary walls go, meaning that it will need a good 75cm from the back wall to let its rear-firing bass port breathe, but it’s less fussy than many all the same. It certainly benefits from some subtle toeing in, although the angle depends on the dimensions of your listening room, of course. My review system comprised a Continuum Caliburn turntable with Cobra tonearm and Koetsu Urushi cartridge, Constellation Audio Andromeda phono stage, dCS Vivaldi CD/SACD transport, DAC, Upsampler and Master Clock, Dan D’Agostino Momentum HD preamplifier and Constellation Taurus power amps.

THE LISTENING

How do you gauge a high-end loudspeaker? By what measure(s) should it be judged? Do you expect it to have a prodigious bass, or an ultra-extended and rarefied treble? Should it have enormous resolving capability, or the capacity to generate a vast three-dimensional soundstage? In the end, Wilson has achieved none of these singular goals completely – the SabrinaX is not a one-trick pony, a specialist in one respect to the detriment of the others. Rather, the designer has reached for strength-in-depth in all the aforementioned areas, plus a uniquely open, engaging and lyrical midband.

If you were keeping a checklist, you could award this loudspeaker something close to ‘A’ in most respects, but as for its ability to communicate the natural ‘flavour’ of a recording, as well as the tonal purity of vocals and authentic instrumental timbre, the SabrinaX gets an ‘A+’. The essence of this speaker then is wonderful transparency and fluidity in the midband – whilst not putting a foot wrong anywhere else. There are bigger boxes you can buy for the money, ones capable of moving more air or hitting lower lows, but the SabrinaX’s standout attribute is great all-round ability – with something extra special saved for the midband.

Importantly, it fits the average home – or indeed that of most of the world bar the USA, where they tend to have larger listening rooms. In other words, this speaker delivers exceptional performance in a real-world setting – it’s not an esoteric electrostatic or a vast horn design, that needs a film star’s mansion in which to work. Instead, it delivers all its many talents in a sensibly sized space.

Let’s start with the bass. Given that this is a compact floorstander with a modest cabinet volume, someone has forgotten to send the SabrinaX that memo on the laws of physics. I didn’t hear it go down to the very lowest notes, but this speaker still gets pretty subterranean – and does so with complete decorum. With Massive Attack’s Safe From Harm, I was struck by its control of the thumping synth bass line, and apparent lack of fatigue and compression even at seriously high volumes. Pretty much every other speaker I’ve ever reviewed of this size simply does not perform like this. As well as moving serious amounts of air around the room, it showed an effortlessness and ease that bordered on nonchalance. It wasn’t fussed and showed great grace under pressure.

At the other end of the scale, again the SabrinaX confounded my expectations. Everything that I’ve heard over the years teaches me that dome tweeters shouldn’t sound this good. I’ve come across electrostatics and ribbon designs – plus other exotic types that are few and far better – which arguably sound slightly more subtle or finely etched and/or extended. Yet I’m really struggling to think what there is to criticise about this speaker’s high-frequency performance. For example, the hi-hat cymbal work on Rick Springfield’s dynamic and energetic Jesse’s Girl often gets submerged or smeared through other loudspeakers, thanks to the wall of cranked-up electric guitars, pounding drums and powerful lead vocals. Yet here, even on crescendos, it was there sparkling like a star in the night sky, with an exquisitely delicate touch.

This is partly thanks to the midband’s resolution. This isn’t a bright loudspeaker – indeed I’d say it’s a little less ‘stark’ than some Wilsons I’ve heard in previous years – yet there’s a clean beam of daylight shone on the recording by the SabrinaX. It’s not dazzling snow-white, but rather just the right hue to let you pick out the precise nature of the original acoustic. For example, the Rick Springfield track was ultra-clean, tight and taut and dry in a way that late nineteen seventies and early eighties UK and US rock recordings so often are. ZZ Top’s Gimme All Your Lovin’, on the other hand, sounded substantially warmer, softer and more vague. In other words, this floorstander can starkly signpost the difference between different recordings, telling you what was going on in the studio and in the mastering suite.

This, to me, is the essence of a great loudspeaker. Of course, no two recording studios sound the same, as the music I used in this review spanned the US and the UK over the space of sixty years, it would be totally wrong to have a speaker giving a ‘one size fits all’ performance. The SabrinaX doesn’t have a particular character of its own, no more than a perfectly clean window does, anyway. Instead, you get the original recording, warts and all. The ZZ Top track was a joy; the Wilson honed in on vocals and the crunchy, effects-laden guitar work. It sounded wonderfully rough and tough, while the thumping, visceral bass and snare drum work kept things honest. I could hear the fact that this recording wasn’t great, but it never intruded on my connection with the song on a musical level.

For me, the greatest gauge of a serious speaker is how it handles classic programme material. Waltz for Debby by Bill Evans comes from 1962, the harvest years of modern jazz. It’s a delicious piece of music but has primitive recording techniques compared to today, lacking a truly wideband, high definition sound. Yet the SabrinaX wasn’t in the least bit phased by this; it’s not an audiophile speaker that needs an audiophile recording to deliver. Rather, it set up a deliciously louche, lackadaisical groove; the rhythm just sashayed along, creating a magical vibe. This loudspeaker lost itself – and those present listening – in the music and completely forgot it was supposed to be an inanimate object. What followed was a wonderfully touching and emotional rendition of this jazz standard, with a delicacy that you have to experience to understand.

That’s another excellent facet of this speaker then – its handling of rhythms. It’s superb in the time domain but doesn’t manifest this by an ultra snappy, in-your-face sound and/or excessive tonal brightness. Rather, it’s just a case of the drive units having extremely low colouration and the cabinet all-but disappearing. The great thing is that this magic works with pretty much any type of programme material you feed it; Nat King Cole’s Harlem Blues precedes the Bill Evans masterpiece by just four years but sounds a decade older still. Again it was lovely, the Wilson doing its thing by carrying the phrasing of the vocals in an arrestingly expressive way.

I was also struck by the excellent soundstaging; the SabrinaX isn’t quite in the large planar electrostatic league but images wildly well for something of its box design and modest size. Inside the expansive recorded acoustic it sets up, stereo images are reproduced with laser-etched precision, and the sense of depth is profound. Jimi Hendrix’s cover of Blue Suede Shoes was real wide-angle stuff; the air and space of the recording was a strong contrast to so many of today’s airless, hermetically sealed affairs. Once again, this speaker performed its magic trick of reinventing itself as a completely different sounding thing, as I jumped from one recording to another.

I personally haven’t been Wilson Audio’s greatest fan over the years. Yet I came to the SabrinaX afresh, having heard few of the company’s recent designs – and this stunned me. It’s a brilliant do-it-all compact floorstander that may look relatively conventional, but delivers performance that’s miles away from run-of-the-mill. It’s super able in every respect, but what really sets it apart is that it has immense fun making music. It’s a small floorstander that smiles at the world, and the world smiles back at it. In my experience, that’s less common in high-end circles than you might think.

https://www.stereonet.com/uk/reviews/wilson-audio-sabrinax-floor-standing-loudspeaker-review

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Wilson Audio Sabrina floorstanding loudspeaker

mevart.melody — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 14:36:17 +0000

To say Wilson Audio Specialties Inc. of Provo, Utah has been on a roll in recent years is something of an understatement. The company’s recent output has been success after success after success. Whether it’s a wholly new venture (like the Alexia) or a revised version of one of the company’s existing models (such as the Duette Series-2), it’s as if the company can do no wrong.

All of which left us thoroughly unprepared for the Sabrina!

The Sabrina is the new baby of the Wilson range. It’s a surprisingly small, elegant three-way, rear-ported floorstanding loudspeaker. Although it looks like none of the existing Wilson range (if anything, it looks like an inverted and extended version of the company’s Alida surround loudspeaker), it also looks like it could only be a Wilson Audio loudspeaker. There is a commonality of form and line, akin to very different architectural designs from the same architect. I happen to think it’s also one of the more elegant designs from the firm, like a streamlined Sophia, and is small enough not to dominate a room. Those of us without the joys of a dedicated listening room approve!

In a way, the basic componentry for any high-end loudspeaker is like describing a singer by their shoe size. This is especially relevant in the Sabrina, where a bald description of the technology has almost no bearing on the end result. So, the fact it has the company’s own 25mm silk dome tweeter coupled with a 146mm pulped paper midrange cone and the 208mm paper woofer cone found in the Alexia is almost unimportant. However, the cabinet is built predominantly from Wilson’s proprietary X-Material and finished in one of three standard and two premium ‘Wilsongloss’ colours. Sabrina is single-wired at the bottom of the rear of the cabinet, with two rear-firing ports – one slightly above the axis of the tweeter and a larger one below the bass driver. The loudspeaker delivers a nominal impedance of four ohms, with a rated 2.53 ohm minimum impedance at 139Hz. This kind of precision sounds like hyperbole, but Wilson can specify the speaker this way because it fine-tunes every crossover by hand to get the speaker to an extremely tight specification tolerance of ±0.2% in the crossover network. It also has a claimed sensitivity of 87dB. In other words, it should be a fairly easy loudspeaker to drive, unless you are using relatively basic chip amps or a small SET amp (neither of which have the horsepower when dealing with lower impedances). Wilson recommends a 50W amp as a bare minimum, and this seems a sensible starting place.

In the first draft of this review, I found I wrote the phrase “the clever part…” at the start of about 35 sentences. Having stripped back the repetition, it’s Sabrina that has the word ‘clever’ running through it like a stick of Blackpool rock. And ‘clever’ even extends to the installation process. The Sabrina joins the Duette Series-2 and the Sophia as Wilson loudspeakers with a ‘fixed’ shape: the Sasha Series-2 and beyond all have an ability to shape midrange and tweeter sections to fit the room and the listener’s position. The complexity of this adjustable installation process is demanding and best performed by a trained professional installer. Instead of aligning the upper-register modules to suit the installation, the Sabrina relies on a rigid placement of drive units, time aligned to suit a broad spectrum of room/seating arrangements. The non-adjustable Sabrina could end up more demanding, because to get something approximating the micrometer-precise treble and midrange would normally require some very careful back-and-forth positioning. Wilson’s WASP installation techniques (commonly called ‘vowelling in’) could be extremely important and time-consuming. Except the Sabrina isn’t like that at all.

In fact, the Sabrina is one of the least fussy high-end loudspeakers when it comes to installation. The mid and top more or less take care of themselves; just move the loudspeaker forward and back to ensure the bass is balanced for the room and your listening position, then a little bit of fine-tuning for toe-in and you are away! Granted, the more you experiment with careful positioning and precision installation, the better the performance, but simply pulled out of the box and placed in broadly the right position returns a 9.5/10 on the ‘nailed it’ scale. Only the ‘put them against the wall and you are done’ Duette beats the Sabrina on installation simplicity stakes. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you might have to deliberately work at it to install the Sabrinas to make them sound bad!

The same applies with amplification, valve-free 50W minimum notwithstanding. I’m not going to labour the point here, but it’s possible to put a Sabrina-based system together where everything else in the chain is an order of magnitude cheaper and have it sound good. It’s also possible to put the Sabrina into a system where everything else is an order of magnitude more expensive and come up with a result that’s nothing short of astounding. This is perhaps why at almost every high-end show in the latter half of 2015, there were more ‘Best in Show’ rooms featuring Sabrinas, and Wilson Sabrinas were top of the shopping list for brands wanting to show off audio electronics. You don’t need a powerhouse to drive the Sabrinas. In fact, you need quality rather than quantity; it sings with a high-grade integrated unit, such as the Audio Research GSi75, but more on that in the next issue!

So, precisely what do the Sabrinas do so well? It’s the sense of seamlessness across the frequency range. Try hard to listen out for crossover points – I mean really try hard, like you are pretending at being an audio analyser – and you’ll struggle to hear points of inflexion, and in the real world of playing music – forget it! This speaker has all the integration of one big drive unit, without any of the hang-ups and frequency extreme issues of ‘full-range’ drivers. The curious thing about this seamless integration across the frequency range is it’s most instantly audible when using music far outside the normal audiophile stock, like ‘Voices’ from Alice in Chains’ The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here [Capitol]. On this track, Jerry Cantrell and William DuVall’s haunting vocal and guitar parts only work if played as a gestalt, not a frequency response. And through the Sabrinas, the work becomes so brooding, so chilling, you feel like you need councelling to get over the listening session.

This track also highlights the clever (that word again) handling of bass. This isn’t a loudspeaker with an obvious bloom or boom in the mid-bass to compensate for physical limitations in the low bass, and yet it is not a full-range loudspeaker… So why does that not present any such limitations in the listening? It’s not faking the bass – if you play very low organ pedal work, you’ll notice the absence – but you become aware of how little you care thanks to the Sabrina’s overall presentation.

The Sabrina has the large-scale sound that has made Wilson loudspeakers so successful, so much so in fact that if you close your eyes you’d swear there’s a bigger speaker in the room. But, this, like the excellent imaging and great dynamics for a small loudspeaker by high-end standards, almost goes unnoticed because you are simply enjoying the feel of the music you are listening to. We expect music to have structure, clarity, and texture when playing through a high-end design; we just don’t expect it to sound this good too!

Musical examples abound. Chamber music is especially expressive, and the Sabrina gets right to the musical marrow: the late string quartets of Beethoven played by the Takacs Quartet [Decca] is the finest example I heard, as the Sabrina didn’t just extract the musical information well, it got ‘behind the notes’ and portrayed the lyricism of the playing and the intent of a composer at the height of his powers and the end of his life. It should be a work of passion, but through the Sabrinas that passion boils over. You’ll sit enthralled and end the disc emotionally drained, yet uplifted. Good audio should expand your musical experience and tastes, and the Sabrina is the perfect vehicle for such explorations; you’ll get the fire and excitement of opera, the technical exactitude of Bach, the perfection of Duke Ellington, and even the wry humour of Belle & Sebastian. Lo-fi recordings will not challenge you, but hi-fi recordings will astound you. Put simply, listening to the Sabrinas is like restarting your audio journey anew!

So, where is the shortcoming, the limitation that stops the Sabrina from being the £100,000 giant killer speaker of doom? Well, aside from it not being a full-range loudspeaker, there isn’t one. And, truth to tell, I would far rather have the Sabrina with all its poise, integration, and downright enjoyable presentation, than a loudspeaker that sacrifices just one of those elements in order to reach the last few bass notes. So, no… the Sabrina isn’t a giant killer in the bandwidth sense, but when it comes to the important fundamentals of musical replay, I’d take the Sabrina over a less well ‘sorted’ loudspeaker with that bandwidth in an eyeblink. And if you listen to music instead of the sound it makes, you would too. Between the Sabrina and the Duette I use, the Duette wins out, but primarily because my room and boundary loudspeakers work seriously well together. For most people, the Sabrina is the sweet-spot. And it might even be the sweet-spot in the whole Wilson range. In fairness, if you like what the Sabrina does, you probably have to skip over a lot of other speakers until you find something that is sonically superior – you might need to think Alexias as your next step. And, the true joy of the Sabrina is that might never happen – I can see the Sabrina as many people’s first Wilson and their last loudspeaker.

Like the Duette before it, the Sabrina is the Wilson loudspeaker for those who want the Wilson sound, but lack the wherewithal to achieve that goal. That doesn’t just mean the listener’s bank balance, but an honest appraisal of room sizes in the wider world. There will always be those who want to shoe-horn vast loudspeakers into tiny rooms, but for the rest of us, there is a need for a loudspeaker that delivers what Wilsons do best, in a package sized and designed for typical modern living spaces. Where the Sophia is for those able to house the Sasha, but can’t quite afford a pair at the moment, the Sabrina is designed and voiced for those who are a house move away from being able to house Sashas. That is an important distinction, and a fundamentally correct reading of the wider audiophile and audiophile-in-waiting world.

In part, the new generation of Wilson loudspeakers is happening because there is a new generation of Wilson at the controls. Designs like the Sabrina are indicative of Dave Wilson passing the baton to his son Daryl. Daryl has big shoes to fill, but if designs like the Sabrina are expressions of his audio skills, there’s nothing to fear in passing the baton from father to son.

There are lots of good loudspeakers. Some are very good. But the Wilson Audio Sabrina is something special. Even in the context of the track record of Wilson Audio, this is above the norm. This is quite simply one of the most enjoyable loudspeakers at any price I’ve heard in a long time and comes extremely highly recommended for anyone who takes their music seriously. Wow!

Technical Specifications

Type: Three-way, rear ported floorstanding loudspeaker
Drivers: 1× 25.4mm doped silk fabric dome tweeter, 1× 146.1mm paper pulp midrange unit, 1× 203.2mm paper cone woofer
Frequency Response: 31Hz–21kHz ±3 dB, Room Average Response
Nominal Impedance: 4 ohms
Sensitivity: 87 dB @ 1W @ 1m @ 1 kHz
Minimum impedance: 2.53 ohms @ 139 Hz
Finish: Desert Silver, Galaxy Gray, and Obsidian Black as standard. Biarritz White and Titan Red optional
Dimensions (W×D×H): 30.5×38.6×100cm (incl. spikes)
Weight: 42.6kg per channel

Price: £14,999 per pair

Wilson Audio Sabrina floorstanding loudspeaker

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Wilson Audio SabrinaX Review

mevart.melody — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 14:34:31 +0000

A New X Factor – Wilson Audio now manufactures its smallest floorstanding speaker entirely from the superior “X-Material”. Does the SabrinaX deliver the sonic experience of our hi-fi dreams?

01/29/2021

X-Material vs. Resonances

In tests with its “laser vibrometer”, which makes the slightest vibrations visible, the development team had determined that the X-housing had considerably less resonances, thus offering the chance for an even cleaner, clearer and more structured performance. That was far from all, however. On top of that, the SabrinaX received the “Convergent Synergy Tweeter” in the latest “Mk5” version, which is the same tweeter as in Wilson Audio’s ultimate WAMM Master Chronosonic. Going even further, another addition is the freshly created 20-centimeter woofer from the also recently introduced, almost twice as expensive Sasha DAW – which made us quite ecstatic in the review you can read here–, featuring two of them per speaker, in comparison.

Of course, the SabrinaX is much less complex. For example, its cabinet consists only of one piece instead of two like that of the Sasha DAW, which allows for precise phase corrections with regard to the listening position. In comparison, the Sabrina drivers recede with increasing frequency position in the baffle, which is slightly tilted backwards, and thus compensate for the differences in impulse rise as well as the runtime to the ear.

Another important detail Wilson considers lies in the specially developed capacitors for the crossover, also manufactured in Provo. Here, especially for the ambitious Chronosonic XVX, a long time was spent experimenting with materials and winding techniques as well as other parameters before the final result was available. The SabrinaX benefits from this experience by receiving capacitors precisely adapted to its needs. By adapting and including technologies and parts of the top models in smaller types, these are imbued with “Flagship DNA”.

Close Proximity to the Sasha DAW

In fact, the keyword of “flagship DNA” takes on a whole new meaning when listening to these speakers. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that the considerably more elaborate and more expensive Sasha DAW was standing and playing in an almost identical location.

Certainly, the bigger model had presented the front-to-back relief of the Red Norvo Quintet’s “Saturday Night” a bit more vividly and distinctly, but what we heard from the SabrinaX was not that big of a difference: a stage realistically drawn up in every direction with the hearty, differentiated beats of the vibraphone, the audience babbling in the distance and both committed and controlled musicians playing anything but narrow. No doubt, Wilson Audio succeeded in transferring essential capabilities of the Sasha DAW to the SabrinaX.

This impression was reinforced further afterwards. The guitar intro in Marika Cailly’s “Les Petits Cafés”, which was as charming as it was striking, had the right tight “twist”, while the voice came with the correct mixture of smoothness and a slight tartness. With Beat Kaestli’s “Day In Day Out”, recorded completely unpretentiously by Chesky Records, the American speaker showed what a high degree of resolution and light-footed noblesse it is capable of. Did the Sasha DAW present the immensely natural, lightheartedly gliding title even more floatingly and naturally? Did it push the guitar as well as the cornet even further to the left of the base, as only particularly phase-true speakers are able to do? Perhaps, but the SabrinaX seemed so convincing, holistic and cohesive that its relationship to the outstanding Sasha DAW was more than obvious.

It helped that all parts of the sound image also fit together organically and perfectly complemented each other, which also led to the fact that the spatial spectrum the speakers – which are all but large – produced opened upwards and hardly seemed to be capped. This may be due to the slightly upward radiating drivers, in addition to the tonal coherence and precisely placed, crisp dynamics which result in a convincing clarity of reproduction. Thus, the densely woven, sometimes mountainous, and yet fanned out sound collages on Tears For Fears’ reissue LP of their mega-selling album “The Seeds Of Love” with its flood of details flashing like raindrops in the sun is turned into an enchanting listening experience.

https://stereo-magazine.com/review/wilson-audio-sabrinax-review

The post Wilson Audio SabrinaX Review appeared first on Melody's Vision.

Wilson Audio Alexx V Loudspeaker

mevart.melody — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 14:32:17 +0000

Not ‘version 5’ – the ‘V’ here refers to Wilson’s cabinet material. In fact, the Alexx V is a ‘v2’ and it’s a masterpieceTrue to form, Wilson Audio allowed five years to pass before revising its Alexx floorstander [HFN Nov ’16], avoiding that old high-end crisis of perceived obsolescence. As I always say, what was fine last Tuesday is still fine today, but Wilson tends to upgrade its models with major leaps, not tiny steps, and so it is with the Alexx V (£139,000).

A visual giveaway is the open gantry architecture with magnetically-attached grilles, replacing the original’s filled side panels, but it remains so imposing that you have to consider the choice of finish with care. Add 5% above the standard colours for WilsonGloss, or 10% for the Premium Pearl, or talk to them if you want it to match your Bugatti Chiron…

Wilson Legacy
Aside from input on one of the drivers by founder Dave Wilson, who passed away in 2018, the rest is all son Daryl’s work, along with his seasoned team in Provo. But there’s more beyond this being the watershed speaker in Daryl’s ascent, if I might regale you with a tale from Wilson’s history.

Once upon a time, there were two utterly disparate siblings. No, not like Cain and Abel, but like Arnie Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins. The original Wilson WAMM – which turns 40 this year – and its immediate sequel, the WATT, could not have been more dissimilar, the latter created to satisfy those who wanted the primary virtues of the WAMM in a portable speaker, for, say, on-site monitoring.

But the WATT, a self-contained two-way speaker, lacked adjustability. Over the decades, it acquired the Puppy woofer section, allowing the mid/treble enclosure to be tilted, reflecting Wilson Sr’s focus on time alignment. The big floorstanders that followed the original, fully-configurable WAMM increasingly exploited the flexibility of the mid and treble units, each housed in their own mini-enclosures.

As of 2022, the Alexx V sits in the upper half of a range which starts with single-piece speakers such as the Yvette [HFN Feb ’17]. Each step on the Wilson ladder increases the number of driver modules – in the Alexx V, that skeletal gantry contains three modules, placing it somewhere in the middle of the catalogue.

Specialist Set-Up
A bare-bones description of the Alexx V tells you that it’s only an inch deeper and taller than the Alexx, with the same width, so it fills a space of 1610x400x680mm (hwd). They weigh 227kg each, hosting one 10.5in and one 12.5in woofer in the lower section, while the three modules contain, in ascending order, a 7in midrange, a 1in tweeter and a 5.75in midrange at the top. Set-up, a minimum two-person task by an experienced Wilson dealer, typically requires six hours. A detailed list of what distinguishes the Alexx V would run to several pages, the ‘V’ here not a Roman numeral 5 but the designation of its new cabinet material. Suffice to say, Alexx-to-Alexx V illustrates what Wilson Audio has been up to over the past five years.

The Alexx V’s gantry features two mini but solid alloy ‘staircases’, one for each midrange module, for precise time alignment of the drivers. As usual, the main speaker connections [bottom]are single-wire only

Trickle-down benefits remain a firm part of the procedure. For example, Wilson’s ‘Acoustic Diodes’ (pointy feet to me and you) enjoy their debut here. This brand-new spike system comprises a combination of austenitic stainless steel and V-material, and having heard them under my Sasha DAWs [HFN Mar ’19], wow, do they make a difference. And it is truly reciprocal: at the back of the Alexx V are custom-built Wilson Audio binding posts that first appeared in the Sasha DAW, and which accept banana plugs, spade connectors or bare wire.

This sharing of tech from model-to-model, as appropriate, is crucial to understanding how Wilson develops speakers, not just the Alexx V. Pretty much all of the upgrades to the Alexx V come from the WAMM Master Chronosonic and Chronosonic XVX, while the Alexx V offers back to the gene pool not only the Acoustic Diodes, but a completely new Convergent Synergy Carbon (CSC) dome tweeter with its 3D-printed, carbon-fibre rear-wave chamber.

Deep breath: the Alexx V uses the aforementioned ‘skeleton’ gantry structure for the upper modules to increase openness. The new V-material is used in ‘strategic locations’ with the primary X-material shell, notably in the top of the woofer section and in the gantry cross-brace. The XVX’s 7in Alnico QuadraMag midrange has been fitted to the Alexx V, while the WAMM Master Chronosonic’s cable management system is used here to achieve the ‘perfect length of speaker cable for each of the upper modules as they are adjusted for correct time-alignment’.

If you recall the XLF [HFN Oct ’12], you’ll recognise the clever reversible woofer port now applied to the Alexx V, which allows greater optimisation of the speaker’s woofer activity relative to wall boundaries, listening position and the rest. I’m surprised it hasn’t been copied by Wilson’s rivals as it’s such a boon to set-up and final tuning.

As for changes to the crossover, it now contains new Wilson-designed capacitors with gold lugs on the PCB as well as for the connector plate contact points, and resistor connections.

Listening took place in PM‘s room using a dCS Vivaldi One front-end [HFN Feb ’18] driving a Constellation Centaur II 500 amp [HFN Dec ’19], with Transparent cables throughout. After an initial burst of Fleetwood Mac just to acclimatise myself, and to which I deliberately didn’t pay close attention because their classic recordings are – to my ears – unusually bright, I turned to a regimen of tracks which I have played through at least a half-dozen Wilson speakers over the decades. I wanted to deal with the grandeur I assumed would be part of the experience, and looked to – fortuitously, as it turned out – Kodō’s Warabe [Sony SRCL4671; Japanese CD].

source: https://www.hifinews.com/content/wilson-audio-alexx-v-loudspeaker

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Wilson Audio SabrinaX Loudspeakers | REVIEW

mevart.melody — Sat, 10 Dec 2022 14:24:15 +0000

Most audiophiles know of the unwavering commitment to accuracy and groundbreaking industrial design baked into the DNA of every Wilson Audio product (website), and the new Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers are no exception. This was first evident in Dave Wilson’s original assault on the state of the art with his WAMM design circa 1981, and other loudspeaker systems followed over the years. Along with advancements in materials science and simple but visually striking industrial design aesthetics, each loudspeaker system has a unique raison d’etre rather than simply various scaled-down models at different price points.

Words and photos by Dave McNair

Dave Wilson practically devoted his life to designing a speaker that would precisely reproduce what his ears (and mics) heard on his extraordinary recordings. His recording approach was a simple, purist style used to record musicians playing in natural acoustic spaces. It might seem simple, but there is nothing easy about this kind of approach. So it naturally follows that faithfully reproducing the recording of that event in a home listening room was his ideal.

Today, Daryl Wilson and the rest of the great crew at Wilson Audio have maintained those same ideals and goals while simultaneously refining, improving, and advancing the product line.

Inside the Wilson Audio SabrinaX Loudspeakers

The Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers are a new, refined version of the original Sabrina. The Sabrina has been the most successful speaker sales-wise since the WATT/Puppy series (in all its various versions) rewrote the audiophile speaker playbook. Consisting of a 3-way, rear-ported system, the SabrinaX features the same fabulous sounding Convergent Synergy MK5 tweeter used in the flagship WAMM Master Chronosonic and Chronosonic XVX speaker systems. The smooth yet ultra-detailed highs were, as it turned out, one of the things I enjoyed most about the SabrinaX.

The same 8” woofer used in the Sasha DAW ($37,900) is also used in the Wilson Audio SabrinaX. The 5.75” midrange driver is operated over a reasonably wide range to integrate smoothly into the sonic picture. The three drivers are fitted on a sloped front baffle incorporated into the cabinet geometry. The entire outer cabinet of the SabrinaX is constructed from Wilson’s proprietary X Material instead of only the front baffle and bottom spike plate of the original Sabrina.

Wilson’s X Material, now in its third iteration, is a proprietary blend of resins valued for a unique combination of rigidity, non-resonance, and manufacturing workability. But don’t get the idea that X Material is easy to work with! Far from it. The finishing processes required to machine X Material resins are still quite demanding, so Wilson Audio must feel it’s sonically worth all the manufacturing fuss.

After acquiring Reliable Capacitors in 2020, Wilson Audio can now design and manufacture custom multi-wound capacitors (AudioCapX) for use in their crossovers. The crossover in the Chronosonic XVX was the first to benefit from that acquisition, and now the SabrinaX takes advantage of these proprietary in-house capacitor designs.

At the ground level, the SabrinaX shares the same specially designed floor spike/mechanical diode assembly used in the Chronosonic XVX. This assembly decouples the speaker cabinet from the floor more effectively. It also makes the setup and leveling of the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers a breeze.

The most astute Wilson Audio fans may notice the Sabrina (original and X) cabinet shape as being different from the other models in the line. It strikes me that the other models have a heritage to the original WATT/Puppy or WAMM concept in visual look, whereas the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers have two graceful slants to the entire length of the front baffles and an attractive compound angle on the top half of the sides. I’m guessing that accurate time alignment, along with Daryl Wilson’s artful sense of aesthetics, played a part in this.

The Yin And Yang Of Audio Life

Being exposed to high-end home audio at an early age has informed my attitude throughout my professional audio production career as a recording, mixing, and mastering engineer.

I’ve wanted the recordings I work on to sound equally impressive on an average system AND a mega-buck audiophile system. For me, the way to accomplish this is to juice up whatever project I’m mixing or mastering to the point where the music sounds big and exciting on a typical, low-resolution system but not too hyped and over-processed sounding when played on a big-buck audiophile system. This sensibility also informs my choice of what floats my boat in a Hi-Fi system. My term for this concept is the accuracy/listenability matrix.

On one end, a system may be quite a pleasurable listen on many varieties of recordings. However, in exchange for this wider listenability, the most natural recordings won’t sound as strikingly realistic as on a very accurate system. Daryl Wilson told me his Dad used to say, “Beware the speaker that makes everything sound good.”

On the other end, we have speakers designed to be as precise and free of virtually any distortion or anomalies that would get in the way of accurate reproduction. But what does Led Zep’s Physical Graffiti sound like on these speakers?

My listening room acoustics and personal listening biases determine where on the accuracy/listenability matrix I find myself for any component I’m reviewing. I like it clean, tonally neutral (to a point), dynamic, and dimensional, but I also want just a smidgen of Instagram-filtered reality on my love interest. Bear with me, and this will hopefully make sense later.

I’ve Got Electric Light And Second Sight

After a lengthy three or four-hundred-hour break-in period (after-hours in my mastering studio), I was finally ready to put the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers into my home system.

Hmmm. I was NOT feelin’ it. A shouty upper mid and a strange absence of bass. Well, there was bass, but it sounded weird to me. Imaging was meh. The top end was pretty nice, I’ll give ‘em that.

“Maybe I need some different amps.”

My two reference amps, a pair of Pass Labs XA-60.8s and an Audio HungaryQualiton APX-200II, weren’t cuttin’ it for different reasons. The tubed Qualiton was bass light, very forward, and edgy sounding. The XA-60.8s sounded better and seemed to like the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers, but I had increasingly noticed a mismatch to the left and right amps. They needed a checkup from the amp doctor.

Eventually, through Pass Labs’ kindness, I was able to get a pair of the phenomenal sounding XA-200.8 monoblocks. Now we’re cookin’ with gas!

Still, things were not quite right in my little slice of audio paradise. I tested the speakers to find out if something had been broken or incorrectly wired. Nope, all good. Then, after much room position experimentation, I got them to sound okay but not great. I thought, “Hey, everybody raves about these. What’s the deal?” At this point, I was not entirely sure I wanted to review them, but there was a little voice that kept whispering: “C’mon, this is undoubtedly a great design; you just need to figure out how to get them to sing.”

Under normal conditions, Peter McGrath or Bill Peugh from Wilson Audio would have been here from the beginning to do the rigorous and exacting setup. Proper setup techniques acquired through extensive dealer training are a built-in service for any Wilson customer. An extension of Wilson Audio’s hallmark world-class service includes setup for reviewers. Covid-19 made that a chancy endeavor that neither Wilson nor I were willing to tempt fate. The very wise and affable Mr. McGrath said, “Stop listening to them, take ‘em out of the system, and we’ll figure this out.”

Six weeks or so later, after I got vaccinated for Covid19 and my partner Linda left for her PNW crib, Bill Peugh and I were finally able to get the party started properly. When Bill arrived, we masked up and put the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers back in the system after they had been patiently waiting in my dining room for their turn to dance.

Watching Bill do his thing was fascinating and educational. After almost four hours of methodically moving, listening, switching absolute phase, listening, moving, reversing channels, listening, leveling, listening and consulting his inner Ouiji board, Bill declared victory. Bam!

Things sounded great now. Whuuuuut? How could a few inches (ok, more like three or four inches) from my best try at placement make such a huge difference? But boy, did it ever. Now I could get down to business and enjoy doing some deep listening to probe these beauty’s subtle mysteries. As my Mom used to say, wonders never cease.

That night was my first proper taste of the Wilson elixir. Like a fine single-malt Scotch, it immediately hit me as impressive, but I had to educate my sonic taste buds further to become a true devotee.

Spinning Brittany Howard’s solo album Jaime was the indoctrination I needed. The sheer slam of the low end was unlike anything I’d heard in my room. It wasn’t a gregarious, warm, living, breathing thing I was used to but something entirely different. The size and weight from bass drums and electric basses were there in a massive feel-it-in-your-body manner but vanished so quickly my subconscious thought, “Wait, what was that?” The low end on the Jaime vinyl usually makes me feel like I’m swimming in deep but slightly murky waters. I don’t mind it taking over the room a bit, either.

The Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers didn’t do that. They presented a big, deep, and incredibly defined bass in a manner that sounded like I was hearing the mix playing on some big ATCs in a professionally designed and treated studio control room. How can my largely untreated living room sound this tight and solid, I thought? I listened to all of side one. Twice. Dayum.

More Listening with Wilson Audio SabrinaX Loudspeakers

Image specificity, size, and depth were excellent. The Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers do that arc-of-sound thing that I love. On recordings with the right dimensional info, it’s where the center stuff is clearly centered, AND that phantom center info is projected outward towards my listening spot. All the other instrument locations seem to be placed in a horizontal arc from the forward center info and spreading back to either speaker location.

Additionally, when playing music containing phase tricks used in mixing to create instruments that seem to be super wide and disembodied from other parts of the mix (and the speakers), the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers reproduced those sounds perfectly AND placed the non-affected elements of the mix in the soundstage with fantastic precision. Unlike some speakers with intangible sorcery for making the speakers disappear, in my room the SabrinaX only reproduced what was on the recording without any extra dose of subtle image enhancement. I listened to a fair amount of recordings that I’ve mixed or mastered and know very well to be sure of this point. Faithful to the spatial info in the recording. Fair enough.

Next up was Steven Wilson’s The Raven That Refused To Sing And Other Stories. I’ve been on a severe Prog-Rock jag lately. On this record, the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers most definitely did not disappoint. Super clean highs and cracking drums were the order of the day when I played this one. Side one contains one 12:10 song, “Luminal.” The sheer smack of the snare drum and the punch of the kick drum was stunning. The low end was again big, yet more cleanly defined than previous listens. While not heavily featured in this style, vocals sounded great except for being a bit forward in the upper midrange.

Then we have my tried and true, the brilliant Thud from Kevin Gilbert. Playing Thudoff vinyl, Kevin’s voice on “Goodness Gracious” had what I felt to be the proper amount of lower midrange body (which is tricky for some speakers/rooms), but there was also a striking clarity to his airy high frequencies that seemed brand new to me. Not harsh, not silky, but clean. The wide, stereo-panned acoustic guitar mic’d into a Leslie rotating organ speaker was cleaner sounding than ever.

Playing this record, I realized some cuts felt too brash in the 2.4K to 4.5K area and relatively thin in the 150hz region. Others were perfect and had a meaty low end. I usually consider the entire record practically flawless and consistent in its sound. Still, the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers proved to me that every cut has more of a unique tonal profile than I realized.

Ok, that’s about enough prog (for now). Of course, you KNOW I played DSOTM, duh.

Switching gears, it was time for some REAL audiophile jams. Since reading Marc Phillips’ numerous (and rightly so) references to Dean Martin’s Dream With Dean, I had to get me a copy. A few seconds after I dropped the needle, Dean’s voice was so close to me I wanted to put my Covid (double) mask on. Realistic seems like a petty way to describe what I heard coming out of the speakers, and daaaang was it good.

I also streamed lots of stuff. Some music sounded incredible. Some sucked big time. Some days, the sucking bothered me. That changed a bit later on.

In the incredible category were a few Me’Shell Ndegiocello albums such as Peace Beyond Passion and some of her more recent jams like her covers album Ventriloquism. OMG, there’s that low end again similar to Brittany Howard, HUGE and mega-controlled and now even punchier! Vocals were smooth, fleshed out, and with the perfect amount of presence.

Another super satisfier was The Punch Brothers’ Phosphorescent Blues. Great tunes, great sounds, and exciting production for what might be termed alternative bluegrass. Producer T-Bone Burnette and engineer Mike Piersante brought their A-game to this one.

In the no cigar category was Jeff Buckley’s Grace and Peter Gabriel’s So. I love the tunes on both these albums, but the sound was just too glassy and grating for my ears.

You’ll Never Hear Surf Music Again, or How I Learned to Love Accuracy

The funny thing is, when I played very familiar tunes for the first time on the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers, I couldn’t seem to predict whether I’d love the sound or not.

“Wind Cries Mary” (and most of the other songs) off Jimi’s epic Are You Experienced?album was one where I was kind of shocked at how good things sounded. Not just in the extraction of detail or sheer cleanliness to the sound (in a not very clean recording), but more of the whole listening experience. Wow. Although I love Jimi’s music, I usually associate a lot of Hendrix as being too screechy sounding on a typical audiophile system. Somehow it all worked on the SabrinaX. This was a turning point for me.

It became clear that my usual arrogant thinking based on my experience recording, mixing, and mastering thousands of projects over 40+ years was not serving me well. During my time with the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers, this took on three distinct phases: condescendence, then acceptance, and finally equanimity.

As a result of repeated listening sessions, I realized the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers were simply doing their job to reveal every aspect of a recording down to the molecular level. Good and bad. The SabrinaX do that in a manner that is closer to the reality of sources that I played than any other loudspeaker I’ve heard in my listening room, while in some ways being the most unforgiving speaker I’ve yet heard. I can hear the SabrinaX tell me, “Treat me with respect and I’ll show you the stars, but shake your finger and look down your nose at me and you’re on your own, pal.”

At first, I thought, how arrogant of this speaker to cull the herd of my music collection down to a smaller group that satisfied my ears. Then as my listening process continued, I heard more and more recordings spring forth from the Wilson Audio SabrinaXs loudspeakers that hit me in a delightful place. A lot of music sounded incredible. And the stuff that didn’t work as well for me no longer felt like some crazy personal affront to MY idea of what it should sound like.

Was my brain rewiring itself to accommodate this new reality? Maybe, but it was more like I had to let go of being right in order to let in all that the SabrinaX had to offer. The final process in my journey resulted in a feeling of tranquility and enjoyment of practically anything I played, “good” recording or bad. I had my listening biases intact, but now I was deeply in the Enjoyment Zone. And verily, it felt good. I wonder if other audio reviewers ever go through this?

The Crux Of The Biscuit Is The Apostrophe

For the vast majority of the music I listen to, the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers will not show me the artist’s and production team’s original intent. Whuuut? Sacrilege! That’s because most recordings (indeed, most of the ones I work on and listen to) are not an event recorded with minimalist mic’ing in a natural acoustic space. And they are mixed and mastered on speakers that don’t have much in common with the Wilson sound. So why should I expect a speaker designed for perfectly reproducing purist recordings to work with anything else? Could I get my classic rock or contemporary electronic-based jams on? Early on, I didn’t expect to, but after careful setup and an ear-opening education, I most certainly DID.

The Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers compelled me to listen with a new sensibility. After hearing so many recordings that sounded amazing, I began to trust that what the SabrinaX was telling me was the truth. On less than outstanding recordings, I could still get into the music, aided by an almost voyeuristic mindset: hearing what had never been truly revealed to the artists and production team.

So what IS the absolute truth? Is it the sound in the mix room from huge Alan Sides’ custom-built double 15s with horns? Or maybe the semi ubiquitous Genelec line of studio monitors? What about Bernie Grundman Mastering’s custom modded dual concentric Tannoys? Or is it the virtually colorless, brutally honest midrange and highs, zero cabinet resonance artifacts, coupled to a critically damped low-end of a pair of Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers?

This was what nagged at me early on in the process until it hit me. Both are true. Both are equally valid. It’s all in the individual’s unique perception and the local field of the observer.

It’s a strange world if you look at things deeply enough. “Welcome to Quantum Mechanics Tours. Please take a seat by the particle accelerator window. The speaker cable test will start in 5 minutes.”

Wilson Audio SabrinaX Loudspeakers, In Summary

Clearly, the Wilson Audio SabrinaX loudspeakers are not merely Wilson Audio entry-level loudspeakers, but rather a carefully crafted design that packs an enormous amount of the tech and sound reproduction embodied in its far more expensive siblings. At $18,500 per pair, I’d have to say it redefines what’s available in this price range for those seeking ultra-faithful-to-the-source performance.

My personal preference for a more liquid feeling, less damped low end, and a smoother-than-reality upper-midrange did not ultimately diminish how much fun I had listening to these beauties. Proper setup and system matching (like any high-performance thoroughbred speaker system) are vital. The Wilson Audio SabrinaX doesn’t demand that you spend Audio Research or D’Agostino level cash on electronics to get the most out of them, but I wouldn’t advise using amps with a tendency toward any upper midrange glare or lacking in circuit topology to handle the low impedance swings this speaker exhibits.

If hearing deeply into a recording with a mission-critical level of accuracy is your happy place, look no further. And the best part is, for fans of Wilson Audio’s unique approach to that aim, if you don’t have $329,000 for a pair of Chronosonic XVXs, a massive helping of that performance is packed into the SabrinaX. My partner, Linda, also said they might be the most attractive speakers I’ve had the pleasure to review.

Do yourself a favor and go hear a pair. Better bring a checkbook while you’re at it.

SabrinaX specifications:

Sensitivity: 87 dB @ 1W @ 1m @ 1 kHz

Nominal Impedance: 4 ohms / 2.60 ohms minimum @ 135 Hz

Minimum Amplifier Power: 50 Watts per channel

Frequency Response: 31 Hz – 23 kHz: +/- 3 dB: Room Average Response (RAR)

Height: 38 inches (96.46 cm), with spikes 40 5/16 inches (102.34 cm)

Width: 12 inches (30.48 cm)

Depth: 15 5/16 inches (38.96 cm)

System Weight Per Channel: 112 lb (50.80 kg)

System Shipping Weight (approx.): 290 lbs (131.54 kg)

Associated gear:

Rega P10 with Charisma Audio Signature One cart, VAC Master Preamplifier, Pass Labs XA-200.8, Innuos Zen-Mini and Chord Qutest DAC, Cardas Clear Light cabling.

More Photos: Wilson Audio SabrinaX Loudspeakers

source: https://parttimeaudiophile.com/2021/04/18/wilson-audio-sabrinax-loudspeakers-review/

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