"Flagship DNA": Wilson Audio's SabrinaX
ilson Audio's original Sabrina, introduced over four years ago, was the company's smallest floorstanding speaker and one whose stature and price belied the company's all-out approach in producing it. The new SabrinaX ($18,500 per pair in standard colors) follows this same approach but also adds to it. Everything from the cabinet to the drivers, the crossover and even the external metal parts has been completely revised, creating, in Wilson Audio's words, a speaker with "a rare combination of traditional Wilson hallmark attributes such as bass authority, dynamic resolution, midrange beauty and integrity, and a sense of inherent musical 'rightness.'" The SabrinaX's cabinet is now milled completely from Wilson's renowned, steel-hard X-Material, which was previously used only for the Sabrina's front baffle and bottom plate. The speaker's machined-aluminum midrange port is replaced by a "low-turbulence" horizontal slit milled directly into the cabinet. The vent's shape is optimized for the driver's frequency range. In terms of drivers, the SabrinaX combines Wilson's Convergent Synergy MK5 silk-dome tweeter, developed initially for the limited-edition WAMM Master Chronosonic, with a 5 3/4" midrange that extends flat to 2kHz, an important consideration for the elevated crossover point used. An 8" woofer developed for the Sasha DAW’s bass module is also used. The crossover of the SabrinaX is the second to feature Wilson's AudioCapX-WA, which debuted in the Chronosonic XVX. The technology of this new capacitor "significantly lowers the noise floor to even greater extremes." As is the case for all Wilson speakers, the company's craftspeople assemble the SabrinaX crossovers by hand. There's more, including a bass port that utilizes a newly refined shape and is milled from 6061-T6 aluminum, the same Wilson-designed and -manufactured binding posts used for the XVX, and that speaker's spike/diode assembly, which increases the draining of vibration. Finally, in order to facilitate immediate demonstration
of the SabrinaX, Wilson Audio began shipping the speaker prior to its September 1 launch
date. So Wilson dealers worldwide are able to play the SabrinaX now, and many have pairs
of the speakers in stock and ready for purchase. |
