Today my local dealer posted an Instagram of SabrinaX paired with an ARC VT80 SE amplifier, and now there’s no avoiding an appointment next week to listen. I know that audition room pretty well. It’s similar dimensions and shape as my living room. If they’re happy to show off SabrinaX with 75wpc, it must sound great. Can’t wait to hear it.

Sasha DAW unlike its predecessors, is very easy to position, especially for the smoothest bass response in a smaller room. If you are measuring to the rear of the speaker, 1M spacing from the wall is not necessary in most rooms.

The new SabrinaX sounds very much like a scaled down Sasha DAW. If I were looking to upgrade from Sabrina but couldn't reach DAW and I felt that I had room size limitations, I'd take a very serious listen to SabrinaX.

As always, ymmv.

I agree with @metaphacts, my experience with the Sabrina X is, in sum total, a Sasha DAW with a smaller package, without the driver adjustment and the limitation of bass linearity due to a single woofer driver.

Originally I was going to buy my dealer's Sabrina demo, and while he was awaiting for the replacement I saw Wilson Audio's tweet about the upcoming X. I called my dealer, he said, come over when you have time, and with my 14 yr old audiophile and wife, we went, we listened to the Sabrina demo I had purchased but not picked up and the new Sabrina X.

We listened to demo/old first and the new X, and with the same music / room / equipment / seating, the improvement in every area was clearly evident. Even my wife, who walked out after the first couple of hours of listening to the Sabrina demo, then walked back later with the X playing and immediately said the sound improvement was not subtle. And this was with the X cold out of the box.

So, I changed my order from the demo to the X, and while the cost difference is substantial, I felt that I was no longer buying a Sabrina but a Sasha DAW at discount. I am now awaiting my first Wilson Audio speaker. I wish I have had since hearing the first Watt/Puppy in 1989!

premierm... Welcome to AA! :wave:

I‘m not sure it would be better driving my original Sabrinas (just updated with diodes/spikes) with 8ohms from my McIntosh MC312 amp.....?

The speaker itself says 4ohm, but i read that also Wilson Audio says their speakers doing better on 8ohms.....

Any thoughts?

Once you feel everything is well broken-in and you 'know the sound' on 8ohms, listen on 4ohms and you decide. Unless it is a stark difference, it may take some time listening to each to make your decision. Trust your ears.

Getting back to 4ohms i have to raise loudness a bit 3dB or so...

Breaking in the X
 

Well, I took delivery of the Sabrina X a week ago. Amazingly both boxes fit inside my vehicle, and bringing the boxes into the living room was straightforward with the help of my kids and placed the speakers where my KEF LS-50 and Sonus Faber Guarneri's usually are in my room.

First couple of days it was horrible, shouty high frequencies, average imaging, not much depth, very different than my experience at the dealer. Compared to my other speakers, I thought this was not much better and thought I had made a mistake.

So day three I started moving the speakers in the room, thanks to my dealer Entertainment Technology for letting me use their WA sliders, and things started to improve. The imaging was improving, the treble was starting to be less shouty, bass is not a concern for me yet, I could start hearing into the recordings. And then, I changed speaker cables from Audioquest Gibraltar to Audio Analysis silver, and boom, it was like a contractor came by and demolished my front wall. Oh my, such depth! Sure, I lost the body of the instruments a bit, but the speakers disappeared like no other speaker I've had in my room before. And believe me, I have switched speaker cables with my speakers before, but never this type of change.

Now after a week of playing pretty much all day, the speaker continues to improve in all areas. Speaker placement is as always critical, but the ease of the music presented in the stage is soooo good, I cannot tell if the speaker are working because all I hear is music. Push the speaker closer to the front wall increases the bass but makes the high frequencies too directional, bring them farther away and you loose bass but gain depth. Compared to my other speakers, the Sabrinas X tell you exactly what effect a simple change will make, even if the change is just inches.

And right now, this is my biggest take with the Sabrina X, if I change my Luxman integrated to line straight, loudness, or none of the above, I hear the change immediately. it's not a "I kind of hear a difference" but a "whoa" that was a change! The Sabrinas are that revealing. And to make things better from past WA speakers, to me at least, I do not have to have my head on a brace to get the most out of them. Whether I am sitting in the listening chair or relaxing at the end of my living room typing a post in this newsgroup, the music is just there, and it just keeps getting better every day.

So a week in, no regret, these are not only keepers, but I think this is my end game. I will let them cook about a month before I have the dealer come in and set them up. Then, it will be a cable change here, room treatment there, and slowly get the sound the way I want to. That is part of this audiophile world.

Very happy with the Wilson Audio Sabrina X. They just disappear and the music just lives in the air. Fantastic. More later as the weeks pass by.

I can tell you that McIntosh does not recommend impedance miss matching for their amps. An impedance miss match gives you a "larger" amp. It also stresses the amp.

Best

Charles

Sabrina X...now installed
 

I received a call from my dealer today to tell me that they were ready to come by and finish the installation in a COVID safe manner. I was surprised a bit. When I purchased the Sabrina X speakers, and when I picked them up, I was very clear with my dealer that I did NOT want them to come and install the speaker in my house UNTIL there was a COVID procedure I would be comfortable with. I also told them that I wanted to break the speakers in for at least a couple of weeks (unlike other WA models there is no time alignment of modules or assembly required for the Sabrina X, just unbox and place). So I thought about it. I figured, one week of breaking in the speakers was better than none, and if I wait longer it might be too cold to keep windows and doors open for circulating fresh air during the installation. So I agreed to the installation, and I am glad I did.

The Wilson Audio speaker placement process brought bass back. I already have a subwoofer for low frequencies (JL Audio f113) but because my room is open both to the left and right of my listening chair it’s difficult to pressurize the room due to the combined volume being so large, plus I usually place my speakers way out into the room (about 5’-6’ from the front wall) to avoid echo reflections. But after installation I got bass that I was obviously missing from my speaker placement decision. The spatial imagery also improved to the point where singers from some of my favorite recordings had a physical presence in the room to a level not experienced before. “An actual person is singing in my living room” say my ears, even though my eyes say “nope”. That kind of real! And if I could hear into the recording where I had placed the speakers before, now I was able to hear instrument placement and definition to a higher degree than from any other speaker I have had in my room before, and I’ve had several: Sonus Faber, NHT, Goldenear, KEF, JBL, B&W.

So what did I learn today? I learned that the installation of a Wilson Audio speaker by a qualified person probably IS the most important part of the Wilson Audio experience.

I believe the speakers will continue to break in, but at this moment, I could forever live with the Sabrina X the way they are now.

It took me 31 years to be part of the Wilson Audio family. And boy I am soooo glad to be here now.

Love, love, love my Sabrina X! Best speakers I have ever owned.