Ridge Street Audio Sason Ltd. Loudspeaker


In a recent search on the discussion forums page, I stumbled across a few bits written on the RSA Sason Ltd. Loudspeaker. I admittedly have always been partial to the simplicity of a two way design. I was intrigued, however was unfamiliar with the product, so I went to RSA’s website to investigate further. I really wasn’t prepared for the aesthetic appeal these two ways possess (they’re visually stunning). I was also pleasantly surprised to find that RSA is a two hour drive from my home.
I called Robert at RSA and had a lengthy conversation about the Sason, and became interested enough to arrange an audition. BTW, Robert and Steve at RSA are probably two of the nicest fellows and are very accommodating.
Upon arriving, I can confidently say that any photograph of the Sason’s does not even remotely do these speakers justice. They are aesthetically first rate with an exhaustive attention to detail.
The RSA listening room is 19x12x7.5. The Sason’s are placed approx. 11 feet from the wall behind them, and 3 feet from the side walls. This near field position puts your ear about 6 to 7 feet from the speaker. Once I had seen the Sason’s and listened to Robert describe some of the design philosophies, I expected a lot from this speaker, however I was not prepared for what occurred over the next 13 hours. Yes, 13 hours - did I mention that Robert and Steve are really accommodating? The first couple of hours I used RSA’s system for evaluation, which included a highly modified, moderately priced Marantz cdp running direct into a pair of Pass Aleph 30 stereo amps that were vertically bi-amping the Sason’s. The Majority of cabling was RSA’s own Alethias with one pair of Poiema!!! Signature I/C’s linking the cdp and Pass amps. I really wasn’t familiar with the sonic traits of any of these components. I did take my McCormack DNA-2 w/ SMC rev. A amplifier which I used in the system later in the day. The room had some home made acoustic treatments consisting of egg crates surrounded by a wooden frame. These were placed at first reflection points and other strategic places. The room also had a few small tapestries hanging on the walls.
Although I don’t get into detail about each cd and the tracks used for comparison, here is a list of the cd’s I used for evaluation.

Jesse Cook-Vertigo
Cowboy Junkies-The Caution Horses
Diana Krall- Live in Paris
Stanley Clarke- East River Drive
George Skaroulis- Generations
Kotaro Oshio-Starting Point
Chris Spheeris- Eros
Isreal Kamakawiwo ‘ole- Facing Future
Tracy Chapman- New Beginning

In the first few moments of listening I was amazed by the Sason’s ability to completely disappear. I can only recall one other instance where another loudspeaker disappeared to this degree, which was the Avalon Eidolon a few years back. I have to believe a lot of this is attributed to the use of the granite cabinet, which seems to remove all cabinet colorations, leaving the drivers to do their thing. While we’re on the subject of drivers, I would like to point out that the Sason’s are fast……..lightening fast. Now that I have spent some time with the Sason’s, I better understand the Free Energy concept, which is outlined on the RSA website.
The second thing I noticed about the Sason’s is their incredible ability to render the timbral accuracy of instruments. The Sason’s truly conveyed the rich, woody character of a cello. They also managed to capture the size, authoritative nature, and beauty of a grand piano. I have always thought the piano was one of the most difficult instruments to recreate, but the Sason’s get the overhang and decay of notes just right. The Sason’s also reproduce the leading attack of notes correctly, whether it be the piano, acoustic guitar, or upright bass. The rendition of female vocals was astounding and life like. The Sason’s manage to give you that realistic “in the room” interaction with the performers. When listening thru the Pass amps, I got the sense that the sidewalls of the narrow room were a minor issue, however after switching to my DNA-2 the sidewalls seemed to disappear. I did get the impression that the Sason’s could easily fill a much larger room.
The Sason’s are very balanced across the audio spectrum. The highs were some of the smoothest I’ve heard. The upper registers were incredibly detailed, articulate, sweet and so convincing. The integration between the two drivers is superlative, and the notes seemed to hang in a three dimensional space. The midrange was superb, transparent and free from colorations, and had the ability to preserve the organic elements of instruments, which made it easy to be drawn into the presentation. The bass was tuneful, tight, fast and when called upon, visceral. I was taken back by not only the quality of bass, but the quantity of deep bass the Sason’s reproduced. They are indeed full range. I was also surprised at how dynamic these speakers are for a medium sized two way monitor.
One of my priorities has always been imaging. The Sason’s imaging capabilities are nothing short of magic. The soundstage was wide and tall, but not exaggerated. The Sason’s produced a generous amount of air and space around individual instruments, while still preserving the performance as a whole. The depth of soundstage was one of the most impressive I’ve heard. If your looking for an upfront in your face perspective, the Sason’s are probably not for you, however they don’t put you in the cheap seats either. I think they strike a nice balance between the two. These speakers seem to connect the listener in an emotional way to the performance unlike any I’ve heard. The ease and flow of music from the Sason’s allows the listener to forget about the equipment and be enveloped in musicality.
Late in the afternoon I had the opportunity to spend several hours talking with Steve Rothermel, the primary designer of the Sason. Steve was a wealth of information, and in great detail, described his design philosophies and all the technical features of his creation. Steve is very specific as to the design applications. There are no afterthoughts or band aids with his designs. As I mentioned before, there was an exhaustive attention to detail that went into designing the Sason’s.
In the past twenty years I’ve been very fortunate to have spent many listening hours with alot of great speakers. I’ve owned the Sonus Faber Amati Homage, Avalon Eclipse, Avalon Eclipse Classics, Vandersteen 3A’s, Martin Logan Quest Z’s, and currently use Magnepan 3.6r’s. I have extensively listened to Kharma’s, Genesis, Proac, Aerial Acoustics, B&W, and many other brands. There are traits I admire about all these speakers, however I can honestly say I don’t remember the last time I was so impressed with the overall sound of a speaker. If you can live without a handful of hz at the deepest bottom end, then IMHO I believe the Sason offers the complete sonic package, at least to my ears. I certainly give consideration to the fact that all listening was in an unfamiliar room with primarily unfamiliar equipment. I am looking forward to auditioning the Sason’s at my home with familiar surroundings and electronics. If last weeks experience with the Sason’s is a true indication of performance, I will more than likely be purchasing a pair as soon as my finances allow. I know I have somewhat glossed over some of the details regarding this speaker, however I am trying to keep this to a manageable length. I will do my best at trying to respond to any questions regarding my experience with the Sason’s. Happy Listening.
rhythmace4218
Hello Rhythmace (Darrin/Darrilton) and A'goNers.

Darrin, Thanks for making the trip over and I'm glad it was worth your time. Hope you get to make it again and, with your lovely Wife next time. (Note to Wife: Your Husband is very grateful for you!) Always enjoy when folks come visit.

Steve and I are still as excited about the Sason project as when we first intro'd it. It really is a world class transducer.

Perhaps a couple of points of interest:

The amps we use a lot of the time here are Pass Aleph 3 which are pretty tricked out. Not the Aleph 30. We use two of these - one for each speaker. Simple circuit, Class A single Ended throughout it's output - great little amp. The Sasons don't need a lot of power to do their magic, just good power. Steve's (McCormack) DNA-2 w/ SMC rev.A is a special amp and the Sasons did beautifully revealing that. Thanks for bringing that along Darrin.

The Sason Ltd. is not only made here in the USA, they're also made in our humble facility here. On top of that, no one touches these except Steve or I. We personally build every set. Wouldn't have it any other way. Which brings up this that I think is worth noting: As with virtually all dynamic loudspeakers, there's no real new "breakthrough" technology in the Sasons. We've simply re-analyzed ALL the engineering required to design a great loudspeaker and, by thinking outside the box so to speak, we've refined and optimized everything about it. (Where Steve provides the science or engineerical (What!?) prowess, I provide the side that makes loudspeaker design an art. Together, some would say we're scary.) This requires some pretty specialized attention for parts selection and during build. We have our own little tricks we do that no one else is doing. That's why we don't foresee jobbing these out or even hiring someone in house to build these. I suppose if there's a down side to this, it would be that we'll never sell 25 - 50 sets of these a month. The up side I think is that those folks who own and enjoy the Sason Ltd can be confident that their speakers are not another "highly regarded" "me too" offering.

Our music room here: It's almost too small for the Sason. That is to say, as well as they impress in our room here, they will perform even better in a room where they have more room to breath. There is one Gent who has a pair in a dedicated environment that's way bigger than I would imagine the Sasons to work in but, they perform all the better. Great story behind that. If requested, I'll post it here. And, though he has a sub he could use, he doesn't.

On the other hand, I can think of another Gent that has a pair in a smaller room than ours and is thrilled with how they're performing. In that room, the Sason replaced a well regarded five figure pair of monitor speakers. If I understand correctly, he also changed his amps to some low powered tube SETs.

Finally, Thank You Darrin for taking the time and effort to post your impressions. I think commentary like this is worth more for the true music enthusiast than all the slick ad campaigns a company might come up with...that somebody pays for (That'd be the consumer.). I would personally like ya'll to know too that Darrin is a well seasoned audio enthusiast and musician who's not given to writing a commentary unless it's well earned (good musicians are hard to impress) - a feather in our cap I suppose but still good for you to know...

Finally finally, (like, for real) whether you're in the market for better speakers (or cabling) or not, Steve and I would love to have any of you visit. Bring your music, your gear, or both. The new Alethias cabling is in the rig and the Sasons are singing. It would be fun.

Cheers to all of you and Happy Thanksgiving! Much to be grateful for, No?

Robert
RSAD
Robert, is the Pure Connect Direct™ speaker connection your own design? I'd love to see a picture of it.
Hello Drubin.

Don't really have a picture of it that shows what's going on so I'll try to explain it without giving away exactly what we do.

The platform for this arrangement uses Cardas Patented Binding Posts that we modify for our purposes. The modification allows the leads from the X-over to come out of the cab. and connect directly to spade ends on speaker cables. The Sason Ltd uses two sets of these per speaker for bi-wiring option.

One can't use speaker cables with banana connectors with this arrangement which, by our standards, I'm not particularly fond of anyway.

The Sason uses a custom built Poiema!!! Signature wire harness. Aside from the performance benefits, this harness works beautifully for what we wanted to achieve with the Pure Direct Connect design. Other cabling or simple hook up wire would compromise the design objective of the Pure Direct Connect arrangement.

While any speaker cable with spades will work as intended with the Pure Direct Connect, our MSE Gen II, Poiema series and Alethias speaker cables compliment this particularly well since the spades on the cables are not terminations but are milled into the ends of the speaker cable's conductors.

Not actually seeing the Pure Direct Connect arrangement, I can imagine one concern that might arise. That being good intimate contact pressure between the speaker cable spades to the X-over leads. No need for concern here. The X-over leads have enough surface area to fully accommodate the "footprint" of any spade up to a half inch wide. Most binding posts don't have that kind of flat surface area for spades to tighten against.

Another issue less obvious is that virtually all binding posts, whether the cheaper brass alloy, or better copper or silver posts, are not best for audio purposes. While the better posts are massively impressive and instill confidence when installing speaker cables, they are too massy for audio and are actually a bottleneck in that they introduce too much signal reflection because of their mass. We're not trying to weld here, just get the music from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. The Pure Direct Connect design instills installation confidence by making as intimate and tight contact pressure as anyone could possible want and is appropriately low mass well suited for audio.

So, there you have it. That's it.

On a personal recommendation for what it's worth, (and I have no vested interest in making this recommendation) my favorite 5 way binding post is the Eichmann Cable Pod. I've installed these on our amps and like them very much compared to other highly regarded posts.

Cheers!

Robert
RSAD