My good friend has ARC VM220 tube mono amps for his Sasha 2's and speaks very highly of the combo.
BEST AMPS FOR WILSON SASHA
hi, i have in this moment a ayon cd5s cdplayer with built in preamplifier , pass x250 amps and wilson sasha speaker ( i love sasha), i want a new and better amplifier, the options are two, pass xa100.8 monoblocks or cary 211fe monoblock, what is the better option for the sasha?, your opinion please
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- 97 posts total
I am not a Sasha owner, but I do have Wilsons. I think the Cary is risky. I love tubes, but I think the 200 watts of pure class A in the Pass amp will be a better driver to the Sasha. I would be worried about lack of power with the Cary. i have 100 watts of tube power driving my Sophia 2's, and I think even the easier to drive Sophia could benefit from more power. The Sasha, being a more challenging speaker to drive, would probably do better with the stronger of the two amps. |
A big +1 for the Pass amps, as they will stay uniform over the audio band range in frequency response driving the Sasha varying loads. The 211’s will act like a tone control and not stay flat in it’s power delivery, especially around 60- 100hz where the Sasha is 2ohm and -45 degree phase angle and where the power is really needed, the 211’s will sound thin/bright and with very low bass drive and control. (That 2ohms and -45degree can equate to an even lower than 1ohm perceived load to an amp!!!) http://cdn.stereophile.com/images/archivesart/710Wilfig1.jpg Quote from Stereophile measurements:
Cheers George |
I agree with George. The Sasha’s impedance curve suggests that it probably would not be an optimal or even a good sonic match for a triode-based amplifier that is described as using no global feedback. It would be possible to say with greater certainty if the output impedance or damping factor of the 211FE were specified, or indicated in published measurements, but I couldn’t find any such numbers. The ARC tube amp Mark indicated a friend uses successfully with the Sasha 2 is a different animal altogether. Like many ARC amps it uses a significant amount of feedback (14 db), and has a higher damping factor (12), and therefore a lower output impedance, than most other high quality tube amps. And of course it is significantly more powerful than the 211FE. So I would not extrapolate any expectations about a 211FE/Sasha pairing from reports about ARC tube amp/Sasha pairings. Good luck. Regards, -- Al |
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