News

Producing a new loudspeaker every 12 months is no mean feat, but that's precisely what high-end manufacturer Wilson Audio has consistently managed to do over the last five years. And now we're treated to the latest innovation, playfully named Yvette – a three-way design that sits between the entry-level Sabrina and Sasha 2 floorstanders. Described by the company as drawing from traditional Wilson virtues including dynamic resolution and soundstaging, Yvette derives its core technology from its enviable R&D department and is modestly described as the most advanced and musically refined single-enclosure loudspeaker in the company's history. 

Hand-built in Utah, the three-way floorstander boasts a more compact form factor than what's come before and perhaps more significantly, it's more affordable. Like its more recent predecessors, it is the beneficiary of Wilson's extensive composites research, and the enclosure is built primarily from the latest third-generation of X-Material – an extremely well-damped and inert composite – and S-Material, which was developed to provide an exquisite midrange performance and is used in the midrange baffle. 

The distinctive 178mm midrange driver is constructed from a cellulose/paper pulp composite and is angled to optimise the time domain relationship between itself and the tweeter above it and bass driver below. Similarly optimised, the 25mm silk dome benefits from Wilson's Convergent Synergy Tweeter technology – also found in the Sasha Series 2 and
Alexx floorstanders – and features its rear-wave diffraction and ultra-low resonance rear chamber developments to aid performance. 

Completing the picture is the 254mm paper pulp bass driver, aided by a rear port. The bass baffle is angled back slightly towards the midrange, claiming better dispersion accuracy in the upper bass.  

Each Yvette enclosure weights 79kg – owing to the X-material construction used in the cabinet as well as in the bass and tweeter baffles – and is extensively braced and precisely shaped for fully optimised time alignment of the drive units. Sensitivity is quoted as 86dB, with a minimum amplifier power output rating of 50W per channel. The Yvette's dimensions are 336 x 1,041 x 509mm (WxHxD) and it can be made in any colour desired. Wilson Audio is distributed in the UK by Absolute Sounds and Yvette is on sale now for £28,880.