Wilson Audio Specialties Lōkė: SUBWOOFER

Piece of cake, thought I. All I needed to do to review Wilson Audio Specialties' smallest active subwoofer, the Löke ($8950 each in standard finish), was describe how low a pair goes in my room and how cleanly they woof.

- JASON VICTOR SERINUS

As I was soon to learn, though, there was a lot more to reviewing Lökēs than that. Why? Because a pair of Löke subwoofers does more than reinforce the already deep bass extension¹ of the Wilson Alexia V loudspeakers with which they are now paired in my system. Therein lies the tale.

Behind the woof 

"Wilson Audio has a long history with subwoofers," Wilson CEO Daryl Wilson² explained during a Zoom conversation that also included Blake Schmutz, director of the Wilson Audio Special Applications Engineering (WASAE) division.³

"If you go back to our original WAMM, which was low frequency limited, my father complemented it with two large woofer towers. Then, later, for people with space issues, he released the passive WHOW [Wilson High-Output Woofer] as an option. After that came the active POW WHOW, with a built-in amplifier. Fast-forward 15 years, to right after the X-1 Grand SLAMM was introduced, when my father asked Chief Engineer Vern Credille4 to create the huge XS,5 the ultimate subwoofer for home theater."

Since peaking in size with the XS, Wilson subs have gotten smaller and smaller, responding to dealer and consumer demands. When Wilson employees added their voices, expressing a desire for an even smaller subwoofer for their own setups that was reasonably priced by Wilson standards, the LōKe was born.