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or audible strain. In fact, for a given size, they can handle many times the power
of a traditional dynamic driver.
Easy on amplifiers
Because the conductor is essentially a long, thin wire, it presents a purely resis-
tive load to the amplifier. This is comparable to the simple test loads that ampli-
fier companies use when measuring their amplifiers to show how terrific they
are. As such, you can be assured that your amplifiers will sound and work their
best.
For more detailed information on the loudspeaker drivers in general, and planar
magnetic drivers in particular, please refer to the Planar Magnetic Technology
white paper that can be found on the Wisdom Audio web site, at
http://www.wisdomaudio.com/pdfs/pm_white-paper.pdf.
Dynamic woofers
Authoritative, deep bass requires that you move a lot of air. We have chosen to
use dynamic woofers for the bass because they provide superior performance at
low frequencies.
In order to get comparable performance from a planar magnetic design, you
would need to have an extremely large (and more costly) speaker such as the
Wisdom Series LS3 or LS4. When size or budgets dictate a smaller solution,
it simply makes more sense to use the best practical transducer technology in
each area of the reproduced spectrum. One of Wisdom Audio’s strengths is in
seamlessly blending these technologies — particularly important given the high
standards set by our planar magnetic drivers.
Active Crossover
People who have wanted to extract the highest performance from their systems
have known for a long time that driving each section of the speaker directly and
separately yields the finest results. Of course, this requires having a dedicated,
active crossover to divide the frequency range appropriately before the power
amplifiers, so that they can then drive the speakers directly. It also requires two
sets of speaker wires for each loudspeaker.
Biamplification makes use of two channels of amplification to drive different
portions of the audio spectrum. The most common instance of “biamping”
today is in home theater applications, wherein a dedicated subwoofer handles
the deepest bass, while the remaining audible range is handled by the vari-
ous front and surround speakers. But you can also biamplify a full range loud-
speaker, driving the woofer separately from the drivers that handle the midrange
and treble frequencies. Your Sage Cinema Point 2 is such a speaker, designed to
enable the use of separate amplifiers for the woofer and the planar sections of
each loudspeaker.
Since each channel of the amplifier is delivering current into its load only over
a limited range of frequencies, several forms of distortion are reduced as com-
pared to each channel handling the full range of musical information. Moreover,
since each amplifier is “direct-connected” to the driver for which it is respon-
sible, there are no passive component losses and the amplifier can control the
motion of its assigned transducer with far greater finesse and precision.
Passive Crossover
The Sage Cinema Series introduces the option of using either a passive cross-
over (similar to those found in almost all other speakers) or bypassing it entirely
in favor of the active approach described above. As delivered, the Point 2 is
