Wisdom Sage L100i, Owner'S Manual

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To achieve this highly desirable line source behavior, it is essential to have a tall
and slim driver. (Simply stacking multiple “cone & dome” high frequency drivers
does not create a proper line source. Instead, it creates a
series of point sources
which end up interfering with each other.) With Wisdom Audio’s planar mag-
netic technology, it becomes possible to have drivers that are
extremely tall and
slim. In the Sage L100, for example, the active area of the midrange/treble driver
is approximately 1“ (25mm) wide by 72” (1.8m) tall.
Because of this shape, the sound (even at high frequencies) is distributed uni-
formly across the width of the room from a driver that “looks” only about an
inch wide acoustically. However, the sound is launched in a much more direc-
tional way vertically. By minimizing early reflections from the ceiling and the
floor, the clarity of the system is greatly enhanced. This is heard in both tremen-
dous musical detail and in much-improved dialog intelligibility.
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
www.wisdomaudio.com.
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 still provide the best perfor-
mance at low frequencies as compared to any alternative technology.
In order to get comparable performance from a planar magnetic design, you
would need to have a huge speaker that would be impractical in most domestic
living spaces. It simply makes more sense to use the best 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.
Big bass in small boxes?
There is an old truism in loudspeaker design that goes something like this: “ deep
bass, small enclosure, or high sensitivity — pick two out of the three. ” No one
can cheat the laws of physics. If you want deep bass from a small box, you will
need to make up for the small size with equalization and extra power.
Fortunately, our system design comes to the rescue.
The system design includes both the SC-1 System Controller (which serves as an
active crossover, a system-specific equalizer, and a room correction system) and
the matching SA-series amplifiers. By dedicating high power amplifiers we can
give people what they want: great bass without huge, ugly boxes that are dif-
ficult to place.
Extraordinary drivers
Of course, the woofers themselves must be rather extraordinary in order to both
handle the power we deliver to them, and to “keep up” with the planar mag-
netic drivers right up to the crossover frequency.
Our woofers are different because they must be in order to do their job. Specifi-
cally, we need highly dynamic, uncompressed bass (to keep up with the planar
magnetic drivers) from an unusually small enclosure (so it will fit in the wall).
These two design goals require rather extraordinary attention to myriad details.