Wisdom Audio L150 User Manual
Owner’s Manual
Sage L150i & L150m
Biamplied
Planar Magnetic Hybrid
Loudspeakers
Table of Contents
Introduction ....................................................................................................4
About this manual ..................................................................................................4
Please register your system ....................................................................................4
Description .....................................................................................................5
Planar magnetic panels ..........................................................................................5
Free from compression....................................................................................5
More reliable ..................................................................................................5
Easy on ampliers ...........................................................................................6
Line source behavior .......................................................................................6
Dynamic woofers...................................................................................................7
Big bass in small boxes? ..................................................................................7
Extraordinary drivers .......................................................................................7
Designed for biamplication ..................................................................................8
SC-1 System Controller ....................................................................................8
Remote Setup via Modem ......................................................................................8
Unpacking & Installing the L150i ....................................................................9
Unpacking & Installing the L150m ................................................................11
Room Acoustics & Placement ........................................................................13
Start With the Room ............................................................................................13
Rigid Walls ....................................................................................................13
Speaker Placement ...............................................................................................14
Left & Right Speakers ....................................................................................14
Center Channel .............................................................................................14
Surround Speakers ........................................................................................15
Subwoofer Placement ..........................................................................................15
Room Treatment ..................................................................................................16
Professional Acoustic Design ...............................................................................16
References ...........................................................................................................17
Optimizing the System .................................................................................. 18
Care & Maintenance .....................................................................................19
North American Warranty ............................................................................20
Twenty Year Warranty ..........................................................................................20
Obtaining Service .........................................................................................21
Specications ................................................................................................22
L150i Bass Section Dimensions .....................................................................23
L150i Planar Section Dimensions ..................................................................24
L150m Bass Section Dimensions ...................................................................25
L150m Planar Section Dimensions ...............................................................26
Notes .............................................................................................................27
Introduction
Congratulations on purchasing your Wisdom Audio system. It incorporates many
design features designed to give you decades of pleasure and performance.
Many of these design choices are uncommon among loudspeaker manufacturers, and bear some explanation. See the following section entitled “Description”
for more information.
Our unique driver designs and our emphasis on achieving real-world performance account for the “system” approach taken. These are not speakers that
are simply connected to speaker wires and promptly forgotten. We recognize
that setting up a Wisdom Audio system is a bit more involved than connecting
a common set of loudspeakers, which is why we insist that our dealers perform
the installation and calibration of the systems. We know that the extra effort
(particularly as regards setting up the SC-1 System Controller) yields vastly improved results.
About this manual This manual focuses on the loudspeakers themselves. In order to fully under-
stand the system, we recommend you also review the manual for the SC-1
System Controller, without which these speakers will not perform correctly.
While we expect your local Wisdom Audio dealer to take care of the setup and
calibration of the system, we still recommend that you at least briey review this
and the other manuals (SC-1, SA-series ampliers) to understand the system’s full
capabilities.
Your Sage L150i loudspeakers are specically designed to avoid the compromises inherent in conventional speaker designs. The active crossover and room
correction circuitry in the SC-1 is essential to the speakers’ proper operation. In
addition, the SA-series ampliers are specically designed to meet the needs of
the unique bass system of your Sage L150i speakers. It is truly a “system” design,
and not merely a collection of loudspeaker drivers in a box.
Please register your system To register your warranty, please complete the form at the following address on
the internet:
http://www.wisdomaudio.com/registration/
Doing so will ensure that there will be no delays should you ever require warranty service. If accessing the internet is inconvenient, you can send a copy of
the sales receipt (showing your name, address and the products purchased) to
the address shown in the North American Warranty section of this manual.
Wisdom Audio does not and will not ever share its mailing list with other companies. Nor do we expect to contact you frequently, since you are buying a
product that should last a lifetime. However, we would like to be in a position to
contact you should a software update become available for the system controller (as an example).
Lastly, please keep your sales receipt in a safe and easily found place. If you do
not register your purchase with the company, it is your only proof of warranty.
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Description
Your Sage L150i loudspeakers take advantage of
several critical technologies to deliver a level of
performance that has never been available in a
loudspeaker that intruded so modestly on your
living space. In fact, this level of performance has
rarely been attained, regardless of the space and
budget at one’s disposal.
Since most of these technologies cannot readily be
found elsewhere, we will take the time to describe
them in more detail than would be necessary for
more conventional designs.
Planar magnetic panels Our planar magnetic drivers use an advanced, thin
lm membrane to move the air. This lm can respond instantly to the smallest detail in the signal.
It has vastly less inertia than traditional “cone &
dome” drivers, so the signal is never blurred in any
way.
The motive
force is provided by a “voice coil” that is
printed on the lm, which is suspended in a
strong magnetic eld provided by neodymium magnets behind and in front of the lm.
The ratio of available force to the moving
mass is huge, which means that the diaphragm does exactly what it is told; nothing more, nothing less.
Free from compression One of the most remarkable things about the sound of well-designed planar
magnetic speakers is their lack of thermal or dynamic compression. There are
several reasons for this:
• The lightweight diaphragm responds quickly to even the smallest
signals, yet is robust enough to handle enormous ones.
• The fact that heat does not build up in the voice coil (as it does
in conventional dynamic drivers) means that the load seen by the
amplier does not change at high power levels.
When you become accustomed to the sound of your new Sage L150i speakers,
conventional speakers sound a bit bland and lifeless.
More reliable The “voice coil” in the planar magnetic driver is spread out over a large, at area
that is exposed to the open air. As such, when a huge transient comes along,
any heat that is generated is immediately dissipated. This compares quite favorably to other designs in which the voice coil is buried inside a massive piece of
metal, where the heat has effectively no place to go.
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The excellent heat dissipation of these drivers makes them remarkably reliable.
Planar magnetic speakers can handle a great deal of power without undue stress
or audible strain. In fact, for a given size, they can handle many times the power
of a traditional dynamic driver.
Easy on ampliers Because the conductor is essentially a long, thin wire, it presents a purely resis-
tive load to the amplier. This is comparable to the simple test loads that amplier companies use when measuring their ampliers to show how terric they
are. As such, you can be assured that your ampliers will sound and work their
best.
Line source behavior Almost all loudspeakers radiate sound into the room as imperfect “point
sources.” This means that most of the energy they put into the room expands as
an ever-enlarging sphere, as though emerging from a single point in space. This
results in a multitude of reections from the ceiling and oor that can degrade
sound quality.
By contrast, the Sage L150i speakers radiate sound as a “line source.” The sound
moves into the room as an expanding cylinder, rather than as an expanding
sphere — as though from a vertical line suspended in space.
Line source speakers provide two signicant advantages:
• ceiling and oor reections are minimized, resulting in greatly re-
duced interference, letting you hear more of the speaker and less
of the room;
• the sound pressure level (SPL) throughout the room is much
more evenly distributed, making it much easier to set the “right”
volume, no matter where the audience is seated.
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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 magnetic technology, it becomes possible to have drivers that are extremely tall and
slim. In the Sage L150, 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 uniformly 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 reections from the ceiling and the
oor, 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 performance 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-specic equalizer, and a room correction system) and
the matching SA-series ampliers. By dedicating high power ampliers we can
give people what they want: great bass without huge, ugly boxes that are dif-
cult 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 magnetic drivers right up to the crossover frequency.
Our woofers are different because they must be in order to do their job. Specically, we need highly dynamic, uncompressed bass (to keep up with the planar
magnetic drivers) from an unusually small enclosure (so it will t in the wall).
These two design goals require rather extraordinary attention to myriad details.
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The magnetic structures employed in the Sage Series woofers are signicantly
stronger than is commonly available — more than twice as powerful as typical
woofers, in fact. In addition, our voice coils are larger and capable of handling
more power than would be expected for a driver of similar size. Even the sur-
rounds that attach the diaphragm to the woofer’s basket (the metal frame) have
to be unusually rugged. Everything about the woofers has been optimized for
their intended application, which involves reproducing powerful, dynamic bass
from an extremely small enclosure.
Designed for biamplication 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 nest results. Of course, this requires having a dedicated,
active crossover to divide the frequency range appropriately before the power
ampliers, so that they can then drive the speakers directly. It also requires two
sets of speaker wires for each loudspeaker.
Biamplication makes use of two channels of amplication to drive different
portions of the audio spectrum. The most common instance of “bi-amping”
today is in home theater applications, wherein a dedicated subwoofer handles
the deepest bass, while the remaining audible range is handled by the various
front and surround speakers. But you can also biamplify a full range loudspeaker, driving the woofer separately from the drivers that handle the midrange and
treble frequencies. Your Sage L150i is such a speaker, designed to use separate
ampliers for the woofer and the planar sections of each loudspeaker.
Since each channel of the amplier is delivering current into its load only over
a limited range of frequencies, several forms of distortion are reduced as compared to each channel handling the full range of musical information. Moreover,
since each amplier is “direct-connected” to the driver for which it is responsible, there are no passive component losses and the amplier can control the
motion of its assigned transducer with far greater nesse and precision.
But perhaps most importantly, biamplication allows us to dedicate the amount
of high quality power required to deliver outsized bass from small enclosures. It
would not be practical or even possible to obtain bass performance on this level
without a dedicated amplier driving the woofers solely and directly.
SC-1 System Controller In order to realize these benets, an active crossover must accurately divide the
signal into the low and high ranges. The Wisdom SC-1 System Controller serves
that purpose, while also providing both system-specic equalization (to compensate for the unusually small woofer enclosures) and sophisticated room correction to minimize distortions introduced by the room itself. The goal is simple:
to achieve consistently excellent results in the real world of the owner’s home.
After all, that’s all that really matters.
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Unpacking & Installing the L150i
Your new Wisdom Audio Sage L150i in-wall speaker is a substantial piece of
equipment. Please exercise caution when unpacking your L150i to ensure that
you do not strain yourself from its (perhaps unexpected) weight.
Caution! Do not attempt to lift your L150i by yourself. Unpacking these
speakers is easy for two people, but it is unwise for a single person to
attempt doing so.
Do not attempt to lift your L150i while bending or twisting from the
waist. Use your legs for lifting, not your back.
Always stand as straight as possible and keep the L150i close to your
body to reduce strain on your back.
The loudspeaker comes “telescoping” boxes (two ve-sided boxes, one of
which ts snugly inside the other). Gently roll the box over so that its bottom is
facing up. Then carefully cut the tape along the bottom of the box on all four
sides. Roll the box over again so the bottom is on the oor, and lift off the top.
With one person at each end, carefully lift the speaker components out of the
box and lay them on a soft surface (carpet or similar).
There are three major pieces involved in a single L150i loudspeaker:
• the Uni-Grip™ in-wall mounting systems (two included)
• the high operating pressure bass module
• the planar magnetic midrange/treble module
Note that the two Uni-Grip™ frames for the L150i are not interchangeable, due
to differences in the pattern of threaded holes used to attach the planar and
woofer speaker modules to the frame of each Uni-Grip™. Pay close attention to
the labeling on each, which indicates “Planar Section, Top” or “Woofer Section,
Top” respectively.
In most cases, the planar magnetic section of the L150i will be inside of the
woofer sections. In addition, the two sections must be within approximately 5”
of each other and should typically ank either side of a stud.
Because of the magnitude of the bass energy of which the L150i is capable, it is
strongly recommended that the walls into which the L150i is installed are reinforced and as strong as feasible.
In new construction or remodeling applications, we recommend framing in
dedicated spaces that are between 10-11 inches wide for the woofer sections,
just slightly wider than the 9.52 inches required by the Uni-Grip™ frame. If the
wall is going to be skim-coated with plaster after construction, consider using
3
⁄4-inch plywood or MDF for the wall for superior strength. (This approach is
advantageous for the woofer sections; the reaction mass of the planar section is
extremely low, and does not require this level of reinforcement.)
1. Determine the area for the speaker installation and locate the
cutout guide using push pins to secure it in place. Ensure that the
template is plumb using a bubble level or similar. Note: Make cer-
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