Wisdom Audio P20 User Manual
Owner’s Manual
Sage P20, P20m, P20i
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
Dynamic woofers...................................................................................................6
Big bass in small boxes? ..................................................................................6
Extraordinary drivers .......................................................................................6
Designed for biamplication ..................................................................................7
SC-1 System Controller ....................................................................................7
Unpacking & Setting Up the P20 ...................................................................8
Remote Setup via Modem ......................................................................................8
Making the P20 Connections ..........................................................................9
Unpacking & Installing the P20m .................................................................10
Mounting the P20m on the wall ..........................................................................10
Unpacking & Installing the P20i.................................................................... 12
Installing the P20i in the wall ..............................................................................12
Room Acoustics & Placement ........................................................................14
Start With the Room ............................................................................................14
Rigid Walls ....................................................................................................14
Speaker Placement ...............................................................................................15
Left & Right Speakers ....................................................................................15
Center Channel .............................................................................................15
Surround Speakers ........................................................................................16
Subwoofer Placement ..........................................................................................16
Room Treatment ..................................................................................................17
Professional Acoustic Design ...............................................................................17
References ...........................................................................................................18
Optimizing the System .................................................................................. 19
Care & Maintenance .....................................................................................20
North American Warranty ............................................................................21
Twenty Year Warranty ..........................................................................................21
Obtaining Service .........................................................................................22
Specications ................................................................................................23
P20 Dimensions ............................................................................................24
P20m Dimensions .........................................................................................25
P20i 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 P20 loudspeakers are specically designed to avoid the compromises
inherent in conventional speaker designs. The active crossover and room cor-
rection 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 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 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 pro-
vided 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.
• The pleating of the diaphragm allows greater excursions than are
otherwise available to small planar magnetic devices, further enhancing the driver’s ability to respond to dynamic program material.
When you become accustomed to the sound of your new Sage P20 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.
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, or
on the wall, or in a tall, slim freestanding speaker). These two design goals require rather extraordinary attention to myriad details.
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
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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 P20 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 & Setting Up the P20
The Wisdom Audio Sage P20 freestanding speaker is a substantial piece of
equipment. Please exercise caution when unpacking your P20 to ensure that
you do not strain yourself from its (perhaps unexpected) weight.
Caution! Do not attempt to lift your P20 while bending or twisting from the
waist. Use your legs for lifting, not your back.
Always stand as straight as possible and keep the P20 close to your
body to reduce strain on your back.
The P20 is shipped in a “telescoping” box (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 out of the box and lay it on a
soft surface (carpet or similar).
We do not recommend removing the grille on your new loudspeakers. The
grille is an integral part of the design; moreover, the planar magnetic lm should
never be touched, as it is tensioned precisely at the factory. The grille plays an
important protective role as well as an aesthetic one.
After unpacking your P20, keep all packing materials for future transport. In
the event that you need to ship your P20, only the original, purpose-designed
shipping carton is acceptable. Any other method of shipping this product runs
a signicant risk of damage to the P20 —damage that would not be covered by
the warranty. (If you lose your packaging and need to ship your speakers, replacement packaging can be purchased from Wisdom Audio.)
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Making the P20 Connections
As with any system, you should make changes to the connections only when
the power is turned off to avoid any chance of inadvertently causing a problem
(such as a short-circuit).
Two sets of speaker wires are required for each Sage P20 loudspeaker: one for
the woofer (low pass) section, and a separate one for the planar magnetic (high
pass) section that handles the midrange and treble.
We recommend using heavy-gauge speaker wire, particularly when the installation forces you to use longer wires than you might otherwise. A good rule of
thumb is to keep the “loop resistance” below 0.07 ohms.
The loop resistance can be easily measured with an inexpensive volt-ohm
meter. Simply twist the two conductors at one end of the cable together, and
then measure the DC resistance across the two conductors at the other end of
the speaker wire. Doing this measures the total resistance going down one side
and back the other, hence the term “loop resistance.” If this gure is at or below
0.07 ohms, you are in good shape.
For the purposes of this manual, we will assume that you have already connected the SC-1 System Controller as per the instructions found in its manual.
As such, you should have signal coming from your source component(s) to a
preamp/processor, and then on to the SC-1; following the SC-1, the signal is split
into low and high sections, with the low section going to one or more Wisdom
Audio SA-series ampliers, and the high section going to another amplier,
which will drive the planar magnetic panels.
We strongly recommend using spade, hook or ring lugs to terminate the speaker
wires whenever they are connected to the patented Cardas connectors, an example of which is shown below. Wisdom Audio uses these connectors on both
our power ampliers and on our freestanding loudspeakers.
Connect the outputs of your Wisdom Audio SA-series amplier to the appropri-
ate woofer sections, taking care to get both the channel assignments and the
polarity correct. Connect the positive (+) terminals on the SA-series amplier to
the positive (+) terminals for the woofer on the loudspeaker; likewise, connect
the negative (–) terminals on the amplier and the speaker, respectively.
Next connect the outputs of your chosen amplier for the midrange/treble to
the Sage P20 planar sections in a similar fashion, taking care with both channel
assignments and polarity.
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