Wisdom To Roll Out Flagship Speakers

By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 11/24/2010

Carson City, Nev. - Wisdom Audio will be a high roller in Vegas, where the company will attend International CES with its highest-end in-room speaker series to date.

The Wisdom series consists of two line-source planar-magnetic tower speakers priced at $30,000 and $40,000 each.

Because each model is only 12 inches deep, interior designers can them behind decorative, acoustically transparent cloth for a completely hidden installation, the company said.

"Through customer feedback, we identified an opportunity to address both the ultra-high-end audio market and installations for large theaters where high sensitivity and maximum SPL are critical," said Wisdom president Mark Glazier of the new series. The new speakers also deliver "tremendous dynamic range," the company said.

 The speakers are designed work with the company's $10,000 STS subwoofer, said to combine musicality with the high-output extended bass needed for home theaters in large residential spaces.

 Each LS speaker incorporates multiple 20-inch-tall individual modules, each module incorporating two planar magnetic upper bass/lower midrange drivers flanking a planar magnetic upper midrange/high-frequency driver in a vertical line source configuration. The drivers are actively crossed over. Each module uses an interlocking system invisible from the front to couple multiple modules together to make a line-source system, which provides "a coherent acoustical wavefront with ultra-wide horizontal dispersion and controlled vertical dispersion," the company said.

 The LS4 uses four modules with a total vertical line-source height of 80 inches, said to be ideal for placement to the sides of a large front-projection screen or for use as left-right stereo channels.

 The LS3 consists of three modules with a combined vertical line source height of 60 inches, making it suitable for center-channel use. For use behind a perforated acoustically transparent screen, three LS3 models could be used for the front channels.

 Multiple LS3 and LS4 models can be mixed-and-matched to create a multichannel home theater system because they feature identical acoustical characteristics, the company said.

  In each module, the dual upper bass/lower midrange planar magnetic drivers handle frequencies from 80 Hz to 750 Hz. From there, the single upper midrange/tweeter planar-magnetic driver extends response beyond 20 kHz.

  The LS4 features 100dB efficiency at 1 watt/2.83V and high power handling, to deliver 130dB SPLs.

 Both models feature curved arc enclosures with burled-walnut panels. Additional finishes will be available, including matte black for behind-the-screen installation.

 For deeper bass, consumers can mate the speakers with the STS dual 15-inch subwoofer, powered via Wisdom's Sage Series SA-1 amplifier/crossover network. The sub delivers 130dB SPL at 20Hz, in large part due to its Regenerative Transmission Line design in which energy from the back side of the driver is sent along a long, folded path to deliver the back waves to the front side of the driver in phase. The design delivers a 6dB increase in output, the company said.

  A pair of STS subwoofers can be mated to a single SA-1 amplifier, which drives two STS units via its single input.