Wisdom Integrates Custom Speakers, Room Correction
By Joseph Palenchar -- TWICE, 9/5/2007 9:00:00 PM
DENVER—Wisdom Audio is launching its Sage series of architectural speakers, which it believes is the industry’s first full line of architectural speakers with integrated DSP-based room correction.
Polk Audio, in contrast, offers two architectural speakers with integrated amplifier/DSP processor that incorporates room-correction functions.
The Sage series is Wisdom’s first series of in-wall and on-wall speakers, and the series consists initially of five narrow-and-shallow speakers from 15 inches to 95 inches-tall, each in three configurations: in-wall, on-wall or in-room. To that, Sage adds multiple center channels and a dual-woofer in-wall subwoofer round out the series.
All speakers can be connected to the SC-1 system controller, which incorporates outboard DSP electronic crossover in a 7.3-in/14.3-out configuration and Audyssey MultEQ XT room-correction software. The woofer sections of the speakers are driven in active biamped mode by custom-tailored 2x500-watt and 3x500-watt amplifiers. The amps, in packages of two or more, drive all woofers in biamped mode in a typical stereo or home theater application, said president Mark Glazier. Installers select their own amps for the higher frequencies.
MultEQ Pro takes up to 32 measurements around a listening area and applies equalization filters to compensate for a room’s acoustic anomalies in the amplitude and time domains for all speakers, including subwoofers. Separate settings can be programmed for music or movie modes.
The speakers keep their trim shape through the use of planar-magnetic tweeter/midranges and one or more oblong-shaped constrained layer fiber composite woofers (CLFC). Despite the woofers’ narrow width, each delivers the piston area of a 10-inch driver and total voice-coil circumference of a 6-inch voice coil in the frame width of a 5-inch driver, the company said. Each driver assembly in the speakers have their own back box.
The in-walls feature integrated back boxes with patent-pending Uni-Grip mounting solution, which attaches the speaker enclosure around its entire perimeter to the wallboard in a way said to reinforce the strength of a wall in some cases.
