Wisdom Audio

“For a speaker manufacturer to not recognize the importance of room interaction is either disingenuous or willfully naïve,” said Wisdom Audio’s Jon Herron, during his demonstration of the tall, slim L75 loudspeaker ($18,700/pair) and its outboard SC-1 crossover ($6500).

At the time, I was marveling over the system’s full-range, large-scale, dramatic sound. I found myself looking up in the air, feeling as though I was seated in a concert hall or movie theater, surrounded by sound.

In the Wisdom L75, a 48” planar-magnetic line source handles frequencies above 275Hz, while four proprietary woofers handle the lows. Behind the curtain, to the left of the image, was a Wisdom Audio SCS subwoofer ($4000). The speaker system was tri-amplified, three Musical Fidelity amplifiers called into service, while dCS Puccini stack accepted signals from a MacBook running iTunes via Pure Music. Transparent cables tied everything together.

You might think that, with all those drivers and the additional sub, you’d notice some discontinuity in the sound, but, to my ears, the sound was very coherent, the sub well integrated with the towers.

“This system is for people who want the ultimate two-channel system,” continued Herron, “but who also want to enjoy the best of multichannel and movies.”

To that end, the Wisdom L75s are also available in on-wall or in-wall configurations.

COMMENTS
POW_WOW's picture

Stephen Mejias's picture

Jim Noyd, public relations representative for Wisdom Audio, offers this explanation.

fleet58's picture

Short version: when implemented properly, a line source has wide horizontal dispersion but extremely limited vertical dispersion. The result minimizes ceiling and floor reflections (which are usually difficult to minimize), allowing you to hear more of the speaker and less of the room. 

There is also a difference in propagation loss (more uniform SPL over a larger area). But the big thing for most people is greater clarity due to fewer early reflections. 

Axiom05's picture

Is that the same Jon Herron who used to work for Mark Levinson/Madrigal?

fleet58's picture

Yes, it is.

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