Skip the new sedan—the new Wisdom Audio Sage L75 Floorstanding Speakers are a better way to spend $31,000.

Setting the Stage

The L75 speaker system is part of Wisdom Audio's Sage Series, which has 20 in-wall, on-wall and floorstanding speakers. They are all hybrid speakers, so they incorporate newly designed, proprietary, thin-film planar magnetic drivers for mid and high frequencies and conventional drivers for bass.

The floorstanding L75 is the little brother of the L-150i, the company's flagship speaker system that actually requires an entire wall. While not as elaborate, the L75 is an elegant visual statement in its own right. Their 7-inch-wide column stands almost 7 feet tall.

The monolithic presence nicely complements the room and not so subtly suggests to a visitor that their host is very serious about music appreciation. In short, the L75 is a speaker system for the dedicated audiophile. It is also available as an in-wall speaker, the L75i, or as an on-wall model, the L75m.

Each Sage L75 has four, 6-inch woofers accompanied by 48-inch planar magnetic drivers. These drivers have a thin membrane with a voice coil spread over their surface, sandwiched between two very strong neodymium magnets.

Wisdom Audio compares the coils to the wires in a rear window defogger of an automobile. As current flows through the voice coil, it reacts with the magnets and causes the membrane to move, thus producing sound. The system is crossed over at 275 hertz.

For the hardware-minded, the Wisdom L75 requires bi-amplification, either your hand-picked power amplifiers or Wisdom’s SA Series of ICE-powered digital amps. The system also requires the use of the Wisdom Audio SC-1, an active crossover/equalizer that controls the system's performance. The preamp, control amp or source used in the system should ideally have balanced-line XLR outputs to connect to the SC-1, although RCA to XLR adapters can be used.

The L75 is not a cash-and-carry speaker system. It must be set up and tuned for the listening room by a professional installer. Your installer will also have to calibrate the system, taking into account the system’s placement and acoustic characteristics of the room. The Audessey MultEQ Pro system, included in the SC-1, is employed for this task. A calibrated microphone placed in multiple listening positions (as many as 32) equalizes the speaker for the room.

Once set up, the SC-1 has three EQ memories from which to choose, plus an unequalized (no room correction) setting. The three available target curves are Flat, the Wisdom EQ curve (very pleasing) and the Wisdom Gaming curve (in my opinion, the best, but with a little bump in the lower bass). The installer can also perform subtle EQ tweaks on each curve to dial it in to customer preferences. A full discussion about the Audyssey MultEQ Pro system is best left for another review, but it produced remarkable results with the L75 speakers.

Audioquest provided cables for this review: XLR interconnects from their Colorado series and their K2 series speaker cables.

My review system consisted of two L75s, two Wisdom Audio SA-2 power amps (500 watts times two, each), the SC-1 and a Parasound P 7 control amplifier, a Yamaha CDX-1060 CD player and Yamaha DVD-S2300 DVD-A/SACD player.