Wisdom Sage STS User manual

Owner’s Manual
Sage STS
High Output Subwoofer

Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................4
About this manual..................................................................................................4
Please register your system ....................................................................................4
Description .....................................................................................................5
Regenerative Transmission Line™...........................................................................5
Unpacking the STS ..........................................................................................6
Room Acoustics & Placement..........................................................................7
Start With the Room ..............................................................................................7
Rigid Walls......................................................................................................7
Speaker Placement.................................................................................................8
Left & Right Speakers ......................................................................................8
Center Channel...............................................................................................8
Remote Setup via Modem......................................................................................8
Surround Speakers..........................................................................................9
Subwoofer Placement ............................................................................................9
Room Treatment ..................................................................................................10
Professional Acoustic Design ...............................................................................10
References ........................................................................................................... 11
Setting Up the STS ........................................................................................12
Making the STS Connections.........................................................................13
Installing the STS an Adjacent Space.............................................................14
Tips and Ideas......................................................................................................22
Black out the HVAC and snorkel ...................................................................23
Limited access situations ...............................................................................24
Installing under the oor...............................................................................24
Optimizing the System..................................................................................26
North American Warranty ............................................................................27
Normal Twenty Year Warranty.............................................................................27
Harsh Condition Use ...........................................................................................27
Obtaining Service .........................................................................................28
Specications................................................................................................29
STS Dimensions.............................................................................................30
Notes.............................................................................................................31

4
Introduction
Congratulations on purchasing your Wisdom Audio subwoofer. The STS’s
Regenerative Transmission Line™technology delivers tremendous bass perfor-
mance in terms of depth, dynamics, and distortion resulting in articulate bass
that integrates seamlessly with high-resolution main speakers such as Wisdom
Audio’s Sage Series.
About this manual This manual focuses on the STS subwoofer itself. In order to fully understand the
system, we recommend you also review the manual for the SC-1 System Con-
troller.
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 briey review this
and the other manuals (SC-1, SA-series ampliers) to understand the system’s full
capabilities.
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 war-
ranty 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 com-
panies. 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 control-
ler (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.

5
Description
Your Wisdom Audio STS subwoofer uses a
modern implementation of an old idea for
high quality, low distortion bass reproduc-
tion. While the roots of the Regenerative
Transmission Line™go back to the 1950’s,
it is the combination of modern computer
modeling and the vastly more powerful
motors of contemporary driver design that
make the RTL™so special.
Regenerative
Transmission Line™
There is a class of bass enclosures that has
been around since the 1950’s, which can
be described generically as “low frequency
tapped waveguides” or “tapped pipes.” It
was an idea that was a bit ahead of its time
then, since fully optimizing its use required
both powerful drivers and computer mod-
eling. But if you are into such things, check
out US Patent 2,765,864 (led in 1955),
and an AES paper published in 1959,
“Analysis of a Low Frequency Loudspeaker
System.” We have published both on our
website for your convenience, at
http://www.wisdomaudio.com/support_documents.php
We have utilized sophisticated modeling software in order to fully optimize our
enclosures, and have developed drivers that are specically optimized for this
application. We call our unique implementation of this relatively old idea a “Re-
generative Transmission Line™” subwoofer, or “RTL” sub for short.
All dynamic drivers develop energy on both sides of the diaphragm, with the
rear energy being 180° out of phase with the front energy. If you allow the
driver to operate in free space (no enclosure), the front and rear energies largely
cancel each other out — especially at low frequencies.
In our Regenerative Transmission Line™subwoofer, the energy from the back
side of the driver is sent along a long, folded path in such a way that its lowest
frequencies arrive back at the front side of the driver in phase, effectively sum-
ming to an increase of 6 dB in output. Thus, the energy from both sides of the
woofer cone is used in a productive way, resulting in a substantial reduction in
distortion and an effective surface area double compared to what you would
otherwise expect. As an example, the effective radiating surface area of the two
15” woofers in the STS is equivalent to four 15” woofers in more conventional
enclosures.
The results are quite stunning. Low frequencies are strikingly dynamic and re-
sponsive, and integrate quite seamlessly with the fast and detailed Sage Series
planar magnetic hybrids. As an example, the STS is only -3 dB at 15 Hz and can
output in excess of 130 dB at 20 Hz.

6
Uncrating the STS
The Wisdom Audio Sage STS subwoofer is a substantial piece of equipment.
Please exercise caution when unpacking your STS to ensure that you do not
strain yourself from its (perhaps unexpected) weight.
Caution! Do not attempt to lift your STS by yourself. Unpacking this
subwoofer is clearly a two person job. It is unwise for a single person
to attempt doing so.
Do not attempt to lift your STS while bending or twisting from the
waist. Use your legs for lifting, not your back.
Always stand as straight as possible and keep the STS close to your
body to reduce strain on your back.
The STS is fully assembled on delivery, and comes in a large wooden crate.
The serial number for the STS can be found on input connector plate on the rear
of the speaker. Record this serial number below for easy reference should you
need it in the future.
s/n: _______________________

7
Room Acoustics & Placement
Wisdom Audio believes in equalization. Assume for a moment that you had a
“perfect” loudspeaker: as soon as you place it in your room, its perfection is
gone. In fact, even good rooms often introduce deviations of as much as 20 dB
to the response of the system. This is particularly true in the bottom two oc-
taves, where a subwoofer operates.
It seems strange to us to worry about tenths-of-a-decibel differences between
one component and another when there are 10-20 dB problems right there in
the room with you.
At the same time, room equalization is not a panacea. It does not solve all prob-
lems. In fact, and somewhat paradoxically, EQ works best when it has the least
to do. It is best used as the “nishing touch” on an otherwise good system. Un-
fortunately, most people do not understand that the most important component
in their system is their listening room.
This manual does not have the space for a full description of everything that
goes into creating excellent room acoustics; doing so would require a textbook
of several hundred pages. Instead, we will give you some ideas, and some refer-
ences to pursue should you want to learn more.
Start With the Room There are many myths oating around pertaining to what a “good room” should
be like. One of the most common is that it should have non-parallel walls. With-
out going into the details, we recommend staying with rectangular rooms whose
dimensions do not share common divisors.
Thus a room with dimensions of 8’ by 16’ by 20’ would be quite poor (since the
dimensions are all divisible by a length of 4’, and 16 is also a multiple of 8). By
contrast, a room whose dimensions are 9’ by 16’ by 29’ would be much better,
since none of the dimensions are mathematically related to one another.
There are innite variations on this idea. If you have the exibility to choose (or
modify) your room dimensions to avoid such problems, do so. Either way, our
room correction will be a big help.
Rigid Walls Another myth that should be dispelled is the notion that the walls (and ceiling
and oor) of the room should be extremely rigid in order to reproduce good
bass. Rigid, inexible walls reect energy extremely well; thus you will keep
more of the bass energy in the room. This much is true. However, those rigid
walls will also increase the amplitude of the standing waves that your room
naturally supports. In simple terms, you will have more bass, but it will also be
more irregular, with larger peaks and valleys in the response.
Walls that ex a bit (but do not rattle) are much better. Coincidentally, tradition-
al American residential construction standards (sheet rock on wooden studs) are
not a bad place to start. You can do better still with professional help, but studs
and sheet rock are better than poured concrete. (If your listening room is in the
basement, a false wall can easily be built in front of the concrete. You probably
need something like this for insulation and aesthetics anyway.)

8
The ultimate in dedicated listening room construction involves the design and
construction of oating walls, ceiling and oor. This approach yields the added
benet (when done properly) of providing outstanding acoustic isolation from
adjacent spaces as well as superb bass reproduction. This approach goes well
beyond the scope of an owner’s manual; if you are interested, you should con-
tact a professional acoustician who has specialized in this sort of domestic room
design.
Speaker Placement Within the room itself, placement of the speakers and the listener will have a
profound effect on the performance of the system, particularly below 300 Hz
or so. There is no “perfect” position that will solve all problems, but nding the
best compromise will make it easier to solve the remaining problems with the
SC-1.
Your Wisdom Audio dealer can help you with optimizing your speaker place-
ment, which is never quite as simple as it seems it should be. The characteristics
you should listen for are several:
Left & Right Speakers Goal #1: Stable, 3-dimensional stereo imaging
This usually requires reasonable symmetry within the room, and a bit of space
between the speakers and adjacent side walls (to minimize the adverse effects
of early rst reections). Mono (correlated) pink noise can help here, though it
does not replace listening to music. With pink noise playing in both speakers,
you should hear a tightly-dened little “ball” of pink noise oating in space ex-
actly halfway between the speakers.
Goal #2: Smooth, consistent bass
Oft-cited rules of thumb for smoother bass reproduction include both “placing
the speakers at different distances from the side walls vs. the wall behind them,”
and “placing them at ‘odd fractions’ of the room’s dimensions” (e.g., fractions
in which the denominator is an odd number, like 1⁄3, 2⁄5, 2⁄7, etc.). But nothing
replaces your experience in your room, combined with your dealer’s experi-
ence in a variety of rooms. Playing pink noise through the woofer sections of
your Wisdom Audio speakers (with the microphone at the listening position, and
prior to doing any equalization) and watching the results on a Real Time Ana-
lyzer (RTA) will let you see the results of your labors.
Center Channel Center channel height
Once you have a solid stereo image up front (when listening only to the Left and
the Right speakers), you need a center channel speaker for multichannel repro-
duction. It should be centered between the Left and Right, and centered on the
screen’s location, preferably at the same height as the Left and Right speakers.
This presents an obvious problem: you cannot place a speaker in front of your
television screen.
Ideally, a center channel speaker would be behind an acoustically transparent
front projection screen and would match the Left and Right speakers. Doing so
would ensure the best possible consistency of tonal balance, image height, and
dynamic capabilities for the critical center channel.
Failing an acoustically transparent screen or a phantom center channel ap-
proach, the important thing is to match the tonal and dynamic capabilities of the
Left and Right speakers while minimizing the change in image height as a sound
is panned across the front stage. Wisdom Audio has designed horizontally-ori-

9
ented planar magnetic hybrid speakers that will match your Sage loudspeakers
superbly; place them as close to the edge of the screen as is practical.
Surround Speakers Surround channel geometry
In a 5.x channel system, the surround should be placed either directly to the
sides of or slightly behind the listening area (90°–110° from the center channel,
as seen from above). In a 7.x system, the surround speakers should be closer to
90° from the center speaker, and the surround back speakers should be at ap-
proximately 135°–150° from the center speaker. This conforms to industry stan-
dards, and ensures that you hear what was intended from a spatial placement
point of view. (Too often, the surround speakers are all behind the listeners, cre-
ating a big “hole” in the soundeld between the front and the back.)
LR
C
Sub 1
Sub 2
LsRs
Rb Lb
22°
30°
90°
110°
135°
150°
0°
a 7.2 channel system layout
One possible exception to these guidelines: if you have a THX®-certied pro-
cessor and are using the THX Advanced Speaker Array™ circuitry, you should
follow the guidelines in your owner’s manual for the processor. Using this
technology, it can actually be more effective to have the rear speakers in a 7.x
system directly behind you and immediately adjacent to each other.
Subwoofer Placement Subwoofers offer somewhat greater exibility in placement, since the frequen-
cies they reproduce are not readily localizable by the human ear. This is due to
the fact that the wavelengths they reproduce are more than ten feet (3 meters)
long, but our ears are located only about 6-7 inches (17 cm) apart. Thus these
extremely long waves do not contribute meaningfully to the imaging that the
main speakers create.
However, this fact does not mean that the placement of the subwoofers has no
effect on the sound quality in the room. Far from it. The subwoofers are the
most likely to suffer from the response irregularities introduced by the room
itself, operating as they do below approximately 80 Hz in most systems.
Recent research into the behavior of rooms as a function of speaker placement
has concluded that — if you have the freedom to do so — there are signicant
advantages to placing several smaller subwoofers around the room, rather than
relying on a single large woofer. Moreover, the optimum placement is usually
centered on each of the four walls, or deep in the corners of the room. If you

10
have the luxury of doing so, this simple placement strategy can reduce the size
of the room’s response irregularities from 20 decibels down to perhaps as little
as 6-8 decibels—a tremendous improvement.
Reducing the room’s inherent problems to this degree provides a huge advan-
tage. It allows the SC-1 System Controller to put its considerable abilities to work
on perfecting your system’s response, rather than on trying to perform major
corrective surgery.
Room Treatment Rectangular rooms have six reecting surfaces (four walls, ceiling and oor)
that reect sound to the listener, after various delays introduced by the indirect
routes the sound take on their way to the listener. These rst reections are par-
ticularly damaging to sound quality. Looking at the simplest case of stereo repro-
duction, you have a minimum of twelve rst reection points in your room that
deserve some attention.
Unfortunately, it is often difcult to do much about the ceiling and oor reec-
tions, even though they are arguably the most destructive. (The minimization of
these reections is one of the strongest arguments for the tall, line source loud-
speakers that Wisdom Audio builds.) This leaves you with eight “rst reections”
that you should consider minimizing somehow. These points are easily found by
having an assistant slide a small mirror along the four walls of the room, while
you sit at the listening position. Any place on the wall where you can see a re-
ection of any speaker is a rst reection point. Concentrate on the rst reec-
tions for the Left and Right speakers rst.
If you can, arrange to apply either absorption or diffusion at these eight points
(don’t forget the wall behind you). Absorption can be as simple as heavy, insu-
lated drapes; diffusion can be provided by a well-stocked bookcase with books
of varied sizes. Alternatively, you can buy purpose-designed room treatments
(some sources listed under References, below).
The important things to remember are these: a good room should have a bal-
ance of absorption and diffusion; and if you are going to treat only a few areas
of the room, the rst reection points are the most important ones to treat.
Professional Acoustic Design Does this all sound too complicated? For good reason: it is complicated.
The difference between the average listening room and one that is professionally
designed and implemented is huge. A great listening room will disappear to an
astonishing degree, letting the experiences captured in your recordings speak to
you directly. A well-designed room is also quieter and more comfortable. It can
easily become a favorite retreat for peace and rejuvenation.
If you decide to investigate the possibility of improving your room with the help
of a professional, it is important to nd someone who focuses on residential
spaces. Most acousticians are trained to deal with large spaces — airports, au-
ditoriums, lobbies in commercial buildings, etc. The problems seen in “small”
rooms (residential spaces) are quite different, and outside the experience of most
acousticians. Find someone who specializes in and has a great deal of experi-
ence designing home studios, home theaters, and the like. Your Wisdom Audio
dealer may be such a person; failing that, he/she can help you nd such a pro-
fessional.

11
References Books on Acoustics:
The Master Handbook of Acoustics, F. Alton Everest, TAB Books
Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and
Rooms by Dr. Floyd Toole, Focal Press
Suppliers of Acoustic Treatments:
Acoustic Innovations, http://www.acousticinnovations.com/
Acoustic Sciences Corporation, http://www.acousticsciences.com/
Echo Busters, http://www.echobusters.com
MSR Acoustics, http://www.msr-inc.com/home_theater/hometheater.html
RPG Diffusor Systems, http://www.rpginc.com/

12
Setting Up the STS
There is no escaping the fact that the STS is a large subwoofer. That being said,
it is designed to have remarkable installation exibility for something so large. It
may be used standing upright, or laying down on its broad side, in which case it
can be built into a set of risers or as part of a “stage” in front of the screen.
The STS also includes three locations for the exit of the Regenerative Transmis-
sion Line™. As shipped from the factory, the vent is located on the end of the
STS enclosure. However, if your location would be better served by the vent
being on one side or the other, your dealer can easily swap the grille for the
solid aluminum plate that covers the desired exit location. There is no difference
in performance, but often a great difference in application exibility.
The STS is a passive subwoofer, meaning that it does not come with a “plate”
amplier or internal crossover. The crossover function is normally provided by
the surround preamplier in the system, or by the SC-1 (which is a required part
of any system that uses an STS). Similarly, the amplier is one channel of what-
ever is being used for the rest of the system, or perhaps a dedicated, high power
amplier, depending on your application.
The sensitivity of the STS is quite high, at 101 dB/2.83V/1m (2.83V is one watt
at 8Ω). So you do not necessarily have to have a huge, powerful amplier to
drive the STS. However, if you want to ll an unusually large space, the STS can
handle 5000 watts of power and deliver in excess of 130 dB at 20 Hz (again,
measured at one meter).
We recommend a powerful amplier for the best results, since the STS sounds
so good that you will be inclined to turn it up. You cannot go wrong by having
too much power.

13
Making the STS 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).
We recommend using heavy-gauge speaker wire, particularly when the instal-
lation forces you to use longer wires than you might otherwise. A good rule of
thumb is to keep the “loop resistance” below 0.1 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
0.1 ohms, you are in good shape.
For the purposes of this manual, we will assume that you have already con-
nected 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 that provides bass management (to create the subwoofer
channel(s), and then on to the SC-1; following the SC-1, the signal for the sub-
woofer is sent to a high quality amplier such as the Wisdom Audio SA-series
ampliers.
Connect the outputs of your amplier to the subwoofer, taking care to get the
polarity correct. Connect the positive (+) terminals on your amplier to the posi-
tive (+) terminals on the STS; likewise, connect the negative (–) terminals on the
amplier to the negative (–) terminals on the STS.

14
Optimizing the System
A Wisdom Audio loudspeaker system is just that: a system, designed to provide
the highest calibre of performance, in the widest variety of possible settings. As
such, simply connecting all the wires does not mean the system is optimized.
The SC-1 System Controller manual has the pertinent details on precisely how
to use it to optimize the performance of the system. For the purposes of this
manual, a quick overview of the process is sufcient.
1. Tell the SC-1 which speakers are in the system
The software application that congures the SC-1 for your specic system
has a series of menus that allow your installer to designate which model of
Sage loudspeaker is used in each channel of the system. This allows you to
mix and match freely, based on the best speaker for a given location.
2. Measure the room
Your installer will use a calibrated reference microphone to accurately
measure the performance of each speaker at multiple locations in the lis-
tening area. This process ensures that the entire listening area is optimized,
rather than optimizing only one location at the expense of others.
3. Select an appropriate target curve
Music and movies generally need slightly different targets curves for the
best results. Your dealer can select the appropriate curve for different ap-
plications, and the SC-1 can easily switch between them.
4. Calculate the necessary room correction
The software then uses the power of the PC to calculate the correction
lters your room requires, and downloads them into the SC-1 for you to
audition.
5. Listen and save the result
You can listen to each set of correction lters prior to deciding whether
it meets your expectations. Once you are satised, you can permanently
save the results to the SC-1 (eliminating the need for the PC).
This process can be repeated if necessary, and a total of up to three indepen-
dent setup memories can be saved for different needs. For example, you might
want different setup memories for different conditions such as drapes open vs.
closed, or perhaps different target curves for different content (music, movies,
gaming). Each of these setup memories can be saved to the SC-1 and then se-
lected as needed, with from the SC-1’s front panel, or via RS-232 and a control
system your installer would create for you.

15
North American Warranty
Standard Warranty When purchased from and installed by an authorized Wisdom Audio dealer,
Wisdom Audio®loudspeakers are warranted to be free from defects in material
and workmanship under normal use for a period of ve years from the original
date of purchase.
Furthermore, the transducers (“drivers”) in your Wisdom Audio speakers are
warranted to be free from defects in material and workmanship under normal
use for a period of twenty years from the original date of purchase.
Harsh Conditions Use The Sage Series loudspeakers are designed for installation and operation in
environmentally controlled conditions, such as are found in normal residential
environments. When used in harsh conditions such as outdoors or in marine ap-
plications, the warranty is three years from the original date of purchase.
During the warranty period, any Wisdom Audio loudspeaker exhibiting defects
in materials and/or workmanship will be repaired or replaced, at our option,
without charge for either parts or labor, at our factory. The warranty will not
apply to any Wisdom Audio loudspeaker that has been misused, abused, al-
tered, or installed and calibrated by anyone other than an authorized Wisdom
Audio dealer.
Any Wisdom Audio loudspeaker not performing satisfactorily may be returned
to the factory for evaluation. Return authorization must rst be obtained by
either calling or writing the factory prior to shipping the component. The fac-
tory will pay for return shipping charges only in the event that the loudspeaker is
found to be defective as mentioned above. There are other stipulations that may
apply to shipping charges.
There is no other express warranty on this loudspeaker. Neither this warranty
nor any other warranty, express or implied, including any implied warranties of
merchantability or tness, shall extend beyond the warranty period. No respon-
sibility is assumed for any incidental or consequential damages. Some states do
not allow limitations on how long an implied warranty lasts and other states do
not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so
the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you.
This warranty gives you specic legal rights, and you may also have other rights
which vary from state to state. This warranty is applicable in North America
only. Outside of North America, please contact your local, authorized Wisdom
Audio distributor for warranty and service information.

16
Obtaining Service
We take great pride in our dealers. Experience, dedication, and integrity make
these professionals ideally suited to assist with our customers’ service needs.
If you develop a problem with your Wisdom Audio subwoofer, please contact
your dealer. Your dealer will then decide whether the problem can be remedied
locally, or whether to contact Wisdom Audio for further service information or
parts. The Wisdom Audio Service Department works closely with your dealer to
solve your service needs expediently.
Important! Return authorization must be obtained from Wisdom Audio’s Service
Department BEFORE a unit is shipped for service.
It is extremely important that information about a problem be explicit and com-
plete. A specic, comprehensive description of the problem helps your dealer
and the Wisdom Audio Service Department locate and repair the difculty as
quickly as possible.
If the drivers in your STS have been damaged (as, for example, by direct DC
current being applied from an amplier that failed), the enclosure is designed
to provide for servicing in place, without having to uninstall the enclosure.
Wisdom Audio will work closely with your dealer to resolve the problem.

17
Specications
All specications are subject to change at any time, in order to improve the
product.
■Frequency response 15Hz – 80 kHz ± 3dB relative to the target curve
■Nominal Impedance 4Ω
■Sensitivity 101 dB/1w/1m
■Power handling, peak: 5000W
■Dimensions see appropriate Dimensions drawings on next page
■Shipping weight 350 lbs. (160 kg)
For more information, see your Wisdom Audio dealer, or contact:
Wisdom Audio
1572 College Parkway, Suite 164
Carson City, NV 89706
www.wisdomaudio.com
[e-mail]
Ph: 775.887.8850
Fax: [phone]

18
STS Dimensions

19
Notes

20
STSOM-1.0 © 2/2012 Wisdom Audio, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
Wisdom Audio
1572 College Parkway, Suite 164
Carson City, Nevada 89706 USA
Telephone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
WISDOM and the stylized W are registered trademarks of Wisdom Audio.