Finally found THE SPEAKER!!!


I have been a HiFi guy starting at 12 years old with my father passing along the love. We would spend almost every weekend auditioning speakers looking to find the perfect system. We purchased many speakers over the years and they all had their pros and cons, but the trade off always seemed to be nuanced and delicate vs. dynamic and punchy. When auditioning speakers people would always ask what kind of music do you like to listen to? Rock, female vocals, classical, etc... We had/have eclectic taste and would listen to it all. Why could't a speaker just play all of it?!?! Anyway my love for music, sound, etc... became my profession as I am now an Oscar nominated Supervising Sound Editor with well over 150 movies under my belt.

For the last 5 years I have been looking for speakers that can play films at reference levels with all the detail and punch, yet when I want to listen to music can give that nuanced and detailed imaging, space, air, articulation without being harsh and fatiguing. I have listened to SO MANY speakers and spent hundreds of hours auditioning everything I could find. I would fall in love with something for music and then try play one of my films at reference level and it just never gave me the impact I was looking for. I get it - hard to move a lot of air and still be nuanced and articulate. There are some excellent compression drivers/horns that can do the impact stuff, but for me they always have that harsh edge when it comes to music. The flip side with dome type tweeters I have found things have to be pushed to the edge to try to give that theatrical impact. Looking for the quick transient response of an electrostatic, with the punch of compression driver type of system.

Then a dealer recommend I listen to some speakers from Wisdom Audio. I have to admit I was pretty skeptical at first. I read about these and it all sounded like marketing to me, but the dealer I was talking with said he was blown away by them. So I reached out to the company and setup a demo. They use planar magnetics which is not exactly new, but is very difficult to manufacture. I asked them to have one of my films available to listen to. I chose one that I knew extremely well that has a LOT of dynamic punch as well as subtle nuance. I live in Los Angeles and the company is in Carson City, Nevada. I bought an airplane ticket and I was off. I was treated to a tour of the factory and shown how the speakers were made. USA manufactured!! Then we spent a few hours listening to all types of music on different ranges of speakers. I LOVED what I was hearing with the music part of the audition. Then I asked to hear my film in their theater. I expected to be disappointed based on what I had experienced in the past. Then it happened... I heard the film play and it sounded AMAZING! These speakers could do it all!!! No compression, no fatigue, HiFi sound and still able to play theatrical film tracks as they are meant to be heard. In fact - better! I called my wife in disbelief that my search for "The Speakers" was finally over! I even called my father to tell him what I had just heard. It was the impressive! I remind you - I do this for a living!

Since we are undergoing a major remodel at our home, my wife expected that the family room was going to be filled with big speakers as she has become accustomed to living with me. With some of these Wisdom Audio speakers, they are actually designed to be flush mounted in the wall. I thought there is no way a wall mounted speaker could ever sound as good as a traditional speaker. I was so wrong!! So not only did I find the perfect speaker, but not big boxes in the room 3 feet away from any walls! My wife was thrilled.

If you have never heard speakers by Wisdom Audio you need to find a dealer where you can audition them, or fly to the factory for a private demo!

Best,
Andrew
drewde
@dekay @tvad 

These were some other reviews I found in my research:

https://www.soundandvision.com/content/wisdom-audio-insight-p4i-wall-speaker-system

https://www.gramophone.com/Wisdom-Audio-Trip

https://www.audioholics.com/outdoor-speaker-reviews/wisdom-audio-sage-fl

https://www.residentialsystems.com/technology/wisdom-audios-ls4-line-source-loudspeaker

When I was up at the factory - they were doing a "dealer training" thing. Not exactly what it is all about, but they fly the dealers come out for a few days and train them on installations, room acoustics, etc... I don't know if all manufacturers do this as I am not in that part of the business. I met a couple of the dealers during a lunch break which I jumped in on for the free food! It was actually really interesting to meet and talk with some of these folks. They were so excited about sound just like me. It was refreshing to see this from my point of view. As an audio professional I always wonder if anyone else cares as much about this stuff as we do. We joke about it all time while on the dub stage that we are worried about the smallest of details - and then someone will say "It will sound great on my kids iPad. We all laugh and also cringe since we know this is the case with so many viewers.

Anyway - I had to split my time between the Theater they have setup and the stereo listening room depending on what the dealers in training had scheduled. This was not obviously the ideal time to be up on the tour for me, but it also was the only time that fit into my work schedule.

My point as I ramble on here.... One of my listening times in the stereo room they went through the line of speakers from the bottom to the top as they were playing them for the dealers. I got to hear the "lower" end stuff which is still expensive. Then again when I can walk into a Best Buy and purchase B&W 800 diamond series...

My suggestion to friends that start shopping for speakers is to always hear what "the best" thing is a dealer, speaker co, etc... have to offer. Try to listen what is available today with current technology. Then move down the lineup to find the sweet spot where budget and expectations meet. You can always say I only have this much - which most all of us have. Yes, my limit might more than you are willing to spend, but I know many that spend significantly more than I could even imagine. There is a point of diminishing returns. That is the line where only you can decide what is good enough.

Switching to TV since that is easier to talk about than audio for comparison... Some people are not bothered by grey looking blacks on a lower end LCD, while others can't stand it and need FALD backlighting or better yet OLED. I would fall in the FALD/OLED category. It will always bug me to see grey blacks and know it should look better. I have experience this with my own family... once they were shown what it could look like and should look like, they were no longer satisfied with the lesser quality display system.

Audio is a very difficult thing to discuss. In fact when working with directors I usually ask them to give me an emotional road map of what they want to feel when and where. The I can construct an audio map to affect those emotions. My job is not to simply put a door knock where a door knock goes. It is to tell story with sound. That door knock can be lazy and slow, fast and panicked, fast and quiet, etc... each one of those tells a different emotion. The same goes for what backgrounds you hear or don't hear. When I work with the best directors they truly understand the power of sound and will ask for things like... give me something here that pushes those characters apart, or makes them feel more intimate, etc...

I love my job and I love what sound can do for movies. Hence my passion for how I listen to my work as well as others at home!
I saw the in-wall 75 listed for $16K/pair (not certain if the SC was incuded in that price).

Think it was an ad here @ A'Gon.

DeKay
Post removed 
@tvad EXACTLY!!!

I use that example all the time! A scary movie ceases to be scary without the sound! And that is the more obvious ones. The subtle stuff that we do affects people just as much but isn't as in their face.

Sound is at least 50% of the movie going experience!!!

Best!