San Marcos, California's Audience debuted its new Audience ClairAudient Bellare Loudspeakers at T.H.E. New York International Audio Show in New Jersey last month. Here they were again in Rockville, with essentially the same system.
As Audience's John McDonald noted after the New York show, "The Bellare represents something new and very special when you consider all factors together, including the absence of disparate drivers and a crossover network in the ultra-critical 2.5kHz range where most speakers cross over. The drivers are both resolute like an electrostatic (or more so) as well as highly dynamic. Further, the Bellare are so revealing and timbre-sensitive [that] one is able, for example, to discern subtle nuances like the difference between two pianos of the same model. The two high-performance 3" TimeWave drivers are essentially direct-coupled to the amplifiers."
The setup included an Exemplar Audio eXpression DUAL ES9028PRO DAC with outboard power supply ($5500) and a Sony UBP-X1100ES disc player ($700). Ralph Karsten's Atma-Sphere MP-1 vacuum tube balanced line stage ($7850) and Atma-Sphere Class D monoblock amplifiers ($6100/pair) drove the ClairAudient Bellares, which by the way cost $36,000/pair.
The necessaries were, of course, all Audience: An Adept Response aR6-T4 power conditioner ($6900), FrontRow Reserve HP powerChord ($7600), Forte V8 power strip ($980), Panzerholz Pz6 equipment rack ($24,000), and frontRow Reserve cables.
About that loudspeaker: The Audience ClairAudient Bellare has two 3" full-range cone drivers, which looked like tweeters to me. A DSP-assisted active bass system handles the deepest notes, powered by an internal 300W module, which also drives the midrange. Sensitivity is specified as 88dB, with a nominal impedance of 9.5 ohms. The specified frequency response is 28Hz–22kHz, –3dB.
My notes are all about the Bellare's clarity. The sound was crystalline on the Minnesota Orchestra's Romanian Rhapsodies, Op. 11,. On Patricia Barber's "Yellow Car III," cymbals were steely and drums were immaculately well-defined." On "Ode to Billie Joe," the bass was notably clean, though the treble remained the true revelation.
The setup included an Exemplar Audio eXpression DUAL ES9028PRO DAC with outboard power supply ($5500) and a Sony UBP-X1100ES disc player ($700). Ralph Karsten's Atma-Sphere MP-1 vacuum tube balanced line stage ($7850) and Atma-Sphere Class D monoblock amplifiers ($6100/pair) drove the ClairAudient Bellares, which by the way cost $36,000/pair.
The necessaries were, of course, all Audience: An Adept Response aR6-T4 power conditioner ($6900), FrontRow Reserve HP powerChord ($7600), Forte V8 power strip ($980), Panzerholz Pz6 equipment rack ($24,000), and frontRow Reserve cables.
About that loudspeaker: The Audience ClairAudient Bellare has two 3" full-range cone drivers, which looked like tweeters to me. A DSP-assisted active bass system handles the deepest notes, powered by an internal 300W module, which also drives the midrange. Sensitivity is specified as 88dB, with a nominal impedance of 9.5 ohms. The specified frequency response is 28Hz–22kHz, –3dB.
My notes are all about the Bellare's clarity. The sound was crystalline on the Minnesota Orchestra's Romanian Rhapsodies, Op. 11,. On Patricia Barber's "Yellow Car III," cymbals were steely and drums were immaculately well-defined." On "Ode to Billie Joe," the bass was notably clean, though the treble remained the true revelation.
