Read Full Review

Eq uipmE nt R EpoRt
RobeRt J. Reina
Audience ClairAudient The One
loudspeaker
A
s the years pass and I turn into a crotchety old
man, I’m reminded of those old TV ads for the
Honda Accord: “Simplify.” Even though I now
have more things going on than at any other point
in my life, I try to eliminate complications everywhere I can.
I now can’t believe that, for over 15 years, I used the Infinity
RS-1B as my reference loudspeaker. Sure, I loved it—the
RS-1B was the first speaker I’d owned that produced a wide,
deep soundstage, the full dynamic range of an orchestra,
and bass extension down to 25Hz. But it was ridiculously
complex: a five-way design with three different driver types
and a servomechanism for the woofers. It also required
biamplification—I got the best sound with a combination of
high-powered tube amp and high-current, solid-state amp.
I wouldn’t put up with such a complex setup today. For my
own purchases, my biases now lean toward simple, three-way,
dynamic floorstanding designs for cost-no-object speakers,
and two-way, dynamic bookshelf models for affordable
speakers. These simpler designs have simpler crossovers, and
there’s much to be said for minimizing crossover complexity. The ideal speaker would have no crossover at all—just a
single driver that could produce full-range sound. However,
finding a single-driver speaker that can accurately reproduce
the entire audioband is a tall order. The most satisfying one
I can think of is Quad’s ESL-63 electrostatic. I’ve enjoyed
many hours of listening to a broad range of music through the
ESL-63s over the last 30 years, especially when they’re driven
by first-rate tubed electronics. (See J. Gordon Holt’s excellent
review of the ESL-63 from 1983 at www.stereophile.com/
floorloudspeakers/416/index.html.)
So when Audience asked if I had any interest in reviewing their ClairAudient The One ($995/pair) which has only
a single dynamic driver and no crossover, and which they
claim is a full-range loudspeaker . . . well, I jumped.
specifications
Description Single-driver
desktop speaker with 4"
passive radiator. Drive-unit:
3" titanium alloy-cone,
full-range unit. Frequency
range: 50Hz–23kHz
when placed near desk or
wall. Impedance: 4 ohms.
Sensitivity: 84dB/W/m.
stereophile.com n September 2013 Maximum RMS continuous
output per pair: 98dB.
Maximum RMS
continuous power per
speaker: 25W.
Dimensions 7” (180mm) H
by 5.5” (140mm) W by 7”
(180mm) D. Weight: 3 lbs
(1.5kg) each.
Finishes High-gloss black.
Serial numbers of units
reviewed 54 (listening);
10 (measuring).
Price $995/pair; desktop
stands, $75/pair.
Approximate number of
dealers: 50. Warranty:
five years, limited.
Manufacturer Audience,
120 N. Pacific St., K-9,
San Marcos, CA 92069.
Tel: (760) 471-0202.
Fax: (760) 471-0282.
www.audience-av.com.
93
AuDIeNCe ClAIRAuDIeNT THe ONe lOuDSPeAKeR
The single drive-unit is loaded with a passive radiator on the speaker’s rear.
Description
The ClairAudient The One is a “bookshelf” speaker that
measures only 7" high by 5.5" wide by 7" deep and sports a
single 3" full-range, dynamic driver. The driver’s cone is made
of a titanium alloy, has a moving mass of only 2.5gm, and is
capable of 12mm excursion. This A3-S driver is the same one
found in Audience’s flagship model, the ClairAudient 16+16
($72,000/pair), which uses 32 of them. According to Audience,
the elimination of the inherent sonic compromises of a
crossover and dissimilar drivers eliminates phase distortions
and transient response degradation, and results in
improved resolution. The One loads its single driver
with a rear-facing, circular passive radiator. This
occupies most of the speaker’s rear panel and is
mounted above a pair of binding posts. The One is
wired internally with Audience’s Ohno continuous
casting (OCC) monocrystal wire. Audience also
sent me a pair of the One’s optional desktop stands
($75/pair) and a sample of their Ohno speaker cable
($199/3' pair, $249/5' pair).1
The One is currently available in only high-gloss
black. I was supplied with four samples, one pair
each in blue and black; both looked sexy, rugged, and
unimposing. On spying the blue pair, my 12-year-old
daughter, Caitlin, remarked, “What a cool speaker!
How much are those?” Caitlin has seen dozens of
speakers enter and leave my house. This is the first
one she’s commented on.
I tested the Ones with and without their attractive,
magnetically attached cloth grilles. They sounded
nearly identical in both configurations; leaving the grilles off
resulted in slightly improved detail.
All the lonely speakers . . .
Audience claims that the One is capable of full-range sound
when placed on a desk or near a wall, but that “a subwoofer is
1 The Audience Ohno is slightly smaller in diameter than 24-gauge lamp cord—
it’s the thinnest speaker cable I’ve ever seen. The cable comprises conductors of
continuous-cast, single-crystal, OCC copper, insulated with polypropylene and
jacketed in cross-linked polyethylene.
measurements
F
or reasons of consistency,
I measured the Audience
ClairAudient The One in free
space, mounted on a tall stand,
as I do all bookshelf loudspeakers that
pass through my lab. In use, however,
the Ones will be in close proximity
to one surface—the top of the user’s
desk—and perhaps another (the wall,
if any, behind the desk). This difference
between measurement conditions and
those of actual use should be kept in
mind throughout this sidebar. However,
I note that Bob Reina did do some of his
listening with the speakers mounted on
24"-high stands, and far enough away
from the room’s walls that the latter
would give no boundary reinforcement
of the lower frequencies. I used DRA
labs’ MlSSA system and a calibrated
DPA 4006 microphone to measure the
Audience One’s frequency response in
the farfield; and, for the nearfield responses, an earthworks QTC-40 mike.
My estimate of the Audience One’s
voltage sensitivity was 83dB(B)/
2.83V/m, which is well below the norm.
With a specified maximum power
handling of 25W, you would have thought
stereophile.com n September 2013 this low sensitivity would confine the One
to nearfield listening, as on a desktop.
However, again note that BJR successfully used the speakers for conventional
farfield listening. The Audience’s plot
of impedance magnitude and electrical
phase against frequency is shown in fig.1.
The speaker offers basically a 6 ohm load
to the partnering amplifier, and without a
crossover, the phase angle is low throughout the midrange and treble. Although the
phase angle does become increasingly
positive in the top two octaves in this
graph, due to the single drive-unit’s voicecoil inductance, the One is basically still
an easy load.
Fig.1 Audience The One, electrical impedance
(solid) and phase (dashed) (2 ohms/vertical div.).
There is a slight bump between 200
and 300Hz in the impedance-magnitude
trace in fig.1, but investigating the enclosure wall’s vibrational behavior uncovered
nothing of concern in this frequency
region. However, there was a strong
resonant mode at 746Hz, as well as some
pumping of the panels at the tuning frequency of the rear-facing passive radiator
(fig.2; note that the driving voltage used
to create this graph was 5dB lower than
usual, due to the One’s limited power
handling). A resonance at 746Hz is sufficiently high in frequency that it should
have no audible consequences.
The saddle just above 40Hz in the
impedance-magnitude trace suggests
that the tuning frequency of the passive
radiator lies close to that frequency. The
red trace in fig.3 shows the radiator’s
output measured in the nearfield; the
output peaks a little lower in frequency
than suggested by fig.1, at around 35Hz,
and the corresponding notch in the
drive-unit’s output lies at 38Hz. This is
a low tuning frequency for such a small
speaker and correlates with BJR’s finding
the speaker’s bass surprisingly extended.
Still, the danger of such a design is that
95
AuDIeNCe ClAIRAuDIeNT THe ONe lOuDSPeAKeR
required for full-frequency response when The One is situated
away from a wall.” I tried them in two configurations, both
without a subwoofer: 1) , driven by Audio Valve and Audio
Research electronics, and sitting on my 24" Celestion Si stands
(loaded with sand and lead shot) about 4' from the front wall
of my large (15' by 35') listening room; and 2) on a console
table, the Ones at about the same height as when sitting on the
Celestion stands, approximately 6" from the front wall, driven
by a Creek Evolution 50A integrated amplifier (reviewed in
the August 2013 issue).
With setup 1, I expected to hear a bass-shy sound, but I
was proven wrong with the very first track I listened to. Bill
Evans’s piano, on his Live at the Village Vanguard Featuring
Scott LaFaro (CD, JVC JVCXR-0051-2), was rich, deep,
and involving in the instrument’s lower-midrange register.
Throughout the recording, the piano never sounded thin,
and the trio’s sound filled the entire room—I felt I was listening to much larger speakers. Jack DeJohnette’s Dancing with
Nature Spirits (CD, ECM 1558), includes interesting interplay
between the drummer and pianist Michael Cain that’s full of
transient subtleties and great dramatic swings. Every minute
detail of the musicians’ phrasing was perfectly captured, each
piano note and drum stroke followed by a long decay. Even
the high-level passages bloomed with no trace of compression
or strain—bloomed so much that the Ones triggered the Ellen
Test: my wife told me to turn the music down.
The One resolved so much inner detail that the wide variety
of acoustic and electric guitars played by Bill Frisell on the
various tracks of his solo album Ghost Town (CD, Nonesuch
79583-2) were clearly differentiated. The One’s resolution
also ruthlessly revealed differences among recordings. Unfortunately, its reproduction of an early CD edition of Herbie
Hancock’s Cantaloupe Island (Blue Note CDP 8 29331 2) was
uninvolving, two-dimensional, and dead, with very little color
or liveliness to Hancock’s piano or Tony Williams’s drums.
I’d wondered if the One had been optimized for the midrange, and if it was capable of extended, detailed, uncolored
reproduction of the high frequencies. With every recording I
tried, the highs were natural and shimmering, without a trace
of coloration and no curtailment of
upper harmonics. The massed string
The One’s
tone in Paul Paray’s recording of Hector
resolution
Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, with
the Detroit Symphony (CD, Mercury
ruthlessly
Living Presence 434 328-2), was silky,
revealed
airy, and never strident, even in the
differences violins’ upper registers. And every
plunk and pling of Derek Bailey’s
among
extended guitar technique on his
recordings. Improvisation (CD, Ampersand Ampere 2) was perfectly reproduced. The
One’s excellent articulations of transients, combined with
its high-frequency extension and purity, made it a showcase
for dynamic and complex percussion recordings. With each
track of Chick Corea’s The Ultimate Adventure (CD, Stretch/
Concord SCP-9045-2), I was able to follow every nuance of
the dramatically explosive and syncopated textures created by
drummers Steve Gadd and Vinnie Colaiuta.
But how did the bass fare in such a large room with no
support from a subwoofer? With most recordings, quite
measurements, continued
when the speaker is used in free space,
its bass might sound a little disconnected
from the lower midrange. It’s fair to note
that BJR didn’t note hearing any such
disconnect.
Higher in frequency, the One’s
response slopes up in the upper midrange, and the treble region is balanced
3–5dB too high in level compared with
the midrange. using the speakers close
to boundaries, as on a desktop, will
bring up the lower-midrange and bass
regions, to give a more neutral balance.
In free space, however, this sloped-up
response will indeed give the impression of superb retrieval of recorded
detail, as BJR heard. Fig.3 was taken
with the grille removed; adding it raised
the upper-midrange peak by about 1dB,
but lowered the output between 5 and
12kHz by up to 1dB (not shown).
The Audience’s lateral dispersion,
normalized to its on-axis response
(which therefore appears as a straight
line) so that the differences are revealed,
is shown in fig.4. What appears to be
an off-axis flare at the cursor position
(3.6kHz) in this graph is actually due to
the on-axis suckout centered on that frequency filling in to the speaker’s sides.
The One’s lateral dispersion is actually
wide and even from the lower midrange
through to the mid-treble. However,
as expected from the drive-unit’s 2.5"
radiating diameter, its output becomes
quite directional in the top two audio
octaves, which will counteract the hightreble peakiness in the speaker’s on-axis
output. The picture in the vertical plane
Fig.2 Audience The One, cumulative spectral-decay
plot calculated from output of accelerometer fastened to center of side panel (MlS driving voltage
to speaker, 4.25V; measurement bandwidth, 2kHz).
Fig.3 Audience The One, anechoic response on
central axis at 50", averaged across 30° horizontal
window and corrected for microphone response,
with nearfield responses of woofer (blue) and port
(red) and their complex sum (black), respectively
plotted below 350Hz, 1kHz, 300Hz.
Fig.4 Audience The One, lateral response family at
50", normalized to response on central axis, from
back to front: differences in response 90–5° off
axis, reference response, differences in response
5–90° off axis.
stereophile.com n September 2013 97
AuDIeNCe ClAIRAuDIeNT THe ONe lOuDSPeAKeR
nicely. In “Walking on Sacred Ground,” from Janis Ian’s
Breaking Silence (CD, Morgan Creek/Analogue Productions
CAPP 027), the boisterous interplay of bass drum and bass
guitar was solid and tuneful. Similarly, the bass synths and
electronic percussion in Sade’s Love Deluxe (CD, Epic EK
53178) were forceful—no sub needed. However, I did feel
that the drums and bass guitar on
Kimball’s Oh Hear Us (CD,
I was able to Jennifer
Epoisse 1094-2) were a bit lightfollow every weight on the bottom, and that the
Ones robbed the music of a bit of
nuance
its pace and drama.
of the
In setup 2—the Ones on the
dramatically console table, driven by Creek
electronics—the speakers’ overall
explosive
timbral balance and articulation
and
were pretty much identical to that
setup 1 in the midrange and highs.
syncopated of
Alison Krauss’s Forget About It (CD,
textures.
Rounder 11661-0465-2) revealed
her rich and holographically reproduced voice, with all stringed instruments articulated with
high frequencies extended and intact. The low end did seem
more extended with setup 2. “The Man-Machine,” from
Kraftwerk’s Minimum-Maximum (CD, EMI ASW 60611),
features some thundering electronic percussion on the bottom,
and these were reproduced with clarity, drama, and sock,
though the Ones didn’t shake the room as other speakers
have with this track. Similarly, in Stampede, the second move-
a s s o c i at e d e q u i p m e n t
Analog Sources VPI TNT IV, Rega Planar 3 turntables;
Immedia, Syrinx Pu-3 tonearms; Koetsu urushi, Clearaudio
Virtuoso Wood cartridges.
Digital Sources lector CDP-7T, Creek Destiny CD players.
Integrated Amplifier Creek evolution 50A.
Loudspeakers epos M5i.
Cables Interconnect (all MIT): Magnum M3, MI-330SG
Terminator, MI-350 CVTwin Terminator. Speaker: Acarian
Systems Black Orpheus, Nola Blue Thunder, Audience Ohno.
AC: manufacturers’ own.
Accessories Various by ASC, Bright Star, Celestion, echo
Busters, Salamander Designs, Simply Physics, Sound Anchor,
VPI.—Robert J. Reina
ment of Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto, with pianist Keith
Jarrett, Naoto Otomo, and the New Japan Philharmonic
(CD, New World NW 366-2), there is a highly spirited
interchange between pounding lower-register clusters in
the piano and a fortissimo bass drum. The Ones reproduced
this perfectly, with startlingly explosive high-level dynamics,
and the most realistic reproduction of a bass drum I’ve heard
from a small bookshelf speaker.
It reminded me of the sound of a performance of this
work I heard more than 25 years ago from my front-center
orchestra seat at Carnegie Hall, again with Jarrett, and Dennis
measurements, continued
(fig.5) is very similar, which is to be
expected given the design’s symmetry.
In the time domain, the use of a single
drive-unit without a crossover inherently
endows the One with a time-coincident
step response (fig.6). However, what
should be a smooth decay of the righttriangle–shaped response is broken by
what appears to be a reflection about
300µs after the initial arrival of the
pulse. The cumulative spectral-decay
plot (fig.7) is clean in the midrange
through to the mid-treble, but the twin
peaks in the top octave are associated
with ridges of delayed resonant energy.
The upper peak is too high in frequency
to be audible, but the lower-frequency
peak, centered on 16.25kHz, might bother younger listeners. (Ignore the black
ridge that visually breaks up this mode;
this is due to the inevitable interference
from the computer’s video circuitry.)
The measured performance of
Audience’s ClairAudient The One suggests that it will offer the most neutral
balance when used in close proximity
to a boundary, as on a desktop. Bob
Reina was also impressed by its sound
when he listened to it in a conventional
freefield situation, though its sloped-
up response will make the choices of
matching components rather critical.
Before writing these comments, I
took a listen the Audience speakers on
my desk in the office, playing files with
iTunes and driving the speakers with a
Yamaha desktop receiver. I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. Yes, there
was a touch of “cardboardy” coloration
on vocals, a somewhat peaky top octave,
and the low frequencies did occasionally
sound a little “gruff,” but the overall balance was musically pleasing. And as BJR
noted, the One’s upper-frequency clarity
was impressive.—John Atkinson
Fig.5 Audience The One, vertical response family at
50", normalized to response on central axis, from
back to front: differences in response 45–5° above
axis, reference response, differences in response
5–45° below axis.
Fig.6 Audience The One, step response on central
axis at 50" (5ms time window, 30kHz bandwidth).
Fig.7 Audience The One, cumulative spectral-decay
plot on central axis at 50" (0.15ms risetime).
stereophile.com n September 2013 99
AuDIeNCe ClAIRAuDIeNT THe ONe lOuDSPeAKeR
Russell Davies conducting the American Composers Orchestra. However, with the speakers closer to the wall
behind them, this recording’s depth was foreshortened compared with how it sounded with the speakers in free space.
With the console table system, I tried the Ones sitting
directly on the table and on their optional desk stands, which,
designed as they are for nearfield desktop listening, tilt the
speakers up at a slight angle. The stands made no change in
timbral or dynamic performance, and will be a good option
for those who want to use the Ones in a computer-based
system. Finally, I also tried the Ones with Audience’s own
Ohno speaker cables. The Audience cables and my reference
Acarian Systems Black Orpheus cables were both neutral and
detailed, but I felt the Ohno had a slightly cleaner upper bass,
the Black Orpheus slightly deeper bass extension.
A caveat: I wouldn’t try to push the ClairAudient Ones beyond their intended limits with respect to bass reproduction
or volume levels. I listened to a test recording John Atkinson
made of me performing my composition Recessional on the
Greenlaw Memorial Organ, at the Community Church of
Douglaston in New York City, which I was preparing to
record and perform with my quartet, Attention Screen. I
was very careful not to play the finale, during which I played
three 32' pipes at full cry. But before the finale comes a solo
passage for organ pedals that includes a very forceful section
covering the 35–45Hz region. I left the volume up a bit too
loud during this passage, and could hear the driver in the
right-channel One flapping. I immediately turned the volume
down, but a bit too late. Although the speaker sounded fine
after that with recordings of acoustic instruments, cuing up
the Sade disc triggered the flapping—which it hadn’t the first
time I’d played those tracks. I shipped that review sample
back to Audience for repairs and they sent me a second pair
of review samples, which JA measured. For the first time in
28 years of reviewing speakers, I’d damaged a review sample
through my own carelessness.
Ones sitting on the Celestion stands in free space. However,
I heard an intoxicating coherence in the sound of the singledriver Ones that I didn’t hear from the two-driver M5i’s.
After listening to the Audiences, I could hear the Eposes’
tweeters and mid/woofers crossing over to each other—
something I hadn’t noticed before.
. . . where do they all belong?
Audience’s ClairAudient One is an extraordinary speaker with
superb resolution of detail, excellent dynamic contrasts, and
subtle articulation of transients. It’s capable of providing satisfying, involvingly uncolored long-term listening over a broad
range of music. Given the One’s unusual design, however, I
suggest that potential buyers
think very carefully about how
I wouldn’t try
they might configure a pair of
to push the
them. I think the Ones would
be an excellent match for a
ClairAudient
conventional system when
Ones beyond
mounted on solid stands 4'
their intended
from the front wall, so long
as you’re not that concerned
limits with
about bass extension. It would
respect to bass
also work well in systems for
reproduction or which the buyer is limited to
very small speakers that must
volume levels.
remain on bookshelves very
close to the front wall, and is
willing to live with a shallower soundstage.
The Ones could also be a superb match for a desktop system
when hooked up to a computer with a first-rate soundcard
playing high-resolution digital files. But I wouldn’t use these
high-resolution speakers to play MP3s in a computer-based
system with a cheap soundcard.
I’m skeptical that a subwoofer can be found that will
seamlessly blend with these extraordinary speakers—after
all, adding a subwoofer crossover to your system somewhat
Comparisons
defeats the purpose of having a single-driver, crossoverless
I had a hard time deciding which speakers to compare
speaker. Finally, trying to find a spot in the room for a
with the ClairAudient Ones.
subwoofer that 1) achieves the most
My first thought was the
seamless blend with the Audiences, 2)
Audioengine 2, which I’d
maximizes bass definition, and 3) is a
reviewed in December 2007
cosmetically appealing place, is likely
(see www.stereophile.com/
to result in three different answers.
standloudspeakers/1207ae/
Nor do I want to underemphasize
index.html)—I thought it would
the importance of matching the Ones
be interesting to compare two
with high-quality electronics. These
nearfield desktop models. But
speakers could ruthlessly reveal difcomparing the $995/pair One
ferences among components as easto a $200/pair powered speaker
ily as they could sort out differences
didn’t really make sense. Neither
in sound quality among various
did it make sense to compare
recordings.
the Audience to a $1000/pair
On balance, John McDonald,
floorstander.
president of Audience, and his
So I chose an old bookshelf
design team have created a revealstandby, the Epos M5i ($899/
ing and involving loudspeaker. For
pair when available). The Epos
$1000, I can’t imagine obtaining
sounded more relaxed than the
significantly better sound than from
Audience, with better resolution
a pair of ClairAudient Ones properly
of low-level dynamics and lowset up and used within their dynamic
level detail. The M5i’s high-level
range low-frequency extension limidynamics were superior as well,
tations. Congratulations to Audience
as was its bass extension when
for a stunning achievement in such
compared with the ClairAudient
a small package. n
The optimal desktop stand aims The One at its owner’s ears.
stereophile.com n September 2013 101
Manufacturers’
Comments
Audience ClairAudient The ONE
Editor:
With great enthusiasm, thank you for evaluating and writing the in-depth review of the ClairAudient The One loudspeaker.
My experience with The Ones is that they integrate quite well with most good-quality subwoofers. In my system, I leave full-range
signal going through The One speakers even when used with a subwoofer. Because The Ones provide energy, albeit rolled off,
down below 20Hz, the bass “definition” is provided by the speakers and is therefore easily enhanced by supplementation of a
small amount of low-frequency weight from a subwoofer. However, for desktop, bookshelf, or near-wall placements, the bass is
quite good without supplementation.
John McDonald, President
Audience
Posted with permission from the September 2013 issue of Stereophile ® www.stereophile.com. Copyright 2013, Source Interlink Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
For more information on use of this content, contact Wright’s Media at 877-652-5295.
103639