Clarisys Audio at California Audio Show July 19 - 21, 2024

It is a very modern Stage if you so will. Double sided bass and treble. 1st order. All steel and aluminium. The bass panel is like a harp; which further optimizes resonnances and moveable area. It also uses our own made pure copper binding posts :)
Yes, me likes muchly, even from the photos. The Stage was a marvel, even for the humblest denizen of the Apogee stable.
 
Yes, me likes muchly, even from the photos. The Stage was a marvel, even for the humblest denizen of the Apogee stable.
I love the Stage too! This Piccolo is a different beast but is the same size class :)
 
Come hear Clarisys Piccolo loudspeakers and WestminsterLab REI Amps and Quest preamp and LampizatOr Horizon at the California Audio Show 2024 in Emeryville CA!

 
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Any chip readers or streaming for making music choices?
 
Hurray, have lots of fun at the show guys :)
 
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Looks like I will go, local. It's' usually enough audio show for me, anyway. They used to be in Oakland, Emeryville is a little further but not much. I look forward to hearing the Clarysis. Picolo is probably the one I would go for, anyway.
It was good at Munich.

Planar magnetic speakers are, I think, amazingly good playing electronic music with substantial bass content. The Piccolo is no exception and what it does with it considering its size is amazing.

I put it down to speed. A decent ribbon will have a good stab at replaying a square wave. Not many speakers technologies that can do that over a reasonably large frequency window.

The downside is excursion and hence volume capability so if you are into properly loud, it just isn't going to happen.
 
The Piccolo will surprise a lot of people! Even in a large room they play loud with no distortion or collapse.
Of course ALL loudspeakers have their Limitations.
 
 
WRT what rad said, if you are a clubber or live gig goer, and you need loud, go elsewhere.

Otherwise, Piccolo can achieve decent levels.
 
I'll be going tomorrow (Saturday) from Pleasanton.
 
Picolo was not a disappointment. Congratulations to Florian for his miniature masterpiece. I'll give more thoughts later after fueled and rested a bit. Many decades of ribbon experience distilled down into a classy package.
 

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Picolo was not a disappointment. Congratulations to Florian for his miniature masterpiece. I'll give more thoughts later after fueled and rested a bit. Many decades of ribbon experience distilled down into a classy package.
Thank you for visiting the room and hearing them!
 
Incredible shrinking CAS got smaller down to five systems. However, I kinna like it, like an intense parlor experience with a couple of systems instead of manic shooting about trying to hear too much. If they had this five system roundup every weekend with rotating systems for 20 bucks, I would be happy to go often.

There were three excellent systems, a good mini box speaker system, and Audio Note. I’m not saying Audio Note isn’t everything that the fans say it is, but for some reason, I will have to be re-wired in reincarnation I guess.

Caveats: I am a planar guy, not a ‘horn guy’ or an ‘edifice box point source guy’. I just like dipole and planar types for their room filling sound and the back wave bedding and am probably too old to change. Being an original Apogee Stage owner from the olden days, I of course am interested in Clarysis and know Florian from the Apogee board days when he was painstakingly refurbishing various high end Apogees.

I guess from Ron’s report the pair on demo were just a few multi tens of hours into their service life, and I think they improved even from morning to afternoon.

Two comments: Florian needs to engineer some stands, maybe with wheels and maybe gimbals that would allow them to be tilted up and down and in and out. The stands should allow seating level with the ears at the upper third of the midrange ribbons in order to get the best upper midrange ‘sparkle’. Of course with my officious audio nonsense interference kvetching, I would also have placed them a bit closer together from position, which I think might have intensified the upper midrange experience.

I guess the main bloc of the room was about 20 by 30 feet-ish, probably a space that would seem to swallow up the modest ribbons with insufficiency. No such luck. I think that in any standard audio room of 15 by 20 feet or smaller, these would be an audio happy meal without reservations short of keeping the neighbors awake with Inna Godda Vida. Even in the loudest passages as I would be able to stand, the midrange ribbons only moved a bit, testifying to robust construction and output (certainly much more so than my Stages or even the midrange ribbons in the Analysis Epsilon).

Imaging varied from room position. However at about the back middle, these Picolos were uncanny in imaging IMAX almost to the extent of the huge Soundlabs in the first floor suite downstairs. At times, I was also wondering where Ron hid the subwoofers, really surprising bass performance.

The cherry on the cake to me was that gorgeous 80 to 300 or so range where the older Apogees were a visceral delight. There it was again. I guess I would call that alpha wave heartbeat sound. It may seem a little down tilted at first, but when the alpha waves cog in, to me it is delightful.

Audiophiles can rip and tear about value vs. cost propositions, and it also depends on the stretchiness of your wallet. However, these are manufactured in Vietnam to Swiss/German specifications by an experienced ribbon guy to high refinement, appear incredibly solid in build, and for their sound quality the value proposition is there in spades. I also like the design and appearance, but I suppose a WAF panel might be indicated to correct me.

I suppose as Ron seemed to indicate, these were designed for simplicity and quality. I think they are even better than that. Good work. Ron seemed to be busy with his emcee work, and it was nice meeting in person.
 
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Thank you for the write up. The stand is actually already in the desig phase; but being us means it wont be a simpleton design. We will also introduce in Q3 a totally unique platform for our speakers, engineered together with a German company that normally works in the automotive industry in the field of suspenion development.

Some new tech which was introduced with the Piccolo:
-New Bass Panel tech to maximize the moveable surface area per cm2
-New bindings posts which are made in-house from copper (not sourced and a added label)
-New binding posts clamp the foil conductors, no solder
-Only 1st order crossovers with zereo correction filters
-Bass panel is now totally modular and removeable, seperate from the magnet grid for future proof design in case of cats, house cleaners etc...
-The entire panel clamping system is made from a polymer material and aluminium; there is no wood except for the front decorative cover

The speakers need about 220hrs for break in, but this was not possible due to the time schedule but as you wrote; it did not dissapoint :)
In terms of bass; they will do a solid 32Hz and not shy away from larger SPL. This is due to our improved tension block design.
 
Incredible shrinking CAS got smaller down to five systems. However, I kinna like it, like an intense parlor experience with a couple of systems instead of manic shooting about trying to hear too much. If they had this five system roundup every weekend with rotating systems for 20 bucks, I would be happy to go often.

There were three excellent systems, a good mini speaker system, and Audio Note. I’m not saying Audio Note isn’t everything that the fans say it is, but for some reason, I will have to be re-wired in reincarnation I guess.

Caveats: I am a planar guy, not a ‘horn guy’ or an ‘edifice box point source guy’. I just like dipole and planar types for their room filling sound and the back wave bedding and am probably too old to change. Being an original Apogee Stage owner from the olden days, I of course am interested in Clarysis and know Florian from the Apogee board days when he was painstakingly refurbishing various high end Apogees.

I guess from Ron’s report the pair on demo were just a few multi tens of hours into their service life, and I think they improved even from morning to afternoon.

Two comments: Florian needs to engineer some stands, maybe with wheels and maybe gimbals that would allow them to be tilted up and down and in and out. The stands should allow seating level with the ears at the upper third of the midrange ribbons in order to get the best upper midrange ‘sparkle’. Of course with my officious audio nonsense interference kvetching, I would also have placed them a bit closer together from position, which I think might have intensified the upper midrange experience.

I guess the main bloc of the room was about 20 by 30 feet-ish, probably a space that would seem to swallow up the modest ribbons with insufficiency. No such luck. I think that in any standard audio room of 15 by 20 feet or smaller, these would be an audio happy meal without reservations short of keeping the neighbors awake with Inna Godda Vida. Even in the loudest passages as I would be able to stand, the midrange ribbons only moved a bit, testifying to robust construction and output (certainly much more so than my Stages or even the midrange ribbons in the Analysis Epsilon).

Imaging varied from room position. However at about the back middle, these Picolos were uncanny in imaging IMAX almost to the extent of the huge Soundlabs in the first floor suite downstairs. At times, I was also wondering where Ron hid the subwoofers, really surprising bass performance.

The cherry on the cake to me was that gorgeous 80 to 300 or so range where the older Apogees were a visceral delight. There it was again. I guess I would call that alpha wave heartbeat sound. It may seem a little down tilted at first, but when the alpha waves cog in, to me it is delightful.

Audiophiles can rip and tear about value vs. cost propositions, and it also depends on the stretchiness of your wallet. However, these are manufactured in Vietnam to Swiss/German specifications by an experienced ribbon guy to high refinement, appear incredibly solid in build, and for their sound quality the value proposition is there in spades. I also like the design and appearance, but I suppose a WAF panel might be indicated to correct me.

I suppose as Ron seemed to indicate, these were designed for simplicity and quality. I think they are even better than that. Good work. Ron seemed to be busy with his emcee work, and it was nice meeting in person.
Thank you very much for this report! It was great to meet you in person!
 

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