@dz13 The X5’s are exceptional speakers, I don’t mean to suggest otherwise. The imaging was like nothing I heard before or since. But to have that experience, in my room which is less than ideal, I had to be sitting in the sweetspot. This room is large but is a combination of living, dining, and kitchen. With lots of glass. I have music on almost all the time, while cooking, cleaning, napping, eating… so a lot of casual listening. The vertical dispersion from that tweeter is limited. At over 6 feet, when standing anywhere near the speakers the HF diminished considerably. I hope this explains my comments. I do often regret selling them.
My Caladan Impressons
Ron Brenay’s video that introduced the Caladan speakers (by Clayton Shaw Audio Labs) created a lot of buzz and a lot of orders, but actual reviews have not yet come out. Since many are curious to know what they sound like, I thought I would share my impressions of the Caladans, which I’ve now had for over a month.
In a word: The Caladans are one of the most detailed and revealing speakers I have ever heard, and they do this without sounding analytical or harsh. And because they are an open baffle design, the sound is free of the resonances and aberrations of cabinets – a sound that’s hard to describe, but it has a clarity that can often be startling. These are truly special speakers at any price, but especially at their current low price-point.
In terms of the overall sound, the Caladans are natural sounding, with very good tonality and imaging. I think I can safely say that these speakers add very little in the way of coloration. They will quickly reveal the personality of your amplifiers and upstream components.
They are honest in their presentation and very musical. In many ways they are reminiscent of a good electrostatic speaker (think Quad 57). The music completely detaches from the speakers and floats in the air with holographic images and excellent tonality. The soundstage is very wide and tall, as well as very deep and layered. The sound is also very quick and nimble – even the bass.
The bass is certainly one of the best characteristics of the Caladans. It is full (not lean) yet still very detailed and textured. And it goes surprisingly deep. I have a pair of subs in my room, but didn’t give a moment’s consideration to using them, because I felt the quality and depth of the bass was so good, the subs weren’t needed and would probably even diminish the quality of the bass.
The mids are clean, detailed and very engaging. For me, the sweet spot of the Caladans is male vocals. I hear detail, nuance, and spot-on tonality, with zero artifacts or coloration. These qualities seem to be easier for most speakers to achieve in the higher frequencies with female vocals. The Caladans deliver brilliantly on female vocals as well. But unlike some speakers that seem to have a touch more coloration or less definition in the lower male frequencies, with the Caladans the male vocals are stunning, and don’t take a backseat to female vocals in any way. Leonard Cohen’s deepest rumblings are just as precisely defined and finely etched as any of the notes sung by Diana Krall two octaves higher. Male vocals are scary good.
The highs are lively and airy, but never harsh. Drums and cymbals sound real and resonant. They pop, snap, and sizzle with excellent dynamics.
In terms of flaws or weaknesses, I’m having a hard time coming up with anything. If you like a warm, richly colored sound, these may not be your cup of tea. But if you want to hear deep into the recording, with detail and resolution that is hard to match, you’ll love these speakers.
Be advised that these speakers benefit from some break-in time. They sound even better at 100 hours than they do out of the box. I especially like how they sound with tubes.
I am more than pleased with the sound of my Caladans, and on top of that, they are beautiful to look at (I went with the cherry wood). I apologize if this report sounds almost too good to be true, but I don’t know what else to say. I’m very impressed with the Caladans. I expect the reviewers will be as well.
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My "Beyond Caladan" speaker images really well off angle but does have some height limitation. However, you could expand what I am doing by stacking 4 mid/tweets on top of each other, essentially making a 32 inch planar line source mounted above the 2 woofs. I will have pics and lots of info about my speakers on my website by this weekend. These things are amazing!!! Fully time aligned, planar mid/tweet and zero crossover on the mid/tweet.......You need a cap in series to play really loud......I only play 95 db or so......so not a problem right now. You could have two inputs for the tweet and use the one with zero cap when playing normal volume and when you want to bring the house down then take the hot lead and plug it it into the cap (which would always be connected to the planar). Remember, I am not selling or making speakers for anyone.....just showing what I am doing and what anyone can do themselves. The possibilities are endless. You could run 4 woofs per channel with two facing the rear directly behind the front two......so you get more dynamics, more even low frequency dispersion and less 2nd harmonic distortion. Check out the Steinway/Lyngdorf model B speaker....they use 3 woofs in front and 3 in the back in push pull (6 12s per channel). 2 would be enough for me! |
mofojo The Caladans have pretty good visceral impact. I've owned a couple of different pairs of Magnepans and it's true, their visceral impact is minimal. But the Caladans aren't like that at all. They are quite comparable to a box speaker in that regard. |
@mofojo Because they are open baffle, bass is emitted from the rear of the speaker and bounces off the wall behind the speaker. This reaches you a bit later so makes the speaker a little more resistant to standing waves in the room. FWIW, bass is entirely reverberant in most rooms below about 80Hz (the waveform at that frequency is 14 feet long) so this works out quite well. IMO/IME they can be pretty good about bass impact, down to their cutoff frequency. I had a lot of fun with them at AXPONA playing cuts that have fairly deep bass. IMO they are pretty honest down to about 30Hz. |
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