The unusual arrangement of the mid/treble baffle’s base makes sense once you look at and integrate it with what Clarisys describes as the mid-bass baffle. This stands on a more conventionally aligned rectangular base that has a 90degree ‘notch’ machined out of its inner edge to help co-locate and align it with the mid-treble panel, while eliminating intermodulation distortion between the two. The diaphragm consists of double-sided aluminium traces etched onto a curved Kapton skin and operates from around 16Hz to 550Hz: not exactly your average mid-bass driver!?
The crossover for both the mid/treble and mid-bass panels is housed in its own separate enclose. Like the Auditorium, this opens the way for active operation, something that’s on the cards but which Clarisys are yet to investigate. The final panel for each channel is a sub-woofer with a truncated, triangular, double-sided diaphragm that operates from around 12Hz to 35Hz and its own, separately housed cross-over. In each case, the crossover comprises a single element, inductors to roll-off the sub-woofer and mid-bass panels, capacitors to roll-in the mid and treble drivers, which otherwise run full range, the mid extending from 550Hz to a -3dB point at around 12.5kHz, the treble starting at 4.5kHz with no upper limit quoted. Drive characteristics are described as “moderate” while claimed system sensitivity is 101dB. For what is an emphatically full-range system, that’s a combination of bandwidth and efficiency that is pretty-much unique – and that’s clearly audible when it comes time to listen…
But before that, I should list the driving system:
Clarisys are variously Swiss, GAS or European distributors for a number of brands, notably CS Port (the source of their active crossovers), Pink Faun streaming electronics, Kronos turntables and tonearms, Merrill Audio electronics and Convergent Audio Technology amplifiers. It’s an eclectic mix that populates much of the rack sitting to one side of the room.
The Kronos Professional Turntable and Discovery RS tonearm carry a My Sonic Lab Platinum Signature Cartridge.
There’s a Pink Faun 2.16 Dual Ultra Streamer with Lampizator Horizon DAC for streaming and an ATR 102 tape console for reel-to-reel replay, feeding a Merrill Master Trident Tape Head Preamplifier.
Amplification comes from CAT, with the current SL1 Legend Extreme Black Path pre-amp and a pair of JL7 HPA (300W/Ch, KT120) mono-blocs. Phono-stage is either the EM/IA MC Trio or the excellent internal stage built into the SL1: we used the latter.
Cables were Magnan throughout, with the interesting cantilever racks supplied by German company i.ctra.
This list (and the photos) will tell you two things. Although the entire Atrium speaker system was being driven passively by the CAT monos (lending credence to the Clarisys claims for drivability) there’s also an impressive array of Soulution electronics on hand. With a 727 line-stage, 760 DAC a pair of 701 mono-blocs and three 701 stereo amplifiers, they don’t just offer a solid-state option for listeners who lean that way, they also open up the possibility of driving the Atrium actively, something the company will be investigating shortly. Secondly – and although we listened to all of the installed source options, there was no optical disc replay facility, so I arranged to have a Wadax Studio Player present and, with a both CD, SACD and vinyl with me, this was used for the majority of my listening (not least because I wanted to hear how it sounded in a genuinely full-range system).
