The Clarisys Minuet Loudspeaker

Installation notes

By Roy Gregory

The Clarisys Auditorium left quite an impression, physically, sonically, musically and visually. At a little over 210cm tall and 92cm wide, it’s big, seriously heavy and awkward to handle. It’s definitely a ‘many hands…’ product. Getting it situated is only half the battle. It demands real precision in set-up, with near perfect left-right angular and geometrical symmetry. So, it’s just as well that it delivers a performance that justifies all the effort – even if those with the system, the funds and the space to fully realise that performance are few and far between. But this wouldn’t be the audio industry if there wasn’t somebody, somewhere saying, “If only it was half the size and a third of the price!” Well sir – ‘cos it’s always a man – meet the Clarisys Minuet, a speaker that, at 130cm tall and 76 cm wide looks uncannily like the bottom half of an Auditorium and which, at $46,000 USD is just a shade less than one third of the bigger speaker’s price.

The first thing to say about the Minuet is that it’s an awful lot more manageable than the Auditorium. They arrive in a pair of substantial, foam lined flight cases, equipped with plenty of handles. At a little over 100kg each (plus packaging) that means that they’re a perfectly manageable load for two men and a set of wheels, be that a skate, a sack-truck or a larger trolly, depending on the situation. Once in situ, you stand up the flight case, unlatch the lid and the speaker can simply be walked out of its packaging. Few speakers that cost or weigh as much as the Minuet are quite as straightforward to handle – although that’s partly down to the combination of weight and width that force you to treat them with proper respect. However, once they’re placed and the transit covers have been removed, the fun has only just begun.

Back when speakers like the Martin Logan CLS, Magneplanar Mg IIIa and Apogee Duetta (the spiritual forebear of the Minuet) commanded a large slice of high-end loudspeaker sales, the public were plenty familiar with the demands and peculiarities of di-pole set up. These days, speakers that radiate equally but out of phase in both directions have become a rarity. But what is clear is that they drive a room in a very different way, so perhaps it’s worth spending a little time on the basics.

Compared to the average box speaker, di-poles have two peculiarities that directly affect positioning. The first is that they offer a dual lobe, front and rear output. A bi-product of that is that they produce very little side lobe information or energy, which allows them to be placed relatively close to side walls before it becomes problematic. No bad thing given the width of the baffle on di-pole designs. The Minuet is two-and-a-half feet wide, with a tweeter down the inside edge. Space the tweeters the way you would for a conventional speaker and the outer edge of each speaker is going to be almost two-feet closer to the side wall compared to the side of the box cabinet. That’s quite a physical and visual obstruction.