Review: Audience ClairAudient 1 + 1 V3 Speakers

This is the fourth version of John McDonald’s Audience 1+1 speakers that I have reviewed. The last ones I reviewed in 2017 had a ridiculously long name, the ClairAudient 1+1 V2+ (Generation 2). Thank goodness these are simply the V3s.

In my 2015 review of the original 1+1s, I said, “Listening to the Audience ClairAudient 1+1 speakers was truly a beautiful experience.”  With each version of these speakers, there has been an improvement. The V2+ speakers, for example, were a significant improvement. They had more solidity and more realistic weight and scale in the mid and upper bass. In my review, I said, ”The most difficult thing to believe about the speaker now was just how much sound was coming from these little, dare I say these tiny, speakers. The sound is so big, and these speakers are so tiny.”

Description

All versions of the Audience 1+1 are 6” by 8” by 9.5” works of art. They are little jewels through which unbelievably good sound enters your room. The build quality is also equally impressive.

John designed these speakers around Audience’s proprietary full-range 3-inch driver. It delivers an extremely flat frequency response from 50Hz to 22kHz. It also has the huge advantage of not needing a crossover network. This eliminates the inherent difficulties of integrating multiple sonically dissimilar drivers. It also eliminated the accompanying phase distortions and degradation of a crossover network.

Design

There are front and rear-mounted active three-inch full-range drivers. Dual side-mounted passive radiators augment the output of the 1+1 V3 drivers. This design enables these speakers to deliver outstanding presence and dynamic contrast.

The full-range drivers incorporate numerous engineering refinements such as a large patented neodymium-magnet motor structure and voice coil that moves with a highly linear excursion of 12mm; an exclusive titanium alloy cone material with a curvilinear shape.

The driver has a special designed concave dust cap to control high-frequency cone breakup and provide optimum dispersion. It also has a uniquely shaped surround that allows the driver to behave more like an ideal pistonic radiator, and many additional enhancements.

What’s Different

The Audience V3s have several improvements that John was not willing to talk about yet. He did say that they have implemented a new improved voice coil technology. This technology provides a faster rise time and greater control of the driver. Another huge improvement in the V3s is that the internal wiring is updated to the Audience flagship FrontRow cables. I reviewed these cables last year and use them in my reference system.

Setup of the V3s

The size of the V3s may tempt you to think no further than bookshelf speakers and sit them close to the wall in an office or bedroom system. They are nice in such a setup, but this setup will give you no idea of their real capabilities.

Since the V3s are bidirectional, they need to be placed far away from the back wall to avoid early sonic reflections smearing the image. I simply moved my QUAD ESL57s and put the V3s on stands about five feet from the rear wall and about six feet apart. If there is anything you need to do, John, it is to build a stand for these speakers that looks as good as they do. I bet you would sell a lot more.

These speakers do need some power. I tried them with the First Watt SIT-3, but the sound was small. The amps I ended up using were my Butler Audio MONAD A100 pure Class A monoblocks.

Listening

I know you are asking, “What about the bass?” Both the V3s and my QUAD ESL57s state that their bottom end goes down to 50hz. The difference is that if you pull the QUADs far enough out into the room, say about five feet or more, they can develop big bass waves that feel powerful and move a lot of air. While the V3 has really good bass down to 50hz, but they do not move as much air. Still they sound better than you would ever dream from such small speakers.

I think you will be extremely pleased with them without a sub, especially if you listen almost exclusively to pop vocals, jazz, and small classical music. The good news is that I have found all of the versions of the 1+1s to be easy to blend with two good subs.

Conclusion

The V3s improvements are not subtle. They are more transparent, more resolving, and even quieter than the V2+ generation.  More importantly, the dynamics are much improved as well as the musical flow and musical tonality. The V3s are simply amazing with a sound that competes with much larger and much, much more expensive speakers. Very highly recommended!

Price: $2,965.00