The ONE Loudspeaker from Audience
by Robert Harley – The Absolute Sound, Sept 2011/Issue 215

Two rooms stood out for good sound without an astronomical price tag. The first was the Nola Contender loudspeaker ($3400) driven by a PrimaLuna PA-1 integrated amplifier ($2995) as presented by Upscale Audio. The second system included The ONE loudspeaker from Audience, a tiny cube housing a single full-range driver. Everyone in the demo thought that the subwoofers in the corners were active, but the full bass was coming from the $995-per-pair ONEs. At the end of the demo, a showgoer began applauding.

An Audient Moment
by Clark Johnsen/Positive Feedback Online, Issue 56

“The Audience Clair Audient 2+2 mini-monitor system is nearly sui generis, as no bass augmentation is needed. Really. The 3-inch drivers boast a cone excursion of 12mm and the effect is uncanny–no subwoofer, yet extremely clean wide-range sound. But I have to tell you, this little pair goes for $5000. Still… And Audience has even larger systems employing the same remarkable driver that go for more, and go way louder. Phenomenal, almost unbelievable, from drivers this size.”

Stereophile Blogs Audience at THE Show Newport
Audience The One by Michael Lavorgna Posted June 7, 2011

“I got to hear both the Audience ClairAudient 2+2 loudspeaker ($5000/pair, reviewed in the July 2011 issue of Stereophile) and the diminutive ClairAudient THE ONE ($995/pair). Associated electronics and cables were also from Audience and included the Wavepower monoblocks ($14,000/pair), a class-D analog switching power amplifier that put out 200W into 8 ohms, the Wavemaster preamplifier ($13,000), and AU24e cables and power cords and an Adept Response High Resolution Power Conditioner ($5000). The source was an Audience-modified Oppo BDP-83SE Blu-ray player, which was not for sale (priceless).

The Audience guys seemed to get no end of enjoyment watching people’s jaws hit the floor, the rug was littered with audiophile jawbones, when they played the single-driver ClairAudient THE ONE, which has nearly unbelievable bass performance for its size. Both speakers actually sounded big and solid with a nice fat midrange.”

T.H.E. Show Newport: Live Music from the Best Seat in the House
Russ Stratton/May/June 2011

The Absolute Sound -April 2011/Alan Taffel

“The best-sounding one-ways I heard came from Audience, which makes a full line of one-ways under the ClairAudient name starting with the simply astonishing ONE – a tiny $995 cube that sounds for all the world like a large floorstander. (Indeed, you could have knocked me over when I learned that I was listening to ONEs rather than the larger models flanking them.) In my category, the company introduced the $12,500 4+4, so dubbed because of its four high-excursion aluminum-magnesium drivers front and back. As one might expect, bass rolled off below 60Hz, but otherwise these speakers exhibited incredible soundstaging along with excellent mids and dynamics.”

Alan Taffel/HiFi +

Greg Weaver/Positive Feedback

Audience’s chief design engineer, Roger Sheker, stands between two very overachieving new speakers, The ONE, on the short stand atop the counter to the left, and the 2+2, on which he is resting his hand to the right. Like all of the Audience ClairAudient line of loudspeakers, they are based on the astonishing Audience A-3S driver, a remarkable little 3-inch driver, and are therefore crossover-less. I have to say that at $995, The ONE, using one A-3S driver on the front, acoustically coupled to a single passive driver on the rear face, is going to set a high standard of overall performance. I expected it to be good, but it was truly stunning, quite competently filling the good-sized suite occupied by Audience on the fourth floor of the Flamingo!

From left to right, Dan Rosca, Vice-president of Sales and Marketing, Roger Sheker, Chief design engineer, and John McDonald, President and CEO of Audience, stand behind the new ClairAudient 4+4, which should sell for around $12,500. I only had one word for the way it performed in their nicely sized suite in the Flamingo, “F**k,” and they plan to quote me! The speaker is amazingly transparent, with goose-bump generating dynamics, and a naturalness that is rare at any price, let alone the $12.5K price point!

Audiogon (Click here to hear a room recording of The ONE!)
The Most Surprising Sound

The new Clairaudient desktop speakers (by Audience) were dropping jaws all day. There are single driver speakers and there are mini monitors. Combine the two and add some battery supplied power by Virtue Audio and WOW! The phase coherence of a single driver and the size of the cabinet made for an eerily realistic soundstage.

The ONE – $995/pr.

Audience’s The One Clairaudient by Stephen Mejias /Stereophile.com
http://www.stereophile.com/content/audiences-one-clairaudient

“The sound was tuneful and rhythmically assured, with nice air around voices and cymbals, and a lovely tone to woodwinds. The folks from Devialet seemed just as impressed.”

Product Coverage from Soundstageglobal.com
http://www.soundstageglobal.com/

Stereophile.com by Jason Victor Serinus
Audience Earns My Applause

“To demonstrate one of the Audience ClairAudient line’s strong points, which creates a “sweet space rather than a sweet spot”, John asked me to sit way against one of the sidewalls. The coherence of the soundstage image and the depth remained, with voice and piano floating in space. As impressive a phenomenon as the sound was lovely.”

John Casler of VMPS (left) and John McDonald of Audience at CES 2007 where new products were shown which expand the adeptResponse power conditioning line, including the six receptacle aR6 and the aR1p (archived page), a single receptacle unit for mono blocks or ceiling mount projectors. Positive Feedback reported the sound to be dynamic and tonally balanced, with a sense of speed and immediacy that few others captured.