Clarisys Audio Aria, Pass Labs | Florida 2026
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I don’t really have a favorite speaker. Not in brand, not in style, not in design. At this point, some 17 years of managing this site, I’ve long lost track of the number of demos I’ve heard. I’ve heard big speakers, small speakers, horn speakers, electrostats, dynamic speakers with paper cones and ceramic cones, yada yada yada. What I do know is that I don’t know — I am not an engineer and I don’t play one on TV — but I’m still able to marvel at a design that clearly does something different and then clearly does it well. The Clarisys Audio Aria ($195,000/pair), my case in point, prove that I’ve still a lot to learn about the search for great sound. And that’s exactly the way I want it.
To be blunt, I haven’t spent any real time with Clarisys speakers, so I hope I’ll be forgiven for not being the expert in the brand’s design-approach or the sound they make. In fact, and as something of an aside that I’ll return to in the show summary, it was made exquisitely clear at this show that very few “hobby writers” at this show (or any other) are in truth much farther along than I am, even if they choose to argue that point. Let’s just say that there were opinions expressed in Florida that made it pretty clear that what the media do in this industry is somewhat different than what the Associated Press does. Be that as it may, pt.AUDIO is still here, still having a fine ol’ time, and still sharing our experiences. Some of those experiences have been with Clarisys, who got a runner-up Best-in-Show nod from this very show, last year — check out those links at the bottom.
For those of you even less in the know than I am, the Clarisys Audio Aria are “bi-pole” — and while the value of this approach is worthy of discussion, the short-form benefit for most of you will be “less interaction with the room”. These speakers are true ribbons — not just ribbon tweeters — and that confers advantages on speed, coherence, and therefore, on realism. At some point, we’ll go into the details about Florian Wiegand’s designs, but for those of you unable to resist your curiosity, detailed discussion is available on the Clarisys site (see here).
The rest of the system was just as imposing as the massive speakers. On the floor were a quartet of the monstrous Pass Labs X600 mono block amplifiers ($31,460 each), and on the Ictra Designs rack was the Pass XS Pre2 ($56,000), the MSB Cascade DAC ($90,000+ as configured here), a Pink Faun dual ultra music server/streamer ($75,900). Signal Project cables were used throughout.
Florian told me that the Clarisys Audio Aria panels have an unusual amount of travel, which translated here in Florida as “slammin’ bass”, and the ribbons flew their colors with incredibly transparent sound. For my time in the hot seat, I will offer that the imaging was vividly other-worldly, and of the mega-speaker systems on display here at the Florida Audio International Expo, this room was the one that show-goers were giggling about in the hallway. This room was very popular every day I visited, and the supremely adjustable (and extremely massive) sail-like speakers both looked and sounded like “high end”, but I’m stunned no one requested “Come Sail Away” from Styx — though AC/DC did make an appearance!
Another Best-In-Show Contender, right out of the gate.
The 2025 Florida International Audio Expo is over, and its place among the top high-end audio shows in North America is secure. FLAX 2025 seemed larger than last year, and not just because the venue had moved to the Sheraton Tampa Brandon. But there were plenty of rooms, and they were truly bustling on all…
There was a surprising focus on CD playback at this year’s California Audio Show in Emeryville. Weather this was the result of a clear preference for the format, nostalgia, necessity or a combination of all of the above, the sound coming from said format was really able to shine at the audio event over the…
And now for something completely different–a big pair of panel speakers in a big hotel conference room playing big music. I’m not sure why the CAT and Clarisys Audio room at AXPONA 2024 seemed like such an anachronism, but sometimes I wonder why fewer big panel speakers cross my path than in years past. The…
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via Confessions of a Part-Time Audiophile https://pt.audio
February 28, 2026 at 06:08PM
February 28, 2026 at 06:08PM
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