I recently found myself in Basel close to Clarisys HQ so I contacted Florian and Daan on the off chance they were around. As luck would have it, not only were they around but had a pair of the new Arias available to listen to - a time and date was agreed.
I had previously visited the listening room early last year and heard the Auditoriums, and whilst I enjoyed the experience I had 2 issues: (1) I found the sound somewhat dry with the all-Soulution amplification, and (2) the vast room made it difficult to imagine how the sound would scale into a smaller living-room space. This time round things were very different - the use of VAC amplification and a Lampiziator Horizon front end gave much more warmth and emotion to the music, and the speakers were closer to the listening position giving a much better approximation to a real-world listening environment.
I won't dwell on the aspects of the sound which are inherent to a panel design but suffice to say they were all present and correct (lack of colouration, depth of soundstage, the ability of the music to float in space rather than be driven towards the listening position etc). Instead I'll highlight a few areas where I think these speakers truly excel.
The first is in the speed which in turn gives a level of transparency to a recording without becoming overly analytical. This is something I really appreciate in music reproduction as I find it critical in getting close to understanding and appreciating the musicianship of the recording artist, as well as giving a sense of realism to how an instrument sounds (think plucked guitar strings, hammer of a piano etc).
The second is the coherence of this speed (and other aspects of the sound) across the frequency range. I would guess this is in part due to the same driver topology being employed across the speaker, and is notable particularly when you hear an instrument that covers a wide frequency range such as piano.
The third is the dynamics of bass reproduction. My preference is for bass which has speed and precision to impacts rather than outright weight which often translates to me liking a "dry" bass over something more saturated or "plummy". That said, it still needs to have presence and to be felt as well as heard. I'd satisfied myself that the Arias ticked the above boxes but I asked Florian to play something to demonstrate outright impact, and he choose Ghost Rider's Make Us Stronger. Great choice as it revealed an imressive weight and impact of both bass and drums, giving proper drive and dynamics to the music - genuinely to a level you could party to! At the same time, the complete transparency of the upper frequencies remained intact. The best bass for my tastes that I've heard is the Sigma MAATs and the Arias don't match them for ultimate weight and impact, but none-the-less they are very impressive in this regard irrespective of being a panel design.
The final 45 minutes of our listening session were less about the speakers but an experiment to test digital vs vinyl vs reel. We used the first 4 tracks of Dark Side of the Moon, and went from a locally stored file on the Pink Faun server / Horizon DAC, to vinyl using a Kronos TT / Soulution phonostage, to the Ampex R2R / Soulution phonostage. I'd expected to find vinyl a more relaxing and engaging listen than the digital and that proved to be the case, but what I hadn't expected was the gulf between the vinyl replay and R2R. The only way I could describe it is to say that R2R had the detail of digital but with the flow and coherence of vinyl but even then this wouldn't truly describe the difference. It made me realise how much information we are missing out on irrespective of listening via digital or vinyl, which in a way was quite depressing! Bringing this back to the speakers, the qualities noted above allowed the differences between the 3 formats to be easily heard.
Overall, I was deeply impressed by what I heard from the Arias (and the overall system) - it was one of those listening sessions that you keep thinking back to long after you've left. Many thanks to Florian and Daan for a thoroughly enjoyable listening session, as well as lunch ;-)
I had previously visited the listening room early last year and heard the Auditoriums, and whilst I enjoyed the experience I had 2 issues: (1) I found the sound somewhat dry with the all-Soulution amplification, and (2) the vast room made it difficult to imagine how the sound would scale into a smaller living-room space. This time round things were very different - the use of VAC amplification and a Lampiziator Horizon front end gave much more warmth and emotion to the music, and the speakers were closer to the listening position giving a much better approximation to a real-world listening environment.
I won't dwell on the aspects of the sound which are inherent to a panel design but suffice to say they were all present and correct (lack of colouration, depth of soundstage, the ability of the music to float in space rather than be driven towards the listening position etc). Instead I'll highlight a few areas where I think these speakers truly excel.
The first is in the speed which in turn gives a level of transparency to a recording without becoming overly analytical. This is something I really appreciate in music reproduction as I find it critical in getting close to understanding and appreciating the musicianship of the recording artist, as well as giving a sense of realism to how an instrument sounds (think plucked guitar strings, hammer of a piano etc).
The second is the coherence of this speed (and other aspects of the sound) across the frequency range. I would guess this is in part due to the same driver topology being employed across the speaker, and is notable particularly when you hear an instrument that covers a wide frequency range such as piano.
The third is the dynamics of bass reproduction. My preference is for bass which has speed and precision to impacts rather than outright weight which often translates to me liking a "dry" bass over something more saturated or "plummy". That said, it still needs to have presence and to be felt as well as heard. I'd satisfied myself that the Arias ticked the above boxes but I asked Florian to play something to demonstrate outright impact, and he choose Ghost Rider's Make Us Stronger. Great choice as it revealed an imressive weight and impact of both bass and drums, giving proper drive and dynamics to the music - genuinely to a level you could party to! At the same time, the complete transparency of the upper frequencies remained intact. The best bass for my tastes that I've heard is the Sigma MAATs and the Arias don't match them for ultimate weight and impact, but none-the-less they are very impressive in this regard irrespective of being a panel design.
The final 45 minutes of our listening session were less about the speakers but an experiment to test digital vs vinyl vs reel. We used the first 4 tracks of Dark Side of the Moon, and went from a locally stored file on the Pink Faun server / Horizon DAC, to vinyl using a Kronos TT / Soulution phonostage, to the Ampex R2R / Soulution phonostage. I'd expected to find vinyl a more relaxing and engaging listen than the digital and that proved to be the case, but what I hadn't expected was the gulf between the vinyl replay and R2R. The only way I could describe it is to say that R2R had the detail of digital but with the flow and coherence of vinyl but even then this wouldn't truly describe the difference. It made me realise how much information we are missing out on irrespective of listening via digital or vinyl, which in a way was quite depressing! Bringing this back to the speakers, the qualities noted above allowed the differences between the 3 formats to be easily heard.
Overall, I was deeply impressed by what I heard from the Arias (and the overall system) - it was one of those listening sessions that you keep thinking back to long after you've left. Many thanks to Florian and Daan for a thoroughly enjoyable listening session, as well as lunch ;-)
