Thank you, Steve for some perspective. Some have been saying that the Caladan is the best speaker Clayton has designed. This never made sense to me since the Spatial X4 uses a big dipole AMT tweeter crossed over around the same frequency, much better xover parts, much better baffle, much better base and the same two woofs as in the Caladan. Of course, the X4 is $9800.....not $3300.
Steve says the Pure Audio Project trio with the ESS AMT ($6K) is more transparent and punches harder......says the Magnepan 1.7 ($4K) is more coherant and less colored, says it does not sound all the great at low volume. However, as he said, it is the cheapest open baffle speaker he has reviewed and thought it was great....for the money. Which is good news for those waiting for their speakers to be finished.
However, you can build your own Caladan clone for $1500 or better yet do what I just did and build a speaker using the same woofers but use a time aligned $50 planar tweeter on top with hardly (or no) crossover on it that goes down to 400hz The woofs just have a 2 mh coil on them.....I will be starting a thread on this speaker and will have pictures of my speaker on my website and mucho information by the end of the week. This IS NOT a commercial product. This is for myself and for anyone who wants to make their own speaker.....I don’t make money sharing this information. If in the bay area, I will be (in a month or so) inviting people to come over and hear what I have done. The fun is in sharing.
For many, the Caladan will be a great buy and a speaker they will keep for a long time. But, for those with more refined tastes and can build their own (very few....even though it is easy)......or have more money....there are better options. My definition of an audiophile...."Someone who is not happy with their stereo".....I mean, why buy a new speaker.....wasn’t your last one satisfying?......he he. We have the ability to enjoy the ride......so please enjoy the speaker ride. None of this is serious.....just guys playing with toys.