Classic Audio at RMAF

John Wolff's Classic Audio company has been a fixture at audio shows the past few years, always showing his beautifully made speakers, combining hornloaded midrange and highs with big paper-cone woofers, most recently using field-coil–energized drivers. This year John was demming the T-3.4, which combines a field-coil–energized midrange unit, with a 4" beryllium diaphragm loaded by a wooden horn horn with a 2" throat, with a pair of 15" woofers operating below 500Hz, one firing forward, the other at the floor, and a "Ultra-High-Frequency" supertweeter operating above 12.5kHz.

Driven by Atma-Sphere OTL monoblocks via Purist Audio Design cables, with the source a Stahltek Ariaa DAC, the 350 lb T-3.4s sounded better than I was expecting. On the Japanese album Hands from solo bass virtuoso Brian Bromberg, playing "Stella By Starlight," there was something very right about the presentation, perhaps because two pairs of 15" drivers get very close to reproducing the correct intensity—sound pressure per unit area—of the original instrument as well as the overall sound pressure level. Yet the system also excelled on a live two acoustic-guitar arrangement of "Stairway to Heaven," from Rodrigo y Gabriela, which didn't have any lows to speak of.

COMMENTS
MVBC's picture

that the supertweeter looks like it is a professional Fostex unit T500A mk2 that retails around $1,000 a unit and that the rest are professional grade, modified drivers, one indeed expects high sensitivity and tonal quality.

tmsorosk's picture

Nice looking speaker , but know mention here of price ?

DetroitVinylRob's picture

Ralph's Atma-Sphere MP1 and Novacrons  with a quad of 6C33C per side and John's T3.4s field-coiled and Purist loom... a favorite kit in my book.Very nice. ;^)>

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