Classic Audio T1 and T3 field coil loudspeakers

Thanks, David, for the interesting comments. Can anyone suggest T3 room size guidelines, and how much do the T3 go for ?

Jtimothya, I have T-3s at home. The T-3 as an all-alnico unit is $15,500. You can add the field-coil drivers as options. The midrange is the most important (that's what I have right now- next step is the super tweeters), that puts the cost at $18,000/pair. To add the tweeter makes it $21,000 and finally with the field coil woofers $28,500/pair.

The T-3 uses the same drivers and crossovers as the T-1 and has similar cabinet volume. It differs in being narrower and taller, on account of its use of a JBL horn which is not as wide as the one on the T-1. That is why I have the T-3 at home- the wider dimension of the T-1 would not have worked in my space. In sound and measurement the two horns using the same driver seem to behave nearly the same.

The speaker is easy to set up in smaller rooms as long as you can have a listening chair at least 8-10' from the speaker- they aren't so great near-field. We've set them up in some smaller hotel rooms with good success- you can back them up against the wall (mine are 6 inches from the rear wall) without loss of air or soundstage effect.

You could set them up easily in a room that was only 10 feet wide as long as you could get at least that far from them. If you have your listening chair against the rear wall there would probably be too much deep bass reinforcement, so for a 10 foot wide room one would hope that it was at least 13-17 feet in length. Of course big rooms are easy and the speaker is so easy to drive that a 50 foot long room could be filled with ease.

Agree with Dlanselm and Ralph...the A-S/Classic Audio/Triplanar room was one of our favorites!

Best,
Sam

Thank you Ralph - very helpful info!

just refreshing this thread with more recent anecdotal and subjective feedback, as it is well deserved

simply hearing the Classic T series loudspeakers, as said, is worth the trip.

Muhammad could not go to the mountain, so the mountain was brought to Muhammad.

no. I’m not Muhammad. not even close. yet the above edict was fulfilled at the February 2019  Florida Audio Expo  when John Wolf demonstrated his T1s and T3s with Atmasphere power, Tri-Planar Tonearms and Purist Audio Design cabling.

the setup resided in by any account a very large room, within the Expo Venue. a room size Bill Gates might have in his house, a true auditorium. 

on my first day at the Expo, I had decided to make a ‘bee line’ to this exhibition given all the hype I’ve heard from folks on these pages and elsewhere about Atmasphere and Classic Audio  pairings.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was on tap as I entered the room and the sound was immediate and engrossing. and why shouldn’t it be? there was a ton of money behind those sounds, but then isn’t there always when a startling reach out and grab you audio moment is heard?

reading and re-reading the above posts my expectations were fairly lofty but the presentation satisfied them all but one.

I spent much of the time there speaking with Mr. Wolf about the diffs between his T1  and T3 and the associated options for the T3.

I regret not taking the time to get into the sweet spot but felt I’m not a player for the T1s anyhow and did not want to delay another from it.

In our conversation John laid out as much info as I could retain and then some and was as   ?    plesant a person as one could hope to meet.

all of the audio adjectives listed here are accurate. I’m not a fan of panel or electrostatic speakers in general, though I can appreciate what they are capable of having heard many. I don’t care for the shouting attribute which seems more the norm in horns whose designs aren’t quite able to overcome this characteristic.

 I want music to soar and pop when it is supposed to. I want to feel the bottom end whack in my gut. I’m unable to accept a top end which is shrill or edged, bright or inordinately pronounced. and I simply can not live long with a mid range which veils or distances vocals deep into the sound stage or diminihshes the mids in preference to bolstering the lower and upper ends.

and I so love a tight, taut bass line which has a well defined leading edge  where one doesn;’t have to strain to hear strings being strummed, plucked or picked, on a dog house bass or even on electric bass.

despite the cavernous room the bass was remarkable. blended. appropriate or comensurate with the balance of the music. satisfying.

I gotta say hearing the T1 as they were setup the sound hit all of the hot buttons for me. 

for the first time I was not annoyed by the ease  of the demo which was akin to the usual presentation of many panels or stats, ease of the presentation which is surely noticeable, for it was as well sufficiently punchy and tight where and when  ordered. likely, the order of punch or smack elevates in a smaller room. 

it was in a word, unique to everythingn I’ve heard to date. slaughtering all of my preconceptions, groundless resentments, and  conveying not just the music and its melody, but its soul. I keep thinking if the sound were a tad  more strriking  that would be perfect, but as it is or was, is as close to what I could want as a destination arrangement.

“you don’t always get what you want….”

sadly, I was unable to return to hear the T3s later. so in time, there will be perhaps something special to look forward to at another show, or next year at Florida Audio Expo 2020. hopefully sooner.

congratulations Ralph! Thank you John.

Pardon  me, but I gotta go now. I ‘ll need to mastermind a plan to take down a diamond mine, or a major bank somewhere, as it seems I am a bit short on the entry fee for the whole setup.