TRI-ART OPEN 5 - REVIEW
TRI-ART OPEN 5
I travelled a short distance to a friend’s home mid last year to talk, listen to music, and compare notes. And as his system was quite fully fleshed out—the top DACs, amplification, wires/cables, and speakers—all of which I was very familiar with, I held a growing sense of anticipation.
This, for me, was my first time back into the two-channel realm, where I have spent approximately 97.8% of my listening life. So it was decidedly good to be back. In the interim, headphones had become my raison d’être—my reason for being—and, I must say, they have been quite spectacular, while electrostatics, get outta here, they’re the bomb—extraordinary!
What I had learned from headphones was the intimacy that they not only invoked, but also cultivated. With an electrostatic headphone system there would be scarce few if any details hiding amongst the shadows, whether at some far flung corner of a performance stage or in the deep recesses of an orchestral soundstage – all would see the light of day.
As I have spoken about in my many reviews of electrostatic headphones and their required amplification, the experience with them was something new to me. The electrostatic brought forth profound resolution, transparency, detail, with an abiding musicality that was capable of jaw dropping, rapid-onset-momentary catatonia, figuratively speaking. And its musical kin had not, at that time, been discovered.
I sat centerstage in my friend’s chair of honor, or the ‘sweet spot’, as we of this ‘calling’ refer to it. The music began with me at the dashboard—equipped with the remote control. It was a familiar moment for me, known across countless decades. But it was different, not quite how I had recently experienced it. I goosed the volume up. I repeated. And I repeated the volume increase again until the piece was once again familiar. The look on my friend’s face showed something resembling astonishment and stupefaction and concern.
That fact of the matter was, I was simply not used to stereo listening anymore as so much goes missing with the speakers several feet away. However, when the transducers—headphones—are literally sitting on your ears everything is right there.
Well, as I would soon discover, there exists sort of a twilight zone of transducers—loudspeakers and headphones—where the loudspeakers are several feet away and at the same time, seemingly, on your ears. Or so it seems. And this was my introduction to the Tri-Art Audio OPEN 5 speakers.
REFRAIN: Unlike most reviews, this review will be non-sequential, as it will start with how the components actually sound and not the process of physically “undressing” them and/or laying out their various parts, specifications, etc. Think of this review then, as a non-linear movie—Memento, Kill Bill, Arrival, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Transcendence, etc—that, likewise, starts at the end and winds its way to the beginning.
The SETUP
Speakers are, nonetheless, a different animal from headphones (when you’re not in the twilight zone of transducers). The only ‘setup’ that headphones require, in terms of one’s room, is to be properly affixed to one’s head and ears. This generally takes seconds. Done.
Speakers, on the other hand, do not enjoy such simplicity or ease of placement. Theirs is a case by case determination based upon one’s listening environment—room fabrication and materials of said room, overall dimensions (WxDxH), amount of stuff within room, its reflectivity or absorption profile, spousal/partner placement limitations, etc. Yes, there are a great many more determinants with regard to the proper setup of one’s loudspeakers.
Sometimes setup can be relatively simple, while at other times it’s nearly impossible and one settles for ‘close’ optimization given the variables. I have had easy listening environments and nearly impossible ones, but, ultimately, the music always flowed at the end of the setup.
My current listening room’s dimensions are 15 feet (457.2cm) by 30 feet (914.4cm). My system is placed along the long wall. The left side of that long wall is open, while on the right side there are two very large, double-paned windows, with very effective (sound defusing/absorbing) blinds. The floors are hardwood, covered by large area rugs with thick under-padding. The internal walls are of the robust variety, found in high-rise buildings of the ‘60s-era-build. All one has to do is to walk in to understand the solidity and the quiet.
The TRI-ART OPEN 5s are relatively easy to set up, though they may take a little time to spike and position. The instructions call for an ‘initial’ setup with the OPEN 5s positioned one third (1/3) into the room. I placed the OPEN 5s five feet from the front wall. After some experimentation, I separated them nine and a half feet apart from mid driver to mid driver and toed them in very slightly, an inch and a half. But there was, based upon initial soundings, something that still needed to be figured out.
Figured out? Well, it seems that all was not right and quite possibly terribly wrong in the land of ‘speaker specifications’. And it was this one thing that was throwing everything completely out of balance!
It seems that the OPEN 5’s sensitivity specification was not quite accurate. On paper the OPEN 5 boasted a very efficient rating—94dB— able to be driven easily and well with few watts, little power. The OPEN 5’s sensitivity specification, after trial and failure, with all amplification below a given wattage, provided a first clue as to its actual specification. That clue was that amplifiers below fifty watts provided bass that was more concept, hypothesis, fiction, and entirely missing in action. However, when power, 200 watts, finally arrived in the form of the Audionet PRE G2 and AMP duo (review coming), sufficient clues were amassed to solve the case. And it wasn’t the butler. The OPEN 5’s true rating was closer to 90dB.
The Sound
The OPEN 5’s newly established efficiency necessitated that the Audionet PRE G2 preamp and AMP monoblocks immediately join the review system quintet. Thus the final review system was composed of the following:
Grimm Audio MU1 Streamer
Bricasti Design M1 Special Edition DAC
Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC
Audionet PRE G2 Preamplifier
Audionet AMP Monoblock Amplifiers
Tri-Art OPEN 5 Loudspeakers
Verity Otello Loudspeakers
Audience FrontRow Interconnects (XLR), USB, Ethernet
RSX BEYOND, MAX Power-cords
Audience AdeptResponse aRS-T4 Power Conditioner
With everything right and proper, the TRI-ART OPEN 5s now gave voice time and again to incredible(!) recreations of past performances. Before me lay one of the most spacious stages experienced (far beyond the boundaries of the speakers), and when called for, one of the most intimate stages. Positioning, layering, and spacing were solid, immutable, believable. At one point, as I took in what was a cavernously deep soundstage (Eiji Oue’s Stravinsky), I thought to myself, “That’s far too deep.” Now either this was the result of too long a stint in the headphone world or the drivers assembled for the TRI-ART OPEN 5 were ‘next-leveling’ it—knocking it out of the park. As time went on the latter seemed a more appropriate description of what the OPEN 5s were doing and this was something to behold, especially so for a $7,500 speaker! Incredible!
Within the various expanding and contracting performance stages, based upon the listening material, were oceans of details and micro-details, lightening fast transients and microdynamics, that gave truth to performance after performance. And one must mention the air and ambiance, the nuance and refinement that the OPEN 5 so deftly broadcast from its assembled, upstream bandmates.
The transparency and resolution on offer by the OPEN 5s easily invaded the domains of electrostatic and planar loudspeakers but with a low frequency force and control that the speakers of these domains often fail to bring forth. And yet for so large a speaker to flat out disappear, as in it being impossible to track the point of sound/music from one’s listening chair with eyes closed was, well, magnificent!
[Note: These speakers, properly amped, are tremendous reviewing tools. They are so superbly transparent and resolving that they, the OPEN 5s, will tell on any upstream change! FYI. I’m keeping them.]
BASS
I ran a phalanx of bass and deep bass infused tracks through the review system and out to the OPEN 5. It is quite the experience, from the perspective of the components’ scale—62” speaker sporting 18” and 15” drivers and 200 watt per channel monoblock amplifiers, which would never be mistaken for tiny tots. And assuredly what I write here can be reprised for the Audionet duo that made these revelations across the bass region entirely possible. Though my neighbors may now be a good deal more dubious of the soundings and the rumblings emanating from Casa Heartsong.
Eiji Oue’s “V. Infernal Dance of King Kashchey” (Stravinsky, Reference Recording) via the OPEN 5s is sublime. The timpani were differentiated and fleshed out via both their surfaces and interiors (insides) like I’d never heard before. These levels of transparency and resolution are new and this is a track I have heard across many years and many systems. As the balance of the bass pieces— Dave Holland’s Emerald Tears (Emerald Tears, ECM), Paul Chambers’ Yesterdays (Bass on Top, Blue Note), Marcus Miller’s Power (M2, Concord), etc.— play through, it seems as thought the OPEN 5’s drivers take particular care in their rendering. Which is to say, that its drivers, again, bring a level of transparency, and attendant resolution, detail, and vigor to bass plucks and strums, and twangs that make them dimensional, textured, palpable, real, in-room!
Midrange
“Is someone practicing the sax in your place?” said my friend who called during a reviewing session. I was, of course, sitting before the OPEN 5s but she, possessed of an exceptional ear, thought otherwise. And I can scarcely blame her as I sat in the ‘sweet spot’ listening to Branford Marsalis’s saxophone playing through “Gloomy Sunday”, (Eternal, Marsalis Music) my mouth agape, on a gloomy Sunday. The energy, the vigor, the breath, the life seemed real to me, as I sat, eyes closed, transported and then transfixed, as if in the venue. “Wow,” I thought, “this is scarily good. And I don’t really use ‘scarily’ as an adjective. Hmmmm… How much are these again? I’m definitely keeping them.”
Olafur Arnalds’ “Árbakkinn” (Island Songs, Mercury (Universal France)) cues up and plays through. It is one of my favorites for understanding transparency, resolution, and detail, ‘the Three’ and their nexus—a connection or series of connections—to measure the music’s in-room realism. As poet Einar Georg Einarsson recites there is a strong presence or palpability of him in-room. There is startling clarity, wherein ‘the Three’ place the birds, who are outside of the recording venue, inside and beside Einar, at the song’s earliest moment. Very, very few component mixes can make this happen and even some electrostatic headphone setups fail here. Suffice to say, that the realism in this setup is fourth dimensional—“inconceivable (Vizzini (Wally Shawn), Princess Bride)! ”
TREBLE+
Joe Morello’s drum kit, stage far (far) left, is bopping, his cymbals air-infused, a metallic sheen, delicate, nuanced are in the room, and he is deep in the mix, as “Take Five” (Time Out, Columbia-Legacy) plays on. Dave Brubeck stage far (far) right on piano and Eugene Wright, tucked in right of center and deep set within the stage, cavort away, the spatial cues betraying their position. I can’t remember a time when this performance has been so transparent, so real. I shake my head again at the TRI-ART OPEN 5s well aware that their price tag says, “Yeah, I know, we shouldn’t be able to do this. But, we’re doing it. Ha!” And I sit back and enjoy with one question, “Are you taunting me?”
Hilary Hahn’s “Sonata No. 1 in G minor: Adagio” (Hilary Hahn Plays Bach: Violin Sonatas Nos 1 & 2; Partita No. 1, Decca) is brilliant. Her violin scales treble heights as if borne by wings, all the while energetic, the tone and timbre rich, with air and ambiance and space in abundance. Whoa! No doubt, the OPEN 5’s tweeters and super tweeters are hard at work, making things seem ‘easy as pie’. Bravo!
Design—Look, Feel, and Technology
The OPEN 5s are sculptures which harken back to antiquities and the praise, adulation, and even worship that would be given to statues in human form—anthropomorphic—or abstractly assuming human form. There is no doubt that the OPEN 5s reflect this kind of sculpture. Perhaps they are guardians of the musical altar, who happen to sing incredibly well. Bonus! Just saying.
I imagine some will definitely fancy the big OPEN 5s and some will not. I am one, however, who favors their artistic sensibilities, their goddess-like metaphor, and then there is their beautifully stained patina which covers their bamboo craftsmanship. Well done.
Conclusion
The TRI-ART OPEN 5 at $7500 is a game changer in that it will challenge, easily, speakers at multiples upon multiples of its price. All one need do to achieve this, is to feed it sufficient, well enabled power to bring it to life (100 watts+)!
Yes, its complement of drivers—two-18” and two-15” woofers, 2-8” midranges, two-1” tweeters, and 2-super-tweeters—allow the OPEN 5 to easily mark all of the audiophile check boxes—transparency, resolution, Pacing, Rhythm, and Timing (PRaT), detail retrieval, soundstaging, microdynamics, weight, etc.—while pleasing music lovers to no end. And there is its finesse, its open air ambiance, its wealth of spatial cues, and the incredible spaciousness, as a result, which, in my opinion, make it other—not electrostatic, not boxed, not planar—but perhaps some mix of all in addition to being open baffle.
TRI-ART OPEN 5 is a music lover’s and an audiophile’s ‘for sure’ bargain and for us an award winner and easily so. We award the OPEN 5 our highest award—DIAMOND AWARD—for outstanding musical prowess and for its various assembled, technical abilities that make it a truly extraordinary speaker (and at such an outstandingly low cost!). Can you say bargain? Bravo! Bravo!
Pros: Incredibly musical and exceptionally proficient transducer, technically, that performs leagues above its retail price and that challenges speakers leagues above its retail price (when properly powered).
Cons: Needs amplification greater than 50 watts to excel.
The Technical Specifications
TRI-ART OPEN 5
Design: Open Baffle
Nominal Impedance: Single Input 8 Ω
Recommended Amplifiers: 60 Up to 150 Watts RMS
Sensitivity: 90dB SPL (1W/1M) [my calculations]
Volume Matching: Crossover Only
Frequency Range: 35 – 40,000 Hz
Driver Details
Total Drivers: Five
Input 1: 1″ Fabric Dome Tweeter (13,000 Hz and up) 20 Watts, 8″ Full Range Paper Cone Cloth Edge, Super Tweeter (40,000 Hz)
Input 2: Up to 150 Watts, Two Paper Cone Cloth, Edge Woofers
Top 15″: 30-100Hz @ 1st Order 6dB Slope
Bottom 18″: 27-50Hz @ 1st Order 6 dB Slope
Mode: Floor Standing
Finish: Bamboo Laminate Soaked in Hemp Oil
Stands: Bamboo Stand with 4 Brass-Collared, Bronze Spikes with Bamboo Spike Cups
Dimensions H: 62.0″ (157.48cm) W: 19″ (48.26cm) D: 16.25″ (41.27cm)
The Associated Components
Streamers & Sources
Grimm Audio MU1 Streamer
Silent Angel Rhein Z1 Streamer & Forester F2 Power Supply
DACs
Border Patrol SE-i DAC
Bricasti Audio Design M1SE DAC
DENAFRIPS Pontus II DAC
Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC
Amplification
LYRIC Ti 100 Integrated
Audionet G2 Preamplifier
Audionet AMP Monoblocks
Tri-Art P-Series Integrated
Speakers
Verity Otello Floor-Standing Speakers
Vivid Kaya 45 Floor-Standing Speakers
Wires&Cables
AntiCable USB Cable, Interconnects (XLR, RCA), Level 3 Power Cords
Audience Front Row USB Cable, Interconnects (XLR, RCA)
RSX MAX, BEYOND Power Cords
WireWorld Platinum Ethernet Cables
Power Generation
Audience AdeptResponse aRS-T4 Power Conditioner
RSX Power8 Power Box
TORUS RM20 Power Conditioner
The Company
TRI-ART AUDIO
OPEN 5 Speakers $7,599
www.triartaudio.com
4 Harvey Street,
Kingston ON K7K 5B9
