Clarisys Audio

Clarisys Audio True Bi-Pole Ribbon Loudspeaker Manufacturer

CLARISYS AUDIO — THE TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE BASE IS NOW OPEN https://clarisys.audio/knowledgeIf you want to understand how ...
08/31/2026

CLARISYS AUDIO — THE TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE BASE IS NOW OPEN https://clarisys.audio/knowledge

If you want to understand how a Clarisys Audio loudspeaker actually works, there is now a place to find the answers directly from the people who engineer and build it.

Over the years, we have seen countless explanations of our technology across YouTube, forums and social media. Unfortunately, almost all of what has been said about the construction, operation and engineering of our loudspeakers has been incomplete, misunderstood or simply incorrect.

We have spent enough time trying to correct misconceptions one discussion at a time.

Instead, we decided to build something useful.

The Clarisys Audio Technical Knowledge Base is dedicated to people who genuinely want to understand the engineering behind our products — not opinions, interpretations or second-hand explanations, but the actual design principles, technical decisions and manufacturing methods behind Clarisys Audio.

We will explain, step by step:

• What a true ribbon driver actually is — and how it differs fundamentally from conventional and planar-magnetic drivers
• Why Clarisys is a true ribbon design — with the diaphragm itself acting as the conductor
• How our piano-string tensioning system works — and why the way a ribbon is mounted and tensioned matters
• Why ribbon drivers require transformers — including why we use dedicated transformers for individual ribbon sections
• Why Clarisys uses a bipolar, back-to-back ribbon configuration — and what this means acoustically in the listening room
• Why we use ribbon bass instead of conventional cone woofers — and the mechanical and acoustic advantages of a large, uniformly driven surface
• Why we use first-order 6 dB/octave crossovers — and the importance of phase behaviour and driver integration
• Why precise time alignment is critical in a first-order ribbon system
• Why we use N52 neodymium magnets and how magnetic field strength affects ribbon performance
• Why our ribbons use Kapton-aluminium construction and how material choice affects stability and performance
• How Clarisys ribbons are actually manufactured
• Why some Clarisys models use external crossovers
• Why our bass section uses a single-sided magnet array
• Why we use pure copper foil internally — and the engineering decisions behind our signal path

No influencer interpretation.
No forum mythology.
No marketing folklore.

Engineering. Manufacturing. Measurements. Results.

We don’t expect everyone to care about the technical details.

But for those who do, we believe they deserve access to the people who actually designed and built the product.

Welcome to the Clarisys Audio Technical Knowledge Base.

Understand the product. Understand the engineering. Then listen for yourself. More sections coming soon.

Tech Section Preview Part 2. (full release next week)Why a bipole (back-to-back) ribbon configuration?A second ribbon on...
08/29/2026

Tech Section Preview Part 2. (full release next week)

Why a bipole (back-to-back) ribbon configuration?
A second ribbon on the rear, driven in phase, energises the room uniformly and carries the same spectral and phase information as the direct sound.

A single ribbon radiates from both its front and rear faces — it is inherently a dipole. In a conventional dipole design the rear wave is typically absorbed or diffused so it does not interfere with the front. Clarisys instead mounts a second ribbon on the back of the cabinet, driven in phase with the front, creating a true bipole.

Because the two ribbons are driven in phase, they move in the same physical direction at the same instant: when both move forward toward the listener, both also push air outward — the front ribbon radiates toward the listener and the rear ribbon radiates toward the rear wall, in phase with each other. That is what makes it a bipole, as opposed to a dipole, where the two ribbons are driven out of phase and move in opposite directions, so one face pushes while the other pulls.

What this achieves:

Coherent reverberant field. The speaker radiates a coherent wavefront into the room from both faces, so the reverberant energy carries the same spectral and phase information as the direct sound. The room is energised uniformly, not from a single forward-facing point.

Spatial realism. Because the back wave arrives at the listener after reflecting off the room boundaries, it supplies the spatial cues that a monopole simply cannot reproduce. This is the source of the "you are there" holography that ribbon systems are known for.

Even power response. Because the two ribbons are in phase (bipole, not out-of-phase dipole), they do not cancel at the sides the way a dipole does, giving smoother total power response off-axis. No cabinet diffraction at the rear. The rear ribbon radiates into free air the same way the front does, so the back of the speaker is as acoustically "open" as the front.

Why only the midrange and treble:
From 280 Hz upward (–6 dB crossover point), all Clarisys models — the Piccolo, Minuet, Studio, Auditorium, Aria, and Atrium — run their midrange and treble ribbons in this back-to-back true-bipole configuration. The bass section does not — it runs as a dipole, radiating from both faces of a single ribbon with the front and back out of phase.

The bipole's value is spatial: it supplies directional cues and even reverberant energy in the frequencies where the ear localises direction. At bass frequencies the wavelengths are long relative to the cabinet, so a second rear-facing bass ribbon driven in phase would add little spatial information while exciting room modes unpredictably. The bipole belongs where it does something; the bass stays a dipole.

Clarisys Audio - The leader in ribbon speaker engineering.

Knowledge Base Preview Part 1The piano-string tensioning system: why Clarisys ribbons are tensioned like instrument stri...
08/28/2026

Knowledge Base Preview Part 1

The piano-string tensioning system: why Clarisys ribbons are tensioned like instrument strings
Every Clarisys ribbon is clamped and tensioned at its ends like a piano string, with an adjustable system that sets its mechanical operating point. No other ribbon manufacturer does this.

A ribbon is a thin, flexible conductor suspended in a magnetic gap. Left to itself, that foil would sag under its own weight, would not stay flat, and would have an uncontrolled mechanical resonance. Every ribbon speaker must deal with this. Most manufacturers simply clamp or glue the foil at its ends and accept whatever tension that produces. Clarisys does something different: it tensions the ribbon like a piano string, with an adjustable tensioning system, and no other ribbon manufacturer does this.

The analogy to piano strings
A piano string is a steel wire stretched across a frame at a precisely set tension. That tension determines three things: the pitch (the fundamental resonant frequency), the mechanical Q (how long the string rings), and the straightness of the string across its length. A piano is tuned by adjusting the tension of each string individually.

A Clarisys ribbon is governed by the same mechanics. The ribbon — pure aluminium for the midrange and treble sections, aluminium-Kapton composite for the bass section — is clamped at both ends into terminal blocks, and one of those blocks is part of an adjustable tensioning mechanism that lets the ribbon be set to a specific, measured tension. Like a piano string:

the tension sets the ribbon's fundamental mechanical resonance — the frequency at which the ribbon wants to ring on its own;
the tension sets the ribbon's mechanical Q — how quickly any stored energy decays;
the tension keeps the ribbon flat and centred in the magnetic gap across its full length, so it never approaches the pole pieces.

Why this matters:

A ribbon that is simply clamped has an uncontrolled tension — it is whatever the foil happened to be at the moment it was fixed. Its resonance is uncontrolled, its flatness is uncontrolled, and as the foil ages and creeps, the tension drifts and the ribbon sags. The sound changes over time, and there is nothing to be done about it short of replacing the ribbon.

With a tensioning system:

Each ribbon is set to its correct operating point during manufacture, against a measured reference, so every panel behaves the same.
The mechanical resonance is placed where it is harmless — out of the passband, or where the crossover attenuates it — rather than landing somewhere random in the midrange.
The ribbon stays flat for decades, because the tension is actively maintained by the frame, not just by the foil's own stiffness.
The ribbon can be re-tensioned in the field if it ever drifts, restoring the panel to spec without replacing it.

Why nobody else does it:

The reason is straightforward: it is hard. It requires a frame rigid enough to hold a stable tension (which is why Clarisys uses CNC-machined aluminium), a tensioning mechanism at each terminal block, and a manufacturing process that sets and verifies tension per ribbon. It is cheaper to simply clamp the foil and ship it — and that is what the rest of the industry does.

The piano-string tensioning system is one of the reasons a Clarisys ribbon sounds the way it does, and one of the reasons it keeps sounding that way for decades rather than seasons. It is, as far as we know, unique to Clarisys.

08/28/2026

CLARISYS AUDIO KNOWLEDGE BASE

There is a lot of information about high-end audio on the internet. Some of it is correct. Some of it is opinion presented as fact. And some of it is simply wrong.

We believe there should be a factual baseline.

That is why we are building the **Clarisys Audio Knowledge Base** — a permanently accessible technical resource integrated into our website and written by the people who actually design, engineer and build our loudspeakers.

We have already shared parts of this knowledge publicly. Now we are going to systematically document it.

The Knowledge Base will combine detailed technical articles with straightforward answers to the questions we encounter most often:

How does a Clarisys ribbon actually work?
Why aluminium?
How does the magnetic system work?
Why do we use transformers?
How does our passive crossover work?
What impedance does the amplifier actually see?
How much amplifier power do you really need?
How should a Clarisys be positioned in the room?
How much toe-in should be used?
What is the ideal listening distance?
How does a dipole interact with the room?
Why are our frames welded?
How are the ribbons manufactured and tensioned?
What separates a true ribbon from other planar technologies?

And much more.

For every question, we want to provide a clear answer, explain the engineering behind it and, wherever useful, support it with measurements, diagrams, photographs and examples directly from our production.

No mythology. No hearsay. Just a factual reference for Clarisys Audio, directly from the source.

And unlike a social media post, this information will not disappear after a few days. The Knowledge Base will remain permanently accessible on our website and continue to grow into a comprehensive technical archive of Clarisys Audio.

**And we want your questions.**

If there is something about Clarisys Audio, ribbon technology, setup, amplification, construction or our engineering that interests you, please feel free to share your questions with us.

The best and most frequently asked questions will become part of the Knowledge Base.

**If you want to understand Clarisys Audio, ask us. We built it.**

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7353 International Place
Sarasota, FL
34240

Telephone

+41 78 873 19 60

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