Clarity
Soundstage
Non fatigueing
Sheer pleasure to listen too

Need very clean power
Low end at extreme conditions

The soundstage is excellent. Speakers need to be given room to breathe. Three feet from the back wall with a foot to spare on the side is a must. I power them with a Digital Amplifier Company "Cherry" Amp. It is very clean low distortion and powerful. The Cal. Sigs. play acoustic guitar, piano, female vocals and jazz with exceptional clarity. Instruments are placed well in the soundstage. Rebecca Pidgeon singing "Spanish Harlem" is life like. The highs and mid range are very smooth. The low end is very good. I can play a clean recording of "Fanfare for the common man" loud without distortion. But the low end does role off when played loudly on other recordings such as , pink floyd and Dagda. If played at a medium level the low end is very good. I like these speakers better than the Quad ESL 57's and the Apogee Stages I previously owned. Quite honestly they are the all around best speaker I have heard.

Similar Products Used:

Apogee Stage
Quad ESL 57's

Fliud Midrange, Great Soundstage, Sonic Realism, Excellent Musicality, Conveys the texture of the Music

Relatively Inefficient, Difficult to service if necessary

There is nothing like a well made ribbon speaker for coming close to a live musical performance. (The Quad electrostatics are great too but are less full range and dynamic).Apogees are more problematic than conventional speakers to place in your room, they are large and tend to dominate the room. They tend to be wife(or husband) unfriendly.
You must hear them even decently set-up with a good familiar recording that you enjoy. There is really no way back to a box-type speaker, you will be spoiled. Since the Calipers and other Apogees are no longer current, the price has become more affordable. If you purchase, make sure the ribbons are completely undamaged (no dents or cuts) as the repairs are expensive.
Despite their relative affordability they can produce some of the sweetest and most musical sounds available. In fact one of the current reviewers in Stereophile uses Apogee Duetta Signatures in his review system. If you love Hi-fi look elsewhere, these speakers were made for musical pleasure.
I have heard the Diva's and Duetta's and so I am giving the Calipers 4 stars...

Similar Products Used:

Auditioned Quad, Magnaplaner, Proac

Great speakers. I owned them for a three year span, and to only reason I sold them was because I bought the bigger Apogee Diva. If Diva didn't exist, I would never have sold the Calipers.

The Caliper Sigs are simply the best speakers I've ever heard, but only after meticulous set up and great care taken to matching electronics. I'm biamping them using a pair of VAC PA90C1 monoblocks for the tweeter/midrange ribbons, and an Aragon 4004 mk.II for the woofer ribbon panels. A tweaked Audio Research passive crossover (at 400hz) also serves as a passive attenuator in place of a preamp. I've direct wired the speaker cable to the bass panels, but I don't know how to bypass the crossover for the tweeter ribbons w/o disabling a (very necessary) shaping filter (don't try to direct wire these ribbons -- the excursion could damage them). Anyone that's been able to find a more pure signal path to these tweeter ribbons, please e-mail me.

I just bought these a few weeks ago and the midrange and imaging is very good. I have a Krell KSA -100S and BAT VK-3 preamp. I'm looking for suggestions for speaker cable and interconnect (under $500.) that will provide a warm tube like sound with very good sound stage. Has anyone biamped these? any external crossover recomendations? or amp recomendation to drive the midrange/tweeter panels?
I also tried these with mono Golden Tube SE-40's (80watts each!) but they don't image as well as the Krells.

This is one of my all-time favourite speakers. Maybethey are not perfect, but driven by a Krell KST-100
(remember?) the lush midrange and treble have a
refinement I'd melt for. Bass may be a bit lumpy, but
it is deep. Dynamics and levels may be restricted,
but in European rooms this is not an issue. I liked
them very much, this in shrill contrast to the Martin
Logans I once auditioned (Sequel and Aerius).

The Cals made music. Period.