Rich Graebel
HifiZine roving reporter

Hawthorne Audio

These open baffle speakers are the best I’ve heard.  Not that I heard many nor really care for the ones I did hear.  But definitely good.  The bass is different without a box but is growing on me. Worth the listen if these speakers or their design interest you.  A nice looking room and the speakers did not over power it.

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Bob Marley Jamin’ is sounding really sweet.
Twenty-five watt monos on tweeters and mids and a couple plate amps on the bass drivers. Mac mini battery powered and an Emotiva cd player. Both sound great.
97dB. $14k. Review in bound for sound coming up. Darrel and Diana are great people and yes the cookies are yummy.

 

Nick Goode wrote:

Hawthorne Audio (Darrel and Diana Hawthorne) returned to AKfest with a stunning open baffle system. Their reference open baffle speakers ($14,000) were driven by a pair of Quicksilver tube monoblock amps and a mac computer based source and Metrum dac. Their reference speaker features a horn loaded AMT driver combined with their purpose built open baffle midrange and bass drivers. This was one of my two favorite systems at the show. The workmanship of the baffles and the care that went into these speakers were evident. The results were incredible. I have to say the finest open baffle speaker system I have heard and by a large margin. It might be a good idea to get your speaker order in soon because I believe their waiting list is about to get a lot longer. Hawthorne Audio also offers other interesting speaker models and caters to the DIY open baffle speaker enthusiast.


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Readers' comments

    Hey Guys,
    I wanted to thank you for all your kind words and also to acknowledge all the work that you guys do when covering these show. Through you we get a chance to learn about these offerings and to see pictures of the rooms/gear. Thank you for doing what you do, much appreciated!

    Looking forward to seeing you next time.

    Cheers,
    Darrel

  • Hey Guys,
    I wanted to thank you for all you kind words. I would also like to thank you for all your work covering these shows. Through you we get a chance to learn about these new offerings and see pictures of the room/gear. Thank you for doing what you do, very much appreciated!

    Looking forward to seeing you next time.

    Cheers,
    Darrel

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