My book on better sound insists that active adjustable bass always outclasses passive fixed bass; and that an actively high-passed 2-way monitor gains in clarity and dynamic range because its mid/woofer's voice coil no longer sees any bass signal that forces it to excurse harder than it's comfortable with. Less thermal stress equals lower voice-coil impedance so lower dynamic compression. Less stroke lowers distortion all the way up to where such a driver meets its tweeter. Because the v5 puts all its bandwidth on one cone, active high-pass benefits will extend into the upper treble. In such a 2.1 scheme, we can run a mono sub up to 100Hz particularly where dipole/cardioid dispersion adds strategic room-cancellation benefits. But even if we pick a 60Hz/-6dB transition, there's no appeal to have the monitors make a proud 32Hz. We won't exploit such reach. Why pay for it? Given that, to me these 50Hz-ish 1-ways looked well-nigh ideal to tango with a premium sub.

In the Audio Beatnik's v5 review, John McDonald already itemized the speaker's past lives: "Beyond the original 1+1, V2 included a greatly improved driver called the A3S2-16 over the original A3S2-8. The latter's dual 8Ω voice coil was very flexible as it could be configured for 4, 8 or 16Ω by patch wire configuration. The A3S2-16 eliminated eight solder points within the dual VC driver. Furthermore, the voice coil in the A3S2-16 was OCC wire vs. the original's OFC. Lastly we refined magnet and basket. The end results were greater clarity and dynamics. Version 2+ improved the internal wiring from Audience OHNO 21-gauge to our OCC Au24 SX. We also changed the damping weight of one passive radiator; the original gold-plated brass binding posts to tellurium; then eliminated the internal enclosure divider and amended damping fill. Version 3 added a baffle-step correction circuit to address a response dip around 450Hz and applied our proprietary EHVP extreme high voltage process to the entire speaker circuit. Version 4 retuned the passive radiators for improved bass response and added ultra low-mass pure copper binding posts. Version 5 includes a 2nd-gen circuit that balances out a 1–5kHz rise; and a 40Hz high pass to play louder during low bass passages and improve distortion levels for greater clarity." Don't you just love common sense? Audience designer Phil Ducote clearly has it; plus in-house designed Audience Auricap XO+M capacitors for his compensation circuit.

A rise in the presence/lower-treble region plagues most small-diameter widebanders. Our sound|kaos Vox3a from Switzerland's Martin Gateley too includes some electrical compensation. Building in baffle-step compensation and a passive 40Hz high-pass filter to protect the 1+1 are sensible tricks if sinful tacks to widebander purists. Active filtering prior to the amplifier not between it and the driver is simply far superior. In a fully passive speaker like the 1+1 it's just not possible. Doing it externally not in a subwoofer plate amp's DSP requires a quality active analogue xover; or smart digital bass management like Lyngdorf and NAD embed in some of their streaming amplifiers. Either way, common sense and décor considerations now agree that keeping the mains as physically small as possible is a lifestyle benefit without audiophile penalty. Practicing that very sentiment is my upstairs rig above. It runs lilac MonAcoustics SuperMon Mini from Seoul. Those are tiny ported 4" aluminium-cab widebanders with auxiliary small AMT and hidden isobaric 4-inchers. They cross at 60Hz to the sealed Dynaudio sub whose 86cm forward placement compensates its 2.5ms digital latency for proper time alignment. v5 looked like an ideal stand-in which possibly could want lower stands for proper ears-on aim. Downstairs far bigger Qualio Audio IQ hybrid dipoles cross over at 100Hz. That's because the sub's 'super figure 8' radiation seriously attenuates the room's 35Hz and 70Hz resonance peaks which typical omni bass triggers like bells. This is as far as I wrote before sending John McDonald a hidden link so he could sign off on my review strategy, location and associated business expenses. "Thank you very much for the prompt reply and expressed interest. Thank you also for the great intro. I'd ask that you audition the speakers 'in room' or desktop but would be happiest if you tried both applications. I will start running in a pair and ship in about 10 days." The game was afoot preceded by this white paper for aural pillow talk.

"May we include some Audience Au24 SX or other line of our cables to use with the review 1+1 v5? This would give you a chance to hear the cables also for another possible review. If so, what length and connectors do you prefer? FWIW, our Au24 SX line was just listed by TAS as 'the best bargain in High End' for 'Upper End' cables. There were no other cables listed in this category." I declined the 2-for-1 sneak. Not only do I have very good cables which I know intimately and love. John already had his fully current sterling cable review and listing which he was quick to flaunt; again. Plus, I certainly didn't need a second variable going into a speaker review. What I also had quite aside from excellent wires were some mental presets. 1/ none other than auteur designer Anthony Gallo had explained to me that a 3"-4" Ø is best for midrange performance. 2/ well-behaved single-driver speakers tend to have superior time-domain behaviour visualized by their step response. That's because disparate drivers don't overlay individual rise/fall times influenced by crossover phase shift on that response. 3/ a 3" driver's cone surface can't move enough air even for realistic in-room upper bass. On that score v5's two widebanders sum to a 4.23" single-driver equivalent, its passive radiators to 5.65", the lot to one 7-inch driver in the bass where the auxiliary radiators operate. That's not far off from a classic 8-inch single-driver speaker; minus the usually large rear-horn/line. Now we see that published ~50Hz bandwidth is quite feasible. With both my active xovers fitted with a switched bypass function—one click on their remote and the incoming full-range signal routes unfiltered to the high-pass outputs—I could easily test just how convincing the 1+1 v5 sails solo in two different rooms when compared instantaneously against 20-25Hz reach and copiously more cone surface.