Aerial Acoustics 5T

Long-lived loudspeaker models are rare.

- John Atkinson

So it’s surprising that the two-way, stand-mounted Model 5, the smallest speaker made by Massachusetts-based Aerial Acoustics, was revised just once between 2015 and April 1997, when Robert Harley favorably reviewed it1 and it cost $1800/pair. The revised 5B was equally favorably reviewed by John Marks in July 2009.2 This kept the original’s 1" titanium-dome tweeter and sealed-box woofer loading but replaced the 7" polypropylene-cone woofer with a 7.1" laminated fiber–cone woofer. Despite more than a decade’s worth of inflation, the price rose only slightly, to $2400/pair. However, at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show, Aerial Acoustics announced the 5T. While this, too, is a two-way stand-mounted design, gone was the sealed-box loading: the 5T’s cabinet has a slot port at the base of the baffle. Gone, too, was the conventional rectangular box—the 5T’s enclosure’s graceful curves are formed by bonding together multiple layers of wood under high pressure for 48 hours. Also gone was the metal-dome tweeter, high frequencies now being reproduced by the 1" ring-radiator tweeter used in Aerial’s three-way 7T tower, favorably reviewed by Kal Rubinson in March 2012.3 The woofer is now a 6.7" drive-unit custom-made for the 5T and featuring a papyrus-blend cone. And the price is now $3795/pair.