The Reardon workshop · Grand Forks, ND

Measured flat. Voiced by ear. Built by hand.

Loudspeakers honest enough to work on and warm enough to live with. Yours do not exist until you order them — then one person builds them, measures them, signs them, and sends you the curve.

See the line How they’re made

Lead time: About two weeks
Home trial: 30 days
Pair matching: ±0.5 dB
Service: For as long as you own them

The argument

The brands you know sell nostalgia for a workshop. This is the workshop.

The heritage lines everyone reveres — the ones people pay several thousand a pair for — are revered because they were once built by hand, in small numbers, by people who signed them. Most of that is now a memory being sold back to you, assembled in a factory and marketed as a reissue.

Nothing here exists until you ask for it.

There is no warehouse, no distribution channel taking half the price, and no production line. There is a bench, a stack of hardwood, a measurement rig, and a two-week wait. What you get for the wait is a cabinet nobody had to compromise to keep in stock.

The doctrine

Three clauses, and every one of them is checkable.

Producers want truth. Listeners want pleasure. Those are usually opposed — monitors are fatiguing, hi-fi speakers are coloured. The whole design brief here is to refuse that trade.

measured flat

Measured flat

Every design targets a flat on-axis response with smooth, gradually declining behaviour off-axis. That is the part of loudspeaker design that decades of listening research actually supports, and it is the part that can be checked by anyone with a microphone. We publish the curves.

voiced by ear

Voiced by ear

Measurement gets a speaker to correct. The last stretch — crossover slope, baffle edge treatment, damping, port tuning — gets decided over days in a listening room with real music. That is the part no factory can automate and no spreadsheet can settle.

built by hand

Built by hand

Hardwood cabinets, mitred and splined by hand, braced and damped, hand-finished, signed and numbered. Your speakers do not exist the day you order them. That is not a delay — it is the entire point.

Reasons to believe it

Three commitments that cost us something.

Anyone can claim hand-built. These are the specific, checkable promises that are expensive for a factory to match.

Sensitivity at or above 89 dB

With a benign impedance curve, so a twenty-watt tube amplifier drives them properly. Most bookshelf speakers at this price do not clear that bar, and it shapes every design decision upstream of it.

Pairs matched to ±0.5 dB

Measured, documented, and shipped with the actual curve for your serial number printed and in the box. Not a link to a generic PDF — the measurement of the cabinets you own.

Serviceable for as long as you own them

Every driver, crossover component and grille stays available to the original owner. Labour on repairs is free, parts at cost. A speaker built by hand can be repaired by hand.

The line

Six models. Bookshelf to floorstanding, plus a centre and a portable.

Shown as measured elevation drawings rather than product photographs — the cabinets are real, the drawings are drawings, and photography of finished pairs is being shot now.

Elevation drawing

Fret 2

$2,600the pair

Bookshelf · two-way

The smallest cabinet in the line that is still a serious loudspeaker. It sits on a desk or a stand at nearfield distance — roughly a metre from your face, for hours at a time. Everything about it gets examined at that range, so the joinery, the spline lines and the driver fit matter more here than anywhere else in the line.

Solid hardwood baffle, mitred and splined corners
19 mm radiused baffle edges to control diffraction
Voiced for long sessions at close range
Stands available, matched in the same finish

Full measured specifications for the Fret 2 publish when the current build is measured. How we measure and what we publish.

Elevation drawing

Fret 3

$3,900the pair

Large standmount · two-way

Big enough to do real work in a real room, small enough to still be a standmount. The format takes no help from room loading and hides nothing about the design, which is why it is the one to put in front of anyone who measures what they listen to.

Same proportion family as the Fret 2, scaled rather than restyled
Figured and exotic veneers available
Matched pair, measured and documented before it ships
Stands available, matched in the same finish

Full measured specifications for the Fret 3 publish when the current build is measured. How we measure and what we publish.

Elevation drawing

Stave 3

$5,400the pair

Floorstander

A floorstander has a proportion problem: tall and narrow reads as a tower, and a tower reads as audio equipment. The Stave sits on a plinth proud of its own footprint, which throws a shadow line at the floor and seats the cabinet as furniture instead.

Contrasting corner splines run the full cabinet height
Hardwood plinth, threaded for spikes or pads — both supplied
Baffle kept as narrow as the woofer allows
Efficiency targeted for low-power tube amplifiers

Full measured specifications for the Stave 3 publish when the current build is measured. How we measure and what we publish.

See all six models

How ordering works

Three steps and about two weeks.

You order

Pick a model and a finish, or call and talk it through first. Payment is taken up front, which is what lets a one-person workshop buy materials for your cabinets rather than carry a warehouse.

Day zero

It gets built

Cabinet cut, mitred, splined, glued and braced. Baffle radiused. Drivers fitted and the crossover assembled. Finish applied by hand and left to cure. Then the pair is measured and matched.

About one week

It ships

Double-boxed, each cabinet in a cloth bag, with the measured response curve for your serial number, spikes and pads, and a card saying who built it and when.

One to five days in transit

Questions

Common questions

Can I hear them before I buy?

Not in a shop — there isn't one. Instead there is a 30-day trial in your own room, which is a better test than any showroom. If they aren't for you, send them back; you cover return freight.

Why does it take two weeks?

Because nothing is sitting in a warehouse. About a week to build your cabinets and let the finish cure, then one to five days in transit depending on where you are. Anything faster would mean building speculatively, and speculative stock is how corners get cut.

Do you sell through dealers?

Not currently. Selling direct is what lets the build budget go into the cabinet rather than into a distribution margin. Custom installers and recording studios have their own arrangements — get in touch.

What amplifier do I need?

Less than you would expect. Sensitivity is targeted at 89 dB or better with an impedance curve that stays friendly, so low-power tube and single-ended amplifiers work properly rather than merely making sound.

Who actually builds them?

Richard Reardon, by hand, in Grand Forks, ND. Every cabinet carries a signed and numbered brass plate on the back saying so.

Ready when you are.

Tell me the room, the amplifier and the music. I’ll tell you honestly which model fits — including when the answer is the cheaper one.

Start an order (701) 739-9381