Why Clarisys uses pure copper foil internally — and crimps instead of soldering
Every internal connection in a Clarisys loudspeaker is pure copper foil, crimped with our own blocks — never soldered. Here is why that matters at sub-ohm ribbon impedances.
Every connection inside a Clarisys loudspeaker — from the crossover to the transformers, and from the transformers to the ribbons — is made with pure copper foil, and every one of those connections is crimped, never soldered. This is not a cost saving; it is a deliberate engineering choice, and it is part of why a Clarisys sounds the way it does.
Pure copper foil as the conductor
Clarisys uses pure copper foil for all internal connections: between the crossover network and the transformers, and between the transformers and the ribbon terminal blocks. The foil is also used as the physical circuit layout — the conductive paths themselves are foil, not round wire.
We believe pure copper foil is the best sonic match for our products. Foil presents a large, flat surface area with low skin-effect losses and a predictable, uniform current distribution across its width. Where round wire concentrates current and introduces small geometric inconsistencies at every bend, foil carries the signal as a wide, even plane — the same philosophy that governs the ribbon itself.
Crimped, not soldered
Every foil-to-foil and foil-to-terminal junction — every connection to a ribbon and to a transformer — is made with Clarisys's own crimping blocks rather than soldered.
Solder is a tin alloy with a different resistivity, a different thermal expansion coefficient, and a crystalline structure that ages. A solder joint is, physically, a third metal inserted between two conductors — and at the millivolt, milliamp margins that matter in a ribbon system, that third metal is audible. A crimp is a cold weld: two metals pressed together under measured force until their surfaces fuse into a single, gas-tight, homogeneous contact. No intermediate alloy, no thermal stress, no aging interface.
Why it matters
The ribbons present a sub-ohm load (0.1–0.15 Ω). At that impedance the internal wiring is not a negligible series resistance — it is a meaningful fraction of the total circuit. Every junction adds a little resistance and a little series inductance, and those small additions sit directly in series with the ribbon. Pure copper foil keeps the conductor itself as clean and uniform as possible; crimping keeps every junction as clean and uniform as possible. Together they remove variables that would otherwise colour the sound — and that is the only reason to do it this way.