Look and Technology
This is what you describe ‘tower speakers’, because of their slim yet very hard boned chassis that soars to the skies like Donald Trump had something to do with It. They present with three proprietary 5" Kevlar/Carbon Fiber drivers with a Helical Conductive Tweeter or HCT on the very top. Unlike standard dome tweeters, the HCT has a flat horn-loaded diaphragm to reduce roughness and improve off-axis response. The tweeter, as AAD claims, can go all the way up to 40kHz without a dip or a rise in the frequency response, something that's exceptionally hard to pull off.
As for the honeycomb bass drivers, they are split over different crossover points to give them their own allocation of the mids to the lows, while the three little bass ports on the back expel the cabinet's role in the acoustics. The reason for using small drivers or rather 5" drivers to reproduce bass rather than larger drivers are primarily for their promptness. The reason why they aren't used in other speakers is because the bass produced by smaller speakers doesn't project as far as that of a large driver.
They are surprisingly heavy for their size, but mass is always a good aspect in floor standers, especially when you see only four little drivers looking at you from the metallic finished front baffle. The speakers come to an end of their height with a curvy top plate that sure perpetuates the largeness of the glossy coat finished cabinet.
Cabinet is braced and dampened at very precise resonance points to reduce internal resonance and coloration.
Bottom line
Everything Phil Jones has claimed about these speakers is right. Using little drivers for low frequency response may just be the greatest thing that's happened to bass, especially with cabinet engineering and delicate crossover technology to boot. The Reference 7s had the added benefit of displaying clean highs and strong mids; but what bolstered its overall worth was its slim but extraordinary soundstage. It is worth the money you spend on them, and judging by their build class, they'll be assets in your living rooms for a long time.
