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REVIEW: Spendor 1/2E Speakers Review by Bob Neill at Audio Asylum

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Okay, here's the long version of my SP 1/2 audition.

One should be cautious in giving added weight to myths, and the 1/2's are certainly becoming one -- thanks partly to their esteemed ancestors, the BC 1's but thanks also to their own remarkable virtues. I would like to add to the myth as responsibly as I can.

I listened to the 1/2's on and off for just 3 hours, at Sound Asylum in Venice, CA, just south of Santa Monica. I listened to several of my favorite test cd's -- all classical, all of music prior to 1900. No jazz, no rock, so I didn't get to their the human voice which these speakers are famous for, nor did I find out if they can rock. And, stupidly, I forgot to bring anything with a piano on it. All of these caveats recorded, it still felt like a definitive audition. Strangely, I felt no need to hear more.

I compared them with the Spendor SP 100's and the Merlin VSM-SE's (i.e.,with BAM). As I said in my brief post a day or so ago, fresh from the audition, I found the 100's warm, full, and bassy. The justly praised Spendor midrange was there, but it was little overwhelmed by...well bassyness. I found the Merlins impressive but a little too insistent for my taste; not bright or lean as some have characterized them, just assertive, pushy even. Like a very smart kid who wants you to know it. This may well be what music sounds like to mikes suspended just above and just in front of orchestras; but that's not where I sit. I expect that an all-tube amp might back off their personality some: I notice some owners praise a Joule/Merlin combination. But that's not the kind of compromise/adjustment I make unless I'm already in love with a component's other qualities and I'm trying to rationalize marrying her. The Merlins won my respect but not my love.

Okay, as Possum says, on to the Review. I've filled in the system below. I don't know the Acurus cd player but it's well and widely praised so I assume no problems there. The electronics were essentially what I have at home, though the BC 3000 preamp is two upgrades (total retail $6250) beyond my BC 3. Based on my experience with Blue Circle, that means some added refinement: a little better but not different. Single-ended, hybrid electronics. The monoblocks run in Class A. I didn't recognize the cabling but I'd guess it was slightly on the warm side; "Mitch," the dealer (excellent), offered to throw in some silver but I told him I could interpolate from what was there.

What I noticed right away and all through the listening session was that my cd's sounded better than I'd ever heard them. Not more spectacular, more detailed, more dramatic; just REALLY GOOD. Overall good.

Kuijken's Bach solo violin sonatas were clear and strong, as always, but also captivating. Huggett & Koopman's Bach violin and harpsichord sonatas: the violin was THERE, before me; the harpsichord was wonderfully firm and clear. Manze's Handel Opus 6 Concerti Grossi had weight and air along with their usual crispness and zip. Zehetman's violin (Beethoven concerto) had a wonderful lyrical quality I don't remember hearing from it before: not over sweet just appealing, solicitous. Hard to take that one off the cd player. Wand's Bruckner's 8th was not as grand as I would have liked but otherwise fine; good brass. By this point in an audition I generally ask for other cd's to check stuff out or just smile and go home. We took one last whack at the SP 100's just to be sure, but no contest.

Okay, generalizations. These speakers do exactly what I've frequently praised Blue Circle electronics for doing: they capture the touch of music performance by not trying to do too much, by focusing on the essentials. They don't project the midrange too much; they don't try to plumb the depths. They go for the heart of the music and nail it. They achieve their marvelous sense of touch, I think, partly by assigning the frequency range from 40/45 to 3,000 to one 8-inch driver. They also do it by eschewing the extremely highly resolving Scanspeak "Revelator" (Merlin's tweeter, I believe), wisely, I think, settling for a less ambitious one, also a Scanspeak. It is surprising how satisfying this overall approach can be, knowing just how much to go for without losing the prize, "playing within yourself" as athletes say. The detail is there, in the mix, about how you'd hear it in Boston's Jordon Hall about 1/3 of the way back, once it's had a chance to inhabit the hall and the air. The bass is fine, so far as it goes. Not a problem of any consequence, to me anyway.

I can imagine adding REL sub(s): the Bruckner would thank me. REG of TAS swears by this combination. (If you can track down his review of the 1/2's in TAS, don't miss it. He hadn't heard the RELs yet at that point, which makes his review even more interesting.) I can also imagine letting "Mitch" upgrade the caps with Havalands (sp). (He says they would improve the speakers slightly overall, adding a little extension.) But my time spent with these speakers makes all of this upgradeitis feel decidely not urgent.

I know the Blue Circle electronics were responsible for some of what I heard, and that gives me added satisfaction. Buying your amps first as I have done is always a risk -- but in my case, it turns out, one worth taking. BC electronics and Spendors appear to be a marriage made in heaven. (Gilbert Yeung, BC designer and president, told me earlier this year when I told him I was interested in the 1/2's, that they were his "first love.) I would love to hear how other Spendors, say the 3/1's, sound with the BC 6 or the new BC 21/22 solid state "value line" Gilbert has just come out with. I can see a fine $8-10K system brewing there. If I ran a shop: Naim digital front end, BC electronics, and Spendors. And lots of Nordost SPM.

Okay, conclusions: Repeat, these are NOT spectacular speakers. They will not wow you or your audiophile friends. They are not arm candy. As others have said (reviewer in the The Listener, most recently), they are the marrying kind, a wonderful relief and shelter from the audiophile storm. To put it unbearably, they sound like home - if you love music. That is the essence of the Spendor SP 1/2 myth. The theme that runs through all of the reviews and commentary I've read. They feel familiar; they satisfy; they please, honestly; they are coherent, natural, comfortable. They won't cheat on you. They were once BBC monitors, back when the goal of monitoring was monitoring the musical performance, not the recording.

Final note: some have said these speakers demand good equipment ahead of them and clearly I heard them with very good equipment. I don't know how they'd sound with cheaper stuff. My rule of thumb, learned from Ivor and then exaggerated, is that speakers should cost far less than the rest of your system. Mine (I'll buy them later this year when I've paid off my cable!) will end up representing around 15% max -- but then I'm a cable nut. I would be reluctant to put these speakers in a system costing under $15K and doubt they'd embarrass themselves at all in one costing $40K. That's now good they sounded to me.


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Topic - REVIEW: Spendor 1/2E Speakers Review by Bob Neill at Audio Asylum - Bob Neill 08:31:10 05/5/00 ( 32)