Spatial Audio M4 Open Baffle Speaker

[HiFiJeff]

I am VERY interested in this speaker. http://www.spatialaudio.us/hologram-m3-m4
Anyone here ever heard these speakers before? I wish I would have went to RMAF because I would have heard them. This is one of the speakers, on my very short list, to put in my new dedicated theater room.

 

[cubdog]

I wish I could help you. Have you considered building your own open baffles? It's not all that difficult and can give you a lot of bang for your buck.

 

[HiFiJeff]

I wish I could help you. Have you considered building your own open baffles? It's not all that difficult and can give you a lot of bang for your buck.

Absolutely not. I am not mechanically inclined at all. But I guess there is a first time for everything.

 

[cubdog]

Absolutely not. I am not mechanically inclined at all. But I guess there is a first time for everything.

Seriously, I have zero mechanical talent ZERO! But I built a pair. And they work. You should check out the lengthy OB thread. Ask questions. There are a lot of guys who will be happy to help you.

 

[Erniek]

I have the M4 Turbo's and couldn't be happier with them. They can play clear and loud with good material. I have added a REL Sub to my pair and you will have all the bass you want with these. They are very dynamic and revealing but do need plenty of space and proper positioning for their best. My room is 17 x 20 and I have them position 9 ft from my listening position and 3 ft away from back wall.

 

[gdmoore28]

I'll bet they sound fantastic, but $2000/pr. would allow you to build a monster system of your own. A cabinet maker could knock them out in a day or two. If you could find a shot of the back of the speakers (maybe Erniek could oblige?) you could likely find out which speaker supplier they use. And if Erniek could provide a picture of the crossover, doing a knock-off would be simple. And, you'd have enough $$$ left over to build a subwoofer.

What can I say? I like rolling my own!

GeeDeeEmm

 

[cubdog]

The Open Baffle thread is over 100 pages long. Anyone serious about OBs, owes it to themselves to read it. In addition to that thread there are numerous other build threads with good information

 

[darkblue94]

There's a wee bit more involved in the design, engineering and construction of these speakers than you guys are giving credit for.

 

[Poultrygeist]

There's a wee bit more involved in the design, engineering and construction of these speakers than you guys are giving credit for.

You might be surprised at what you can do with the right drivers and a little bit of effort.

 

[darkblue94]

You might be surprised at what you can do with the right drivers and a little bit of effort.

No, I wouldn't. I'm well aware of the possibilities, I've heard some fantastic sounding speakers made by DIY'ers. There's more involved in the Spatial speakers than picking some drivers out from the PartsExpress catalog and screwing them onto some plywood boards.

 

[ev13wt]

Design wise they certainly hit ALL the right marks with me.

I have been wanting to build an open baffel speaker for quite some time. With this design input (note I mean asthetics only!) I think I need to go read the OB thread.

 

[ev13wt]

No, I wouldn't. I'm well aware of the possibilities, I've heard some fantastic sounding speakers made by DIY'ers. There's more involved in the Spatial speakers than picking some drivers out from the PartsExpress catalog and screwing them onto some plywood boards.

Well of course. But these day one can simply build one of the many designs out there that include the bom. I went quite far into the subject matter, but I would not be able to design my own build if someone gifted me random drivers.

 

[Hyfi]

Some related info over here-

http://www.audioshark.org/spatial-audio-173/

 

[Erik Tracy]

Not the M4, but I heard the M3 Turbo at THE Show last June.

Really good sounding - HUGE sound stage, good detail but balanced tonally. And they dug *deep*.

And when I heard the price - eyebrows shot up.

 

[HiFiJeff]

The Open Baffle thread is over 100 pages long. Anyone serious about OBs, owes it to themselves to read it. In addition to that thread there are numerous other build threads with good information

Hints the reason I started a thread on this "specific" Speaker company and model. I want to know about Spatial audio speakers. M4 and M3 for that matter. But I am also reading the OB thread. Very good info in that thread.

 

[cubdog]

The Spatial speakers are intriguing. I wasn't trying to push you towards building your own, although it is surprisingly easy, but I did want to make sure you were aware of it. My dream OBs are the Jamo's from a few years ago. My OBs use the same Eminence Alpha 15 drivers that Jamo used. I used an Audio Nirvana 8in full range up top. I'd also like to hear the Pure Audio OBs. They're a little pricy for me at $5,000 plus. And finally for point of reference I probably have around $800 into mine maybe a bit more but certainly way under a grand and that includes stain, screws etc. Good luck where ever your quest leads you.

 

[HiFiJeff]

So for the people who have heard the M4's and M3's, how do you compare them to conventional box speakers? I have Tekton Pendragon's right now and love them. So how does the sound compare to something like I currently have? The reason I am looking into a different speaker is I am having a home built and a dedicated theater and want to do the same tower speaker across the front 3 and the size of the Pendragon's just won't work. So I talked to Clayton himself and he said 3 M4's across the front would be amazing.

 

[Erik Tracy]

So for the people who have heard the M4's and M3's, how do you compare them to conventional box speakers? I have Tekton Pendragon's right now and love them. So how does the sound compare to something like I currently have? The reason I am looking into a different speaker is I am having a home built and a dedicated theater and want to do the same tower speaker across the front 3 and the size of the Pendragon's just won't work. So I talked to Clayton himself and he said 3 M4's across the front would be amazing.

I will admit to not spending more than 10 minutes in the Spatial Audio room with the M4 Turbos, but I got a front row center seat and I felt I was immersed in holographic sound. The thing in my mind is that you'd have to up in price to get the same experience from a conventional speaker, imo.

But the other thing to remember is that cuz they're dipole, you need space around them - esp to the rear to fully realize the potential.

Sadly, I can't use these in my current setup. If I had the space - I'd get a pair.

 

[gdmoore28]

There's a wee bit more involved in the design, engineering and construction of these speakers than you guys are giving credit for.

Indeed, and $2000/pr. would barely get you a couple of new Altec 604 coaxials. So, the very reasonable price is not at all what one would expect to pay for that much gear. But, when you're a dyed-in-the-wool DIYer like me and so many others, our first thoughts are always, "Heck, I can build that!"

Because we can! (Though, admittedly, that's not the can of worms most folks are willing to open!)

GeeDeeEmm

 

[Funky54]

One of my best friends just upgraded his Snell D speakers to Spatial Audio 3m TurboS something or other.. now he's sending them back for another factory mod.

What I can tell you is they were very impressive. He's running two sealed 12" SVS subs with them. They were an improvement in many ways to the Snell's (and I liked the Snells a lot) once he added the subs he left nothing behind. The Spatial Audio's look and sound wonderful. Big wide soundstage, greater detail to the Snells. The Snells were much better than his previous Monitor Audio Silvers and his Monitor Audio's were a big improvement to his B&W's... so if you like them, buy them.

I use to see a lot of new gear and get to A&B speakers. For under $3000 you would be very hard pressed to do better.

We A&B'd a pair of .7 Maggie's to the Spatial Audio's. There were things I liked about both. But I preferred the Spatial Audios to the Maggie's. The sound signature or personality was similar. The Spatials were a little fuller and had much better bass, but when you add a sub to either its not a big deal.

I use to run a little company building secret doors and moving fireplaces. I'm good with wood working and creative. I will say while the spatial audio speakers were not an engineering marvel in way of aesthetics or build design, they were highly functional and very tasteful to look at. The MDF (I assume) construction was likely CNC machined. I would not hesitate to own a pair. While I could have built those cabinets/baffles... there is obviously some trial and error tried and trued design features that their cabinet or baffle brings to the table. These are not a slab of plywood or MDF with a big hole for a speaker. The recesses and shape, not to mention fit, all complimented a no nonsense musical presentation. Just by looking at them the recess and shape, even angle had nothing to do with looks. They are on purpose because somebody spent a lot of time to bring out every advantage in the music.