The Spendor Thread..

[Jebb]

Had a chance last weekend to hear the Spendor SP100R2s in the Triode room at the Tokyo Intl Audio Show. Sounded fantastic paired with Triode's 845 monoblocks and Triode's new Junone reference series.

This vid is from the previous year, but it's the same room, same set up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsnauMIcM3k

 

[Billfort]

Now that looks like an interesting system - would love to hear that.

 

[Jebb]

It was a real pleasure. Yamazaki-san, the founder of Triode, has a wonderfully casual attitude. He was spinning Billy Joel, Led Zep etc on vinyl and just telling stories about the equipment and music.

Triode is the distributor for Spendor here in Japan. Here's another vid of the same speakers paired with their 845 integrated. I know Youtube doesn't do it justice......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64JjMuTvVD0

 

[Billfort]

Thanks for that - Triode (Tri?) sure looks like an interesting company and I'd love to hear a good 845 amp on Spendors. 845s strike me as 45s without the limited power problem and since I like 45s so much, an 845 is tempting. The good stuff is damn expensive though, and they are certainly beyond something I'd take on as DIY.

 

[Bigerik]

How much power are we talking about? The Spendors like a good bit of power behind them to come alive. How much are those 845's putting out?

 

[Bigerik]

Ah. Looks like they will do upwards of 40-50 watts. Nice!

 

[Billfort]

I think the one we heard at Taves was 35wpc - it wasn't Spendors in that room but it sounded damn nice.

 

[Bigerik]

Pretty serious voltages in those things, if I remember correctly. Yeah, not one I'd like to try my hand at DIY'ing! Or even some cheapie eBay special.

 

[Billfort]

Zactly.

 

[frperdurabo]

Didn't Art Dudley, of "Listener" and now Stereophile fame, drive his SP100s with an Audio Note Kit One? (Single-ended 300b, 8 watts)

How much power are we talking about? The Spendors like a good bit of power behind them to come alive. How much are those 845's putting out?

 

[Billfort]

From Erik's pictures from Taves - this is the one I was talking about which was parallel-single-ended so maybe 40-45wpc.

Kind of makes my point about the good stuff being a little spendy - somewhere north of $20K?

 

[Bigerik]

As an aside, those Kudos speakers were amazing.

And yes, great audio is not cheap.

 

[audiodon]

The difference between the classic series and the newer tower speakers has a lot to do with the design compromises of the cabinets.
The classics have a relatively wide front panel and use lossy boxes, requiring them to be well away from walls to sound their best.
The towers have relatively narrow front panels and use braced and ported boxes designed to be used in a modern domestic environment where placing them close to back walls can reinforce bass response.
Plus, there's an entirely different set of boundary effects for towers than for stand-mounted speaker enclosures.
There are differences in drivers also, but having listened to both, though never having heard an SP-100 in any iteration, I can live with the tower's compromises.

Driver technology and materials have also been updated in the towers but the changes are more likely to leverage the pluses and minuses of the enclosure design than change for change's sake.

I still have a pair of SP1/2s in house and set up in the home theater system and I listen to Spendor minimonitors daily. The minimonitors are sealed enclosures and reside somewhere between the two enclosures I mentioned.

 

[Billfort]

Didn't Art Dudley, of "Listener" and now Stereophile fame, drive his SP100s with an Audio Note Kit One? (Single-ended 300b, 8 watts)

Might be interesting to try, although all my experience with 300Bs including the Kit One suggests 8wpc is a little 'optimistic' - real-world usable power using conventional 300B tubes and circuits is more like 5-6w. That's 'usable' just to my ears though and seeing a few 300B amps measured seemed to confirm that - they don't look pretty when pushed.

It IS some of the sweetest first few watts there are though, so it would be nice to hear Spendors on them - how efficient are Sp100s?

 

[frperdurabo]

Indeed. I've never thought the 300b had much more "usable" power than the 2a3. IIRC, it's the SP100s friendly impedance curve, rather than its efficiency, that make this even remotely feasible.

 

[evman140]

Its the former really, I like changing out the speakers every couple of weeks in order to enjoy slightly different presentation of the music I listen to. It kind of keeps the electronics sounding fresh and has me going through my collections of LP's and CD's. Each speaker here has something outstanding to recommend it but they also have their weaknesses too, and its amazing the differences you hear on the designers emphasis and compromise.

I cannot wait until I have a dedicated listening space to do this. Right now I can only dream of this because all of systems are spread throughout the house.

Sounds like you are having fun!

 

[Art K.]

Thanks for that - Triode (Tri?) sure looks like an interesting company and I'd love to hear a good 845 amp on Spendors. 845s strike me as 45s without the limited power problem and since I like 45s so much, an 845 is tempting. The good stuff is damn expensive though, and they are certainly beyond something I'd take on as DIY.

Triode, built by Line Magnetic.

 

[Art K.]

Mastersound Evolution 845. Mastersound is the brand my dealer carried before they made the change to Line Magnetic. I had a Mastersound amp in my home once...very nice.

http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/mastersound3/1.html

 

[Art K.]

 

[bandg69]

Spendor Prelude?

I never heard the Spendor name until reading about them on AK. So now I have to try them! I can pick uo a smaller pair for not a lot of $$$. On the back is a tag IDing them as Prelude. Anybody have any info on this model? I'm picking them up Monday and will post some pics when I have them. As usual, Thanks for sharing your knowledge. This sight is amazing.