Clayton is driving his van back to Salt Lake City, and probably needs a few days to catch up and recoup from the show. But this
is what was on the room equipment list for the X2:
The Spatial X2 extend the boundaries of open baffle design by using a time-coherent, horn loaded Air Motion (AMT) driver that reproduces the entire audio spectrum starting at 800Hz. A state-of-the-art, 15-inch Acoustic Elegance woofer with 40 lb Lambda Motor assembly provides precise and impactful low frequency detail down to a subsonic 18Hz. The X2 employs a passive crossover and both drivers are mounted to a very stable, low resonance baffle system ensuring that driver motion is converted directly into sound waves rather than chassis vibration.
Made in the USA. $9,620 per pair (black, white, or red)
Vinnie
As a DIY guy and a pretty hardcore long term audiophile, I've heard just about every tweeter out there. The AMT, when implemented correctly, is easily the best tweeter out there. Although "tweeter" is maybe a misnomer because it plays down so far into the midrange. Maybe "mid-high" driver is a better term. Anyway, it's a difficult driver to work with, which is why you might not have heard what it's capable of in other designs.
In the X2, Clayton just nailed it. The whole speaker is lively, super dynamic, ultimate see-through transparency, HUGE soundstage, percussive bass, no room boom at all, just clean precise driving bass. And smooooooottthhhhhh. Could have listened to that system all day. That statement is only true of maybe 3 or 4 systems at all of RMAF. And none of the other systems had the dynamics, transparency or open-ness of the Rossi/Spatial room. My only small nit is that they are short. I like to look up at the performers, so some stands to raise them up a bit would have been cool. But given the overwhelming awesomeness in every other category, that's just nit-picking.
As a side note, I wanted to point out a certain parallel I've seen between Vinnie and Clayton. We heard Vinnie's room for several years back when it was Red Wine Audio. The rooms were always good, but not great. We liked, rather than loved his stuff. But then he created Vinnie Rossi Audio and came out with the LIO, which was a massive step up in sound quality and truly a game-changer.
IMO, Clayton has been on a similar path - when he started out with Spatial we heard his room every year and it was good, but not great. We liked his stuff rather than loved it. This year he comes out with the X2 and it's such a massive step up that it's crushing and putting to shame all the other "giant" speaker companies out there. Here's how good it is. A friend of mine hates OB speakers and would never, ever buy a pair because he just prefers the way box speakers sound. This show he grudgingly admitted that the X2's "sounded pretty good". Trust me, if the X2 can start to bring around this curmudgeonly OB hater, it shows that they are performing at a level higher than any other OB out there (and I include Linkwitz OBs in that statement as I have heard every iteration and they are none of them at this level).
So hopefully this gives people a little better idea of the level of achievement here.