Many thanks for these impressions and good wishes, newzooreview. The texture, timbre, and spatial cues are precisely what attract me (in principle and by reputation) to the SA products, so I'd just need confirmation on those points. The three areas I particularly want to audition involve the tonal character/voicing of the AMT tweeter, the subjective depth of usable bass, and the differences in the "on-axis" and "outside the sweet spot" balance (between the M and X series, and from what I'm accustomed to with my von Schweikerts0. I don't expect them to be similar, but I want to be sure that I'm comfortable with how they'll work in my house, and which tradeoffs appeal most.
For instance, the rated low-end extension on the X4 is 32Hz according to the web site. I expect that Mr. Shaw is conservative, and I presume that rating is the -3 dB point. I expect the bass to be fast, tight, and tuneful. Is there usable bass down into the high/mid 20s or does it drop off sharply? I would want to be comfortable that the opening to the Mahler 5 or the last movement of the Saint-Saëns 3rd etc. have the appropriate perceived weight. Though I listen to all kinds of music, I don't need club-level electronica bass impact, but my von Schweikerts play cleanly down to 20Hz so I would want to evaluate the bass quality vs. extension tradeoff carefully. I probably listen to more baroque orchestral, all-era chamber music, and jazz than big Romantic orchestral, so I'm not fixated on one aspect, but I don't want to live to regret a limitation.
All else being good, I prefer passive rather than active for several reasons, some simply to do with power management in my listening room, which is my living room.
And I very much want to hear the Beyma AMTs as spec'd for SA. I have high expectations, but again want to make an informed evaluation for my space (very unusual shape) and listening scenarios.
Thanks again!
I don't know if you have any need or inclination to visit Salt Lake, but, if you have either, that might be your best chance at hearing the various iterations of SA speakers. I know, easy for me to suggest you drop untold amounts of money on a flight, then willingly insert yourself into the viper pit that is air travel currently. Bon voyage!
On the other hand, I can, and will, offer you more essentially useless anecdotal opinion that allows me to indulge in bragging on my speakers while leaving you in exactly the same quandary in which you began. It's always good to begin without illusions. He who has never hoped can never despair, or so says Julius Caesar according to George Bernard Shaw. Annnyway. I own the X5s, purchased relatively recently. I won't bore you with the details of my entire system, but it's good enough, both digitally and analoguelly, to warrant an expectation of a fairly high level of performance. My room is not ideal, as it is an open plan living room, dining area, and kitchen, roughly 15'w x 30'l x 9'h. It has some some quirks that prevent it from being exactly symmetrical, and it has a large window behind the speakers and an obscenely large tv on the wall to the right of the right speaker. It is theoretically (mathematically?) outside the first and second reflection points, but its mere glassy monolithic presence in the room with my hifi causes my more audiophilic sensibility to wince. But what're you gonna do. As I say, it's a living, etc room. Also, the room is entirely untreated. I mention these details not because I think you'll find them fascinating, but because they, according to what little I know of sound propagation, must necessarily have some effect on the music, so, the quality of the music I hear from the X5s is what it is in spite of the room's deficiencies, which (spoiler alert), in this case, redounds considerably to the X5s' credit.
You and I seem to share, at least in terms of genre, a taste in music. I listen primarily to classical and jazz, both whopping categories which, left at that, give only the vaguest notion of what we might in fact listen to. You mentioned you had concerns about the SA speakers fully realizing or reproducing the opening of Mahler's 5th with the appropriate weight, heft, depth, aplomb, or, in audiophile terms, sufficient bass extension. Obviously, I can't know what is sufficient to you. Nor should you take it on faith that what is sufficient to me is sufficient, etc. You get the point. This, of course, is where the all but useless nature of shared opinion comes in. However, all of that said, I will plunge ahead and say, to me, the X5s, even in my compromised untreated room, delivered the opening to Mahler's 5th, not to mention the rest of it, with all the weight, depth, breadth, and sense-battering excitement it deserves. As another poster on this forum described it, the X5s allow you to hear the chaos as well as the order underlying the chaos. The layering, the texture, the scale, all the annoying audiophile buzzwords more than earned their keep. It was hair raising. I'm not going to say it sounded like the orchestra was in my room - an audio system that can accomplish that sonic feat may exist, but I've never heard it - but it did a good enough job to temporarily displace my own sense of self and fill me entirely with Mahler, and that, I think, is the highest compliment one can pay to a system's ability to reproduce music. Did they image well? Yes. Did they resolve well? Yes. All of that. But mostly, primarily, the music they made moved me, took me over (which reminds me, have you read Tolstoy's The Kruetzer Sonata? It deals with, in a much different fashion, this ability of music to take over one's senses and judgement. It's a totally nutty story, but still very good. Tolstoy was himself apparently very susceptible to music). This experience (not Tolstoy's, thankfully, but the one I described) has held true for all the music I've listened to through the Spatials. I listen to a lot of opera, and the speakers continually show that same ability to render the forest
and the trees. I also listen to a lot of smaller ensemble jazz, and the X5s are equally deft at rendering the sweet seeming simplicity and delicacy of Bill Evans' Waltz for Debby and the pounding drums, blood curdling horns, and bombastic dynamics of The Jazz Messengers' Drum Thunder Suite.
All right, I could go on. And on. And on. But I have to go to work, so you're spared further slogging. I hope you get a chance to try them. If you do decide it's worth braving the skies to have a listen at Spatial's shop, be sure they have what you want to demo on hand, as they tend to keep the speakers around long enough to make sure they're good, then ship them out. You'd be welcome to give the X5s a listen at my place, but it's also in Salt Lake, so that's probably no help. Anyway, I see I'm still talking and will soon be late for work. Good luck.
Josh
