I had an opportunity to listen to the new X4 (did not hear the M4s) at CAF this weekend on Saturday and chat briefly with Clayton. The X4s look to be slightly smaller than my X5s and would be a great solution in a small to medium sized room or where you definitely need/prefer a passive approach.
The sound? I’ve never heard a transducer so faithful and revealing as the X series. Whatever you have upstream, you will hear it. In this case it was an LTA Z40i, I did not see the source. It was probably one of the least expensive rigs in the show but rivaled anything I heard in terms of being smooth, three dimensional, non-fatiguing and coherent, from top to bottom. Clayton shared that in order to get the woofer on the X4 to blend better he moved away from Eminence to Bayma, who makes the AMT tweeter; the crossover is outboard, similar to the M series. Nothing was lost in terms of dynamics with the new passive approach. Same sound, smaller package.
In fairness, this was a smaller room (probably more representative of what normal people typically have; think the size of typical hotel room vs conference room or ballroom). Don’t get me wrong, there were some fantastic speakers and systems being shown throughout the show. The problem was the speakers that grabbed me all started north of 20K and in two cases, over 200K. And that was just the speakers! Crazy expensive in comparison…The value being shown in the M and X series is crazy good. It really depends on room size and preferences which you choose.
I was sitting in the second row, when a couple took the single seat in front of me which the best seat in the room. Sharing one seat, arm around each other, they were transfixed. I moved and started to chat with Clayton on the side of the room, and a couple of songs later the gentleman that had been seated in front of me came over to Clayton and said, “She LOVED them, I’ll order them as soon as I get home!”. They are that good…
Congrats to Clayton and Spatial Audio!
